2008JeffJourney

Off to Winnipeg

June 17-18, 2009

After many training sessions and weight lifting workouts, the time had come to see if the hard work would pay off.  The departure time was 6:30 a.m. on a flight to Winnipeg, Canada. 

Here is an update from C written at the end of the day:

We are headed to bed in Winnipeg.  We had good flights and no issues. In Winnipeg we took the bus to the hostel, ate lunch and then napped for a few hours. The boys went to the mall and then we all went to the Forks – an area where the two rivers fork. We saw a Parkour group, lots of neat things and had an invigorating walk. On the way back we saw an old car show on the streets and spent 45 minutes looking at that before dinner at a Subway (late dinner).  We leave tomorrow at 9am on a shuttle (10am EST).

So far so good.

On the 18th the three dads and five Boy Scouts boarded the shuttle to drive out of cell phone range to Bissett, Manitoba.   According to the website, this is what they have in store for the next day. 

Your trip starts with an exciting float plane ride north into the Canadian bush. Your crew will enjoy the opportunity to overlook some of the beautiful and rugged terrain in which you will be traveling and to enjoy the adventure of the Canadian bush pilot experience.

Camps Times Two

June 8 – 13, 2009

 

The house was a bit quieter this week with the missing two.  One was learning more about the world of music and the other was learning more about the world – that is the arts involved in citizenship, swimming, canoeing and wilderness survival.

** The Virginia Reel                                    ***Singing in beautiful Spivey Hall

On the Way To Northern Tier

May 29-31, 2009

Preparations for the trip to the Great White North are nearly complete.   Following in N & C's footsteps of three years ago, a ten day canoe journey in the wilderness of Canada awaits J and C. Though instead of going to the BSA Canoe base called Atikokan, we are heading to the Bissett base. Variety and deep wilderness experiences are some of the wonderful spices of life.

To prepare for this trip we have been training and practicing.  Most of the practicing was on rivers - which teaches you great canoeing skills. However, much of the Norther Tier (or NTier see www.ntier.org) treks are made up of lake canoeing and portaging through trails. Well, some of them are like trails - but others require you to almost blaze the trail (including cutting out trees that have fallen across the path). 

This, our last training trip, was at the Allatoona Canoe base where they have a unique training event to help scouts prep for Northern Tier. It is fantastic as it gets you 85% ready for what to expect.

Everything you need you carry with you. And, you carry it on every portage.  Simplification and small size is the name of the game.  Keep a lot of small items kicking around and a portage will take 15 minutes longer.  And there are a lot of portages (carrying the canoe on your back and all of the gear too).

If you note C's left hand (the guy in the forefront left of the picture) appears to be touching what is referred to as the Duluth sack (due to the city of its creation) or the Elephant Sack (aptly named for its color and size). These packs carry the gear for three people for 10 days. So think about it...someone carries the canoe - a 75lb wind catcher...someone carries the elephant sack - a 70-100lb monstrosity...and someone carries a food or equipment pack - quite firm.  As the week wears on, the food pack is increasingly desirable to carry. At the end, it is almost featherweight - only carrying the food waste that we pack out.

The training had plenty of portages during the day so we could practice unloading, portaging, and reloading.  It is quite fun. After eight or so portages we made our last stop and portaged in to set up camp. We arrived there before 4pm and had more than one glorious hour after setting everything up to just relax and talk...or sleep.

Please note some of C's clothes on the tent on the left. We pitched camp, set up the kitchen (an upside down canoe) and the scouts made a nice fire.

**the photographer

J is practicing his Terminator self portraits. And, he is making good use of the 'duffers' seat cushion. Duffer is the endearing term used to describe whoever is sitting in the middle seat. The ideal canoes for portaging have three people in each canoe so you can carry everything in one trip. The middle seat is often not a seat, but a cushion that you place on the bottom of the canoe. You can help paddle there when needed. We like to use the duffer to filter water so everyone stays well hydrated.

In Northern Tier the yell to other Canoers to see if they are from NTier includes the yell Hol-Ry!

We are feeling like we are about as ready as we can be. Soon, the real testing will come.

One Day In the Life of our Household

June 4, 2009

(Beware if you exhaust easy, this isn’t the post for you!)

7 a.m. The alarm goes off. (C’s already has been up walking in the rain.) A wakes up with asthma and needs a treatment to “feewl better.”

8:30 a.m. The first shift of VBS workers heads to church. J looks forward to his role as one of the Great Game Guys, E gears up for helping with the 4^th grade_- S is encouraged by the fellowship in the nursery with a godly woman who was the fourth of nine children.

9 a.m. K drives the elementary age kids to VBS and heads over to the office to finish the marathon printing and assembling of the Konos yearbooks.

11 a.m.  News arrives via email that K is officially accepted into the OM USA ministry!!!  Support raising is the next step. (The acceptance to OM Ships was official the next day!)

12 noon:  All head home for lunch where we are joined by C who tells us the mock up of his book, The Strategic Treasurer: A Partner for Growth has arrived. (follow the link to preorder your copy today.)

2 p.m. Friends arrive as 40 Konos yearbooks are still being printed and assembly begins.

S gets J’s passport and letter notarized allowing C to take J out of the country as they plan to leave for Canada in 2 weeks. D calls to report that he is SO close to meeting his math goals of his online math program to finish math for the year.

3 p.m. D has a playmate at the house, I leave as they are target practicing with bow and arrows.

J decides to create a new vehicle out of old bike & skateboard parts.

L&M opt for an afternoon of driving around with me in the car as A sleeps (asthma is better).

5 p.m. E goes to a meeting for planning their Cherokee mission trip. I head back to the grocery for the second time realizing I forgot ingredients for dessert for tonight’s meeting.

6 p.m. Quick chili dinner. Dessert made. Jobs partially completed. House looks like its been a dumping ground. D heads to scouts.

7 p.m.  Most of us go to the Konos Kaleidoscope:  the accomplishments of the 40+ high school students are recognized.  K wins 4^th place in virtual stock market competition for Economics class and her 3^rd novel is unveiled (She reminds her Dad often that this is her 3rd.)  K’s yearbook design skills meet approval from her classmates as they pour through and autograph their copies.  K has completed her years at Konos Academy!

10:30 The family reunites with D who earned 2 more BSA badges tonight, E who said the plans for Cherokee are going well and N who is still on the hunt for a job in the area.

11:00 Phew!  We hit our pillows knowing that the night will be short as our alarms will awake us for VBS early in the a.m.

On the River and In the River

April 18-19, 2009

J & D along with C (who is the Scoutmaster and was in charge of this event) participated in the Flint River Canoe Trip. The trip totaled 22 miles on Saturday and just shy of 5 miles on Sunday.

The 15 of us put in the river at 10:15am and proceeded down the river. Who needs to warm up to 'rapids' when you can start right off on them? Shoals are simply a section of the river that drops a fair amount in a short distance, and are composed of stone ledges and jutting rocks that desire to puncture the hull of your canoe.

What better place to practice our canoeing safety skills than on a canoe trip? Fortunately we had volunteers to swamp their canoe on the first set of shoals so skills could be honed. This picture (above) makes the shoals look very manageable, but with the water running substantially higher than normal due to rain, we enjoyed faster runs...and spills as the case may be. To add to the excitement, C thought he was into prickers on the shore and wondered why the pricker kept stabbing him by the knee. Upon unzipping his pant leg he saw the pricker - but it wasn't the plant type - it was a wasp. C was fine after complaining loudly. The wasp's next of kin has been notified.

This serene spot is where we pulled out of the Flint for a quick lunch break. The blackish brown stuff is the most slippery mud  you would ever want to slide around on. C is on the far right in the catcher's position.

Nesting canoes are rarely seen in the wild, but we stumbled upon this group of seven... Seriously, we made camp just after 6pm on Owen's Island. You can't tell that this is the head of the island from this shot, but the river splits left and right from this point. The canoes are stacked neatly for several reasons: (feel free to skip to the next section if you so desire). First, it lets the water drain and any mud fall out. Second, it allow us to tie them together and to a tree to prevent any wind from liberating the canoes and sending them downstream. Third, it just looks neat and takes up little space.

After J gave instruction on leave no trace (he is the LNT guru- you can find out more about leave no trace by going to www.LNT.org), we ate dinner and had a quiet campfire at the point. No complaints about a 9pm bedtime. The white noise created by the river running over the rocks made sleeping easy.

On Sunday morning the group broke camp, ate breakfast and had a Scout's Own service. D led the singing and unison reading and C gave the message. We then launched the canoes to head down to the takeout point for a 10:30am pickup. We got there early and had to wait for another group (the one who pushed for the early pickup). Then we found that the giant school bus was stuck in the mud. Watching the activities unfold to get the bus unstuck made one wish for a movie camera.

Enjoying Home

April 13, 2009

Boo-boos mending

Lizard gets a new home

Fort Myers

April 7-10

Location: Fort Myers camping out in my cousin's back yard

The visit wasn't long enough, but we did fit in quite a bit in a short time.

Visiting 3 aunts and 2 uncles

***Uncle Dale gives Leah a lift and even lets her drive.

Playing with 6 cousins

***Girls explore the effects of sand on the ability to jump at Ft Myers beach.

***Playing with the sand continues after the beach in a pile of sand in the yard.

Counting creatures

100-plus alligators sighted as we traveled across FL via Alligator Alley

0 Manatee at Manatee Park (though kids did pose with one alligator)
1 Stingray
1 horseshoe crab (doing injury to D's foot)
many sand dollars (live ones, returned quickly to their home)

1 one legged seagull

and 1 local lizard captured for a reptile study for the BSA reptile and amphibian badge.

Procuring possessions from a local thrift store

***K models her new sunglasses

***D looks at the world with new eyes.

Exploring one of our favorite places - The Beach



Driving off into the Sunset - 6 hours behind schedule

After spending hours hunting for the Suburban key, giving up, having a new key made, programing it to start the car and hooking up the camper, we headed off into the sunset.  By midnight we were set up in Wildwood KOA embarrassed by the fact that we could not shut off the car alarm without our lost fob. What a way to end the day!

Communication Art

March 2009

As part of D's Communication Merit Badge requirements, he had to think of a creative way to describe himself using a visual aid.  He was pleased with his collage of favorites placed within his silhouette.