Kamping with the Kenlons

For years, Dan and I have been dreaming about living and traveling in an RV full-time when we retire. Last summer, we rented an RV and camped in northern NY and Vermont for a week and could not have loved the experience more (with the exception of the last night, when our cat slid open the screen and jumped out the window!)

Lately, we've been talking about how great it would be to have short weekend and overnight stays in the plethora of lovely state parks and campgrounds right here in our Finger Lakes region. There are so many places within a very short distance (some only about 10 minutes away, many others well within an hour's drive) and the more we talked about it, the more we knew we would really enjoy it.

So we started shopping around and last night, we took the plunge and purchased an RV! It's a 2003 31-foot Class C model, which we think should be the perfect size for the short, overnight or two-night trips we have in mind. Waking up in a quiet, wooded campsite has to be one of the most wonderful things we've ever experienced, and we're so excited about being able to do it regularly during our brief but beautiful summers here.

One thing that appealed to Dan about this particular RV - he can actually stand straight up inside and has at least an inch and a half clearance between the top of his head and the ceiling! That was not the case with the compact rig we rented last summer. The bed is another matter for him -- very much what Mother and Daddy used to refer to as a "fiddlestick" bed -- but he's used to such things!

It's not the model we'd live in full-time, but that's still a number of years away and we think this used rig will serve our interim purposes admirably. This next week, the dealer is building in some additional cabinetry in the kitchen that we've asked for, and we anticipate punctuating the months of August and September with very enjoyable, relaxing visits to some lovely Finger Lakes locales.

Oh, and another request on the dealer's checklist before we take possession - paw-proof latches on the sliding window screens...

Emily Virginia Waun Arrives!

We're proud to announce the newest addition to our family, and to the Ely extended family, Emily Virginia Waun.

She arrived at 6:07pm yesterday evening July 1, 2008... the perfect birthday present for Amy, who is now officially resigned to second fiddle on subsequent July 1sts. Both mom and baby are happy and healthy, enjoying a much less traumatic day. We are thrilled that we're still a 100% July birthday family.

Emily weighed in at 7lb 8oz, 19 inches long... the same length as Abbey, but about 2 pounds heavier. Also like Abigail, Emily was born with a full head of dark brown hair.

Amy was also thrilled to find that Emily posseses our favorite genetic anomoly... the Ely crooked toe! She now joins the ranks of other distinguished Elys, such as Ann Kenlon, Maureen Young, and her mom, Amy.

Grandma and Grandpa Eichstadt, Nana and Poppy Waun, and big sister Abbey were on hand to join in the celebration. Abbey's first reaction was to declare, "Baby!" and give her a sweet kiss on the forehead. We'll see what her second reaction is when she gets home and has to share mommy.

We're hopeful that we'll be home from the hospital sometime Thursday morning. For more pictures and updates, head over to our family blog at Waun.net!!

Visit to Auburn, June 28-29, 2008

Last weekend, I spent a quick 2 days in Auburn. If a photo is worth 10,000 words, then I have a long essay here. Click on any of them to get a bigger view.

Here's the big green barn at the farm. It had some wind damage four weeks ago and you can see the new roof metal on the east end here. Good as new...actually better.

In place of the cattle and hogs Dad used to have south of the barn, our renter, Joe Moody, now uses it for storing his extensive grain handling equipment.

On the north side of the road, we sold the house and two pastures to Andy Beherends and his wife last fall (and now their 7 month-old son). He is renting the two pastures out for crops. Here's the view of the house from the top of the hill, looking east. You can see the beans planted where we used to have pasture.

The house and yard look fantastic! The Beherends have really cleaned up the place. It is very neat, clean and crisp. I met Andy and he told me of more plans he had for tree trimming, painting and making it more their own. I went in the house and, boy, does it look good. I'm thrilled to have a family living on the farm. They are thrilled to have their own place. They get along well with Joe Moody...the whole thing works.

Remember the green shop on the north side of the road?? Andy has cleaned it up well too. He added brown paint to match the house, put on a new garage door and cleaned out a lot of junk.

Speaking of houses, here's the house many of you remember well from Auburn. Anne and I grew up here. I could hardly get a good photo of the house as the trees in front of it are so big and healthy. The place looked good. And, as I look at the photo, I see the TV antenna endures, even in this world of cable and satellite!!

And, in quintessential Auburn fashion, the mailbox is no longer on G Street, but on 16th Street, even though the address remains the familiar 1607 G!!!!!

And for all you fans of erosion control, here's the photo from the top of a big waterway we built about a mile north of the house. We put this about 10 years ago...with time, the grass has matured, the terraces are now draining into the waterway and it is simply handling all sorts of storms with no sign of soil erosion. Hard to grasp this from the photo...but to walk it slowly on a summer day was a thing of utter joy to me.

Here's the same waterway from the bottom, across the road.

The farm is doing well. Joe Moody has done a terrific job as a steward of the land. It is highly productive and adapting to the very different agricultural climate we have now.

Hope you enjoyed the photos here.

June Anniversaries

As June draws to an end, we need to send Big Anniversary Wishes to the family couples: Anne and Dan (June 10), Amy and Scott (June 19), Joe and Gretchen (June 21) and Tom and Marge (June 24). Here are some photos that were handy..... congratulations to all!!

Whooooooo received the Crystal Owl?

I must proudly share the news that Dan yesterday was surprised with the "Crystal Owl" award from Spencer Crest Nature Center -- a yearly honor they present to an outstanding supporter of nature and nature education in the community.

The Spencer Crest director was so effusive in her praise of him when she was presenting the award -- citing not only his volunteer work at Spencer Crest but his vast knowledge of birds and nature and his enthusiastic participation in sharing that that knowledge through lectures, programs, etc.

I was very proud to see him receive this honor and I thought I would share it with you, too!

Graduation

After teaching Chemistry at Martinsville High, Parkersburg Catholic, Marrietta College, and of course Ohio University today is Mom's (aka Karen, Aunt Karen, and Grandma's) last day.

The die is cast, the grades are in, the decision on the borderline students has been made. There will be summer school for some, pomp and circumstance for others, but one teacher is taking her Periodic Tables with her to Cincinnati and preparing for grandchild number 5.

Congratulations on a job well done.

"Thus endth the lesson."

Quotes from The Untouchables are not usually seen on the EFB, but sometimes they work too well to avoid. :)

The full report: Indy/Notre Dame

An actual rare photo of the Golden Dome. Very few people

have ever had the intuitive foresight to take a picture of it, but Joe and I

are forward-thinking and idea-driven individuals, and are always

thinking "outside the box" in a new paradigm.

As most of you have probably read from Joe's blog post, the trip through Indiana was a great success, in more ways than one. He captured the race details in South Bend very well, and I hope everyone had a chance to read it. The rest of the weekend went just as well, so I'm posting here a few of the non-running details.

Back row, l-r: David, Susan, John, Matt.

Front row: cookie container, plates, utensils, glasses.

NOT PICTURED: Banana bread, cake.

I arrived in Indianapolis on Thursday evening, and rode with Gretchen back to West Lafayette. I finally got to meet the lovely Susan after all this time, and I hadn't seen David in more than seven years. Matt was at the house, and the three of us had a great dinner ("supper," in the midwest) that evening. A meal of chicken and mushrooms, rice, salad, and fruit were part of the evening's repast. Joe and Gretchen joked with Susan for having forgotten the cake she made at home, and with Matt for having eaten the loaf of banana bread, so for dessert we were treated to cookies made by certain Ely grandchildren. They were quite exquisite!

Matt had to be back in Chicago Friday morning ahead of a long trip to South Dakota for school, so Joe left around 8pm with Matt for the long drive west. I had a great conversation with David and Susan, and talked with Gretchen for a while after they left. It was a fun evening spent getting caught up with everyone.

Joe didn't get home until 3am or so, and I was tired, so neither one of us was up until after 8:30. After an oatmeal breakfast ("lunch," in the midwest), Joe and I were off to South Bend. First, though, we stopped over at David and Susan's house so I could meet Andrew, Nathan, and Berneice.
They are great kids, not shy at all, and seemed thrilled to have a stranger in their house to whom they could show off their toys and many costumes.


l-r: John, Nathan (or possibly Andrew), definitely Berneice, and Andrew (or possibly Nathan).

What a fantastic family, and how nice it is that they are finally all together again for good.

We paradoxically headed north to South Bend, and Joe was nice enough to put up with me getting all worked up over the great scenery along the way. ("Look, Joe! A barn!! And an open field! With grass everywhere!!!" "Yes, John, that's a barn. And that 'grass' is called 'wheat.'").

We were hungry for lunch ("dinner," in the midwest), so we stopped in Logansport, Indiana ("the city that means well") in a little hole-in-the-wall diner called "White House Burgers." The outside was dirty, the ceiling tiles were all warped (yes, ALL of them), but we went in more for the experience than for the food.

At least the plates and forks were clean, and the mustard was courtesy of Kroeger. I suspected that my "Diet Coke" was really "Diet Generic Cola courtesy of Kroeger," but I didn't make a big deal out of it.

In spite of the likely health code violations, the food was actually quite good. Two burgers and two Diet cokes, and the total bill was: $4.95. Yep, that's it. For everything. I think my tip of $1.05 probably went toward the health inspector's slush fund, but what the heck. It was well worth the stop, and we couldn't help but make the obvious comparisons to Tiny's Cafe.

We arrived in South Bend in the late afternoon, found the Race Expo at the College Football Hall of Fame, and got our race packets which included a t-shirt, timing chip, orange socks, and a poster. After driving the race course, we headed to the Notre Dame campus where we eventually met up with Dave Eichstadt. Dave was a great campus tour guide, and he was able to help us find Lyons Hall, which was one of Grandpa's dorms. The dorms were mostly empty ahead of the alumni weekend, so we were able to look around Lyons Hall in spite of it now being a "female-only" dorm. Dave called Amy to find out which room was Grandpa's and of course she knew: room 219. The young woman in charge was nice enough to get the key to that room, and she brought us upstairs and let us in. What a thrill to be in this exact same room again:

The tipped-back chair with the feet propped up is the classic Gene Ely pose, whether here in Lyons Hall, or in the famous Tack room at the farm.

Paying homage to "the pose," just five feet and 75 years away from the original location above

The "link" between the years is the radiator on the wall. The television set was NOT part of the original decor.

We continued the tour of the campus with Dave, including a visit to the new book store, which I understand has a couple of things with the Notre Dame logo on it for sale. After wandering through the book store for a while, we parted company, and Joe and I left to have dinner, then turned in for the night at the luxurious Knight's Inn Motel in South Bend ("Where is the concierge? I wish to reserve tickets to a show.").

The race on Saturday was of course a great success, as Joe described so well on his blog. Kate made the two-hour drive to campus with Mikey, so the added treat was getting to spend time with all three Eichstadts at Notre Dame after the race. Mikey just never stopped smiling, and he was quite comfortable around everyone. Dave and Kate are great parents.

Notre Dame 3, UCLA 1

We found a shady table where we could sit, and Mikey had a nice lunch of an orange-colored Gerber substance, possibly chicken and vegetables. We talked for an hour or so, then Dave and Kate had an alumni function to go to, so we said goodbye. Joe and I were amazed at the good fortune to have been able to see the three of them when we were there, a rare opportunity for the cousins/uncles to get together.

We then drove down to Carmel to visit Brian and Susan and the kids. It was my first visit to their house, in spite of the fact that they've lived there for the better part of ten years.

Carmel, Indiana: Quintessential suburbia



Brian barbecued some chicken, and Susan made corn-on-the-cob, potatoes, and a salad, and we spent a good part of the evening sitting on his backyard deck talking with each other and the various neighbors who dropped by. T.J. and John seem to attract the attention of several of the neighborhood kids, and they all came and went at various times, playing soccer in the yard, talking with us, throwing a ball to the dogs in a pick-up game of "fetch," etc. The late Norman Rockwell was off to the side capturing the whole thing on canvas.

Brian and I were up early for church on Sunday morning; Susan was going later with the kids, as T.J. was serving the 11:00 mass. I had a quick bowl of my special-blend oatmeal ("Now 50% blander!"), said goodbye to Susan, and we were off to church, and then straight to the airport. I got home at a decent hour Sunday afternoon, tired but basking in the glow of the trip.

It was that kind of weekend: not a minute was wasted, and every moment was rich with enjoyment. It was even better than I had thought it would be, and my ever-lasting thanks go to Joe, Gretchen, Susan and David, Kate and Dave Eichstadt, and Brian and Susan and kids for making it all so worthwhile.

Here are a few more photos from the weekend:


"Bunny," the beautiful Berneice Ely



We're here at the Heritage Sports Hall, just beneath the "E. Ely" on the wall of monogrammed athletes.


Joe mentioned the significance and impact that these simple four letters have on our family. Neither one of us had ever seen it before, so it was all very new and special. Just across the room from this "E. Ely," in exactly the same font and size, are the letters "J. Montana." All equal in the annals of Notre Dame athletics.

Joe standing outside the tunnel entrance where we would finish the race the next day. He is on the phone with Nathan, who is calling with vital news of a Cubs comeback win.

Proud Mom Kate and Mikey. I told you he never stopped smiling.







My smile here in no way means to make light of the tragic event of 1931, but as Joe pointed out, "Hey, we've all gotten over it."








I've known Susan for more than 20 years, and it occured to me as I look at this photo how little she has changed since 1987.



Proud Grandpa with his twins.