What I did on my summer vacation

 I took a week off from work to do what most Americans do in the summer. Have sinus surgery, of course! I was hoping that the recovery would be short and sweet so I could spend some time with the family and ride the scooter. As luck would have it, that's exactly what went down. I had the nose Roto-Rootered on Monday. I am so glad I can breathe now! We took the kids to the park on Tuesday and a guy there gave us some passes to a local railroad garden. 

This place was pretty amazing. All the plants are live miniature plants. Real stones.

This is "G" gage for you rail nerds.

Giant six-year-old for scale.

Thursday Morning I got up early and had my coffee in the garage watching the sun heat up. I headed South on the S-Wee bound for Grumpy Unk's place in the stix. The big slab turned into a parking lot about an hour into the trip. Fearing I'd run out of gas, I turned around and went back to the last exit. I got gas, bought a map and took the scenic route. Straight down on the highway in the cage, this is a three, three and a half hour trip. I got there about six and a half hours after leaving my house. One of my stops was in a little town I like called Greencastle. It's a cool little town with a German WWII buzz bomb in front of the court house. I parked in front of a little pawn shop. I took a stroll around the shop and clearly the cat ruled the place. As I left, the cat came out and posed for a picture. He then turned around and went back inside.

There was a bird too. I don't care much for birds you can't eat.

Six hours in the saddle of the S-Wee is a bit much for my skinny ass and the torture device that is the stock Suzuki seat. I will be remedying that soon.  I actually think I found a reasonable solution, too. None of that $500 replacement business either. I digress, as usual.

I was welcomed with open arms and home made pie at the Grumpy Unk Compound. Life is good. I hung out and did nothing. Well, I checked out the local wildlife...

The next day I got up and had pie for breakfast. My Mother's pies notwithstanding, The Queen makes a good pie. The Queen, for those keeping score, is my grumpy uncle's child bride. She gets my jokes. Only a few people gets my jokes.

The Queen split for Da Region and me and the Unk went off to do manly things. Such as, riding motorcycles.

I should have taken more pics on the ride but I didn't. I would have liked to have taken a picture of the giant micrometer headstone I saw, or the hillbilly woman beating her daughter, or the girl in the really nice Suzuki Samurai. No really, it was probably the nicest Suzuki Samurai still in existence. The hot blond in short cutoffs in a lifted 4X4 on a hot summer afternoon exemplifies rural Indiana in the summer. I know, I married one. We made it to Madison for the big Canada Day regatta. Me and Unk rode down the main drag waving to the locals setting up their chairs for the big parade. Awful nice of those folks to throw us a parade like that. I'm not even Canadian. After about 150 miles of slow moving scenery we decided to fix a hole in Unk's truck tire. Like I said, manly stuff. Then we went and had the best cheeseburger I think I've ever eaten.  I then almost hit the same skunk twice. I'm glad my nose is working but I still don't want to hit one of those bastards. After a little visiting, we headed home to find my cousin Dog Boy and his girl hanging out and we pitched ourselves an impromptu hootenany.

I finally hit the rack around 3ish. After an interesting night of sort-of sleeping, Dog Boy made us some killer farm fresh eggs.

It was then time for the ride home. I donned my specialized riding gear and headed north.

I hit the slab and blasted home in about 3 hours. Not all that fun. The wind was blowing and my ass was hurtin' but hey I just summoned my inner viking and rode on. Sunday we went to a family thing and checked out more local wildlife.

The next day was Independence Day! After a bit of a false start, we went to the parade...

My view for most of the parade.

And later met the Queen at the big fireworks show.  It was almost as cool as the guy who got arrested right in front of us. Not sure why.

And that is how I spent my summer vacation. Probably the best one I've had in a few years. Rock on.