And We Stay Home...

Zoe and Phaedra here together:

You know something must be up if we agree to write together, right? Well……have you noticed how this blog is titled “Travels with Phaedra and Zoe”? We haven’t been doing the traveling since we got back from the Nor’easters in South Carolina in October.

Since then, the folks have gone to Cozumel and left us home alone. Oh, yeah, we had this wonderful friend, EM, come and stay with us. And her sister and mom visited us, too. That was great, but we still had to stay home alone.







P: The folks soon found out that we didn't like that any too much. One of us – it’s usually the youngest who’s the naughtiest you know – got into a tad of trouble. She ate a comforter. She ate a pillowcase and two pillows. She ate a bedspread. She unrolled the toilet paper and spread it all over the house! She enjoyed eating the waste paper basket, too.



Z: When the parents got back, somehow I got blamed for all of this. Mom thought that I couldn't have done everything and thought that maybe Phaedra had really done it and lied to them. But, they decided to test out her theory by having me stay in my den while they go out. And they go out all the time, too!!! I admit it now, I did all that stuff. I just couldn't help myself. After all, they were thousands of miles away snorkeling and swimming, and eating. All I had was time to get in trouble – no traveling for us!

P: But, how did that get back at them? I got punished, too, by having to stay in the room with you as well. That wasn't any fun. We didn't even get to go to Florida this winter. That isn't fair. I’m glad that we have a reprieve from the bedroom, now. Z, you just have to keep being good, all right?

P and Z: Oh!! They did help elect this great man to be president. That was exciting. Mom said she never thought that she’d get to see something like this happen in her life time or to have a woman be a viable candidate for president, either. She’s really proud of this country. We’d make a great team as President and Vice President, don’t you think? We are kind to others, have fun, and never cheat on our taxes.

So, now the parents are doing all of this stuff, and we still stay home. Our sister friend, Anne, took Dad to a Carolina Basketball game. We could have done a wonderful job as cheerleaders but we didn't get to go. They got to sit on the floor right next to the press! We weren't there.

They trained to be Community Emergency Response Team Members in case of a natural disaster. They got these great, green, hard hats and vests that say CERT. Maybe we’ll get green vests to wear, too, and go on search and rescue missions with them. Cool!

Last week they got trained by the National Weather Service to be Weather Spotters. How do you put spots on weather? I thought that meant rain and snow. Can they just order it up or just complain about it?

Plus, they are doing volunteering, too, like helping do taxes for low-income and elderly people for free. That’s good, I guess. They also maintain a blog for this animal organization, Bayou Rescue. It’s a really good thing that helps out in disasters nationally and locally (like a house fire). I hope someone would help us out if we ever needed it!

So, they do all of this. And, we stay at home. P and Z

Back on the blog again...

Phaedra here:

Boy, has it been a long time since I wrote this blog! Somehow, getting off the road from this summer just did me in… I haven’t even thought about writing to y’all. There has been a ton to tell about, but no energy to do it. You might wonder why, right? Well, it’s the little Squirrely Pig, a.k.a. Zoe. She keeps me sooo busy that I don’t do anything but guard my beautiful tail from the “Jaws of Destruction” and try my best to keep ahead of her.

Then there’s Parker who is the apple of my parents’ eyes. She’s kinda cute, but really, now, I was here first! Anyway, as soon as we got home, I had to go into social training! Me? Just because I barked whenever anyone came to visit and didn’t like Parker hugging on me doesn’t mean that I need schooling. They even called in this nice lady, Jenn, who taught them how to bribe me with people food. Mom always said I wasn’t a “foodie”, but really she just didn’t know I liked certain foods – just not doggie food! Jenn filled her in on that. So, anyway, Zoe and I are in training. Whenever they feel like it, they do this mystery knock which makes us think someone is at the door. We’re supposed to go to “our spot” which is the Turkish Rug near the refrigerator and sit to get treats. I know, it’s disgusting what I’ll do for Kosher Hot Dogs, but what can I say??? Then there were the birthday parties. Enough is enough.

So, that started, then we went to the South Carolina beaches for 4 weeks. AND, to make matters worse, Parker had to invade my space down there, too. Really, she is better than the “pig” ‘cause she doesn’t eat my beautiful tail, but I don’t get the attention that I deserve. She does drop food sometimes, though, so I station myself under the table whenever she eats. Hmmm, maybe she does that on purpose. I guess I might need to rethink this relationship!

The beaches were great except the second week in Myrtle Beach there was a Nor’easter which came on shore RIGHT where we were parked! It was so bad that the folks pulled in all 3 sides and I slept with them on top of the bed. Maybe you remember vibrating beds – I don’t, but Dad said that the bed felt like that all night because of the 60+ mile an hour winds that came on shore. It was kind of scary and the “pig” hid under all the covers. I was brave, though, and kept guard for the family. That brought flooding to the campground – not on our site, but onto the ocean front sites. It was uncomfortable, because I had to step in the ponds to get out to the beach and my feet got into that mucky water. You know I try to keep myself beautiful and things like that get in my way.

At the end of the 2 weeks, we moved south to Edisto Beach State Park, which is on a barrier island near Charleston. It sits 6 feet below sea level for the most part. You guessed it – flooding followed us there, too. It rained so much one night that I expected to see cats falling from the sky. The only cat I saw, though, was one from New York that got walked on a leash every day. Imagine that! Just like us! The beach was beautiful, but it got kind of cold with the strong wind that was there, too. We had a great campsite until the morning before our last day. When we woke up that morning, I bounced down the steps and up to my tummy into salt water. Dad was ankle deep in the flood. That was it! We pulled up the carpet, put in the chairs, and skedaddled on home early! You all do know that Dad and Mom are both “water signs” and are prone to floods, right. No Joke! At home and abroad, water seems to follow them wherever they go.

I think I’ll continue this at a later time or you won’t have the energy to read it all.

P

Last Stop on the Summer's Journey -Smoky Mountain National Park

Phaedra and Zoe together at last:

Smoky Mountain National Park is our last “official” stop before we arrive home. We drove three, hard, 400+ mile days to get here. Then, it’s back in the car, over the mountains, off to Cades Cove, up Clingman’s Dome Road and ALWAYS looking for animals! I ask you… what are we? Chopped Liver??? Oh, I know, sometimes Zoe and I think we’re princesses or people and we are. But we do have 4 legs just like bears and deer, right?

Anyway, we know why these mountains are called Smoky Mountains! When we went to Clingman’s Dome, we couldn’t even see the top of the mountain. The top was hidden by a cloud. Everything looks hazy, and it makes me blink and blink. I thought that we wouldn’t go very high here, but the folks figured out that we actually climbed as many feet as we did in Rocky Mountain National Park on the Trail Ridge Road. It’s just that it is 6000 feet lower and no tundra. Plus, no snow. We really wanted snow again before we hit the beaches.

We even got some R and R time outside the car in a river. Mom had a fit because both of us decided to drink the river water. Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea – Zoe got a guppy tummy that night but was fine the next day.

These critters here are really hard to see in amongst the trees. But, you should have heard Dad when a bear crossed in front of us today. He got so excited that Mom shushed him. There were deer everywhere if you were lucky to see them and we even saw Wild Turkeys. Plus, we saw bears on four different times – a mother and 2 cubs, another mother and one cub, and two young cubs who seemed to be alone. Lucky for us, though, we were in our car. I saw on TV that a bear had attacked a man and his son plus chased the Ranger. The guys had planned to hike that same falls trail the next day, but it was heavily patrolled and closed to the public. Dad said that they had asked about bears at the visitor center the day it happened and had been assured that there was no problem at all. I’m glad they didn’t go!

We think we want to come back here in the fall when we can see through the trees better. Zoe and I like this area, and it doesn’t take as long to get here as it does to Colorado.

Tomorrow we leave for Chapel Hill. We’ll see most of you there and hope that those of you that our folks met along the way will visit us in North Carolina. What a summer it has been!

Phaedra and Zoe forever!

Nebraska

Phaedra here: Well, we’re on the home stretch, now. Zoe told you that we were going to Nebraska to visit Mom’s former digs and that we did! The first stop was a little whistle stop named Lewellen. This is where Mom lived from the time she was 4 until she was 9 and they moved to Michigan. Frankly, I don’t know why she wanted to “go back home” so much, but she and Dad had a great time in Nebraska.

Lewellen is a tiny, tiny berg of about 150 people, now, even though the sign coming in to town says 292. When Mom lived there she said it had 492 people! WOW!!! Anyway, the downtown has two blocks to it. People don’t parallel park there – they head in to the curb! Also, good thing that Zoe and I aren’t boys – no fire plugs, either. But, Mom remembered where everyone who was friends with her parents lived. She even met people who are living in those same homes, now. There sure are nice people in the west. She got to tour the high school where her father taught band – it is being turned into a museum, now. No kidding!!! Plus it has this awesome slide out the back which mom said was the fire escape. She and her friends used to climb up inside the one on the grade school from the outside and use it as a slide in the summertime. She learned that a friend of her folks, Mary Beard, left a trust to the town, and every year before school starts each school age child is invited to a picnic (along with her parents) and is given school supplies and a two-dollar bill to keep. Mom said that when she was in school, Mary gave everyone a Silver Dollar. Until about 20 years ago, she had a bank account holding her Silver Dollars (and birthday money from her childhood) in the Lewellen Bank (which is now headed by Mary Beard’s nephew). The swimming pool which Mary donated to the town is still open and being used, too!

They visited a place called Windlass Hill and nearby Ash Hollow, which is right on the Oregon Trail that runs through the area. Conestoga wagons needed to be lowered by hand down this area because it was too steep for the horse teams. There was an original Sod House that had been built by a “great/great” of her family’s friends, the Clarys, around 1899. This place became a station along the Oregon Trail that helped to “refresh and repair” wagon trains of settlers on the way west.

Guess what:??? I might become a biker dog!!! Mom goes crazy thinking about that, but in Lewellen where we camped there was a Biker Bash going on, too. Every night there was LOUD music from 8:00 pm until 1:00 am. I loved it!! It didn’t really bother Mom and Dad – the music was WAY louder than the bikes, too.



What did keep Dad awake all night long, though, was the railroad that ran behind the campground. Every hour, two trains running east and west went by and shook our camper to high heavens. The morning we left, Dad counted the cars and each train had 133 cars filled with coal going east and who knows what going west. Mom had thought that there were at least 100 cars and I didn’t believe her. That’s a lot of cars!

The next day in Nebraska, we drove another 300 miles to the area where her father’s family homesteaded in the 1800’s. We camped at the Ord city park. There were 8 campsites situated next to a beautiful little lake which had a walking/bike path around it. Zoe and I walked there every morning with Dad while Mom slept in. She must think she is a princess or something!

You all know how shy Mom is, right? Well, she screwed up her courage and made plans to get in touch with her long, lost family. She knew that one of her cousins was a doctor in Ord so they went to the public library to use WiFi and a phone book. Well, no luck in finding him until the librarian assistant asked her if she was finding what she needed. When she said she was having trouble finding a number for her cousin Bernie, the girl got a big smile on her face and asked if she wanted his home number. Then she whipped out her cell phone and said she was a good friend with his son! Well, this led to reconnecting with Bernie and his mom (whom my Mom’s Dad had taught English to when she was in high school), and Bernie’s son, too. Dad has been made an honorary member of the Keown (formerly MacKeown) clan. He feels very honored!

Mom took him to North Loup and they were invited to visit Mom’s Grandfather’s home. It hasn’t changed since she used to visit her grandparents when they lived there. Her grandmother lived in the house until she was 96 in 1989 and found it too difficult to tend to the upkeep of it. Imagine that! Pioneers, I guess!

They went to the cemetery where many of Mom’s “greats” are buried and left flowers on the graves. They both felt good doing that… The church where Mom’s ancestors attended is right across the street from her grandparents’ home. Unfortunately, Mom and Dad weren’t able to visit the church. They’ll do that some other time, I guess! Once again, people in this small town were very friendly to the folks. Maybe when people have time and aren’t so “crowded” they can lend a hand to strangers.

Another place that they visited (and we had to stay home) was the Happy Jack Chalk Mine just east of Scotia (another bitty town where Mom lived before Lewellen). Mom’s father and she used to explore the mine/cave when she was growing up. It had changed a great deal, I guess. She was really surprised to find that it now has a “new” entrance and a tour that they needed to take to see the caves. When they visited Scotia, they saw a building that had been made with chalk mined from the Happy Jack.

They, also, visited the high school where her father attended and played quarterback for the football team. It still is in use and is the high school for the whole Valley County.



After just 3 nights, we headed east toward home. Zoe and I will let you know how that looooong trip goes. Personally, I look forward to running in the back yard. That Zoe, though, doesn’t even remember the back yard. She was only 9 weeks old when we left home and now she’s almost as big as I am.

So long, y’all.

Phaedra over and out for now!

RMNP-Week Two

Zoe here: Phaedra issued a challenge saying that I can’t top her entry from last week. Well, I did it! How about MOOSE! Not just one, not two, but three moose! When we drove Trail Ridge Road all the way to Grand Lake, we saw a mom moose with her twins right beside the road. Mom and Dad got so excited you’d think they had won the lottery. Boy - was that moose BIG! We had a picnic by Poudre Lake and got to eat lots of Elk Duds. I’m going to miss them

This has been a week of seeing tons of animals and lots of exercise for Mom and Dad. They rode bikes around Lake Estes Loop and found out that riding a bike at 7500 feet is a bit different from riding at 200 feet or even at 4000 feet like in Zion. They had no idea, but they made it back home after some good aerobic exercise!

One night, they went downtown for dinner – you know how much Mom likes to not cook – and there in the middle of Estes Park were 3 large female elk amidst nearly a hundred people who were waiting for the nightly concert in the park. Seems kind of dumb to me that these elk would just hang out, lie down there, and not worry about everyone, but who asks me?

They also found their favorite coffee house, Coffee on the Rocks, where they go for coffee and bagels in the morning if they aren’t doing a long hike and sit on the river or on the lake. I guess there are good cookies there, too, since they went a couple of evenings. One night an elk and her 2 babies were right on the other side of the river from them. And, Mom didn’t have her camera. Can you imagine?

Mom and Dad celebrated their 39th anniversary here in Rocky Mountain. They went back to the Baldpate Inn where there are hummingbird feeders outside of the windows. They had a good time.

Trail Ridge Road beckoned them again, but this time we had to stay at home. This time they got to see some birds; Stellar’s Jay, Clark’s Nutcracker, and the Dark-Eyed Junco – “Gray Race” whatever that means. There was a big marmot and chipmunks, pikas, and ground squirrels, too, as well as elk. Phaedra and I would have liked to be there to give chase, but we were guarding the home front.

Today which is the last day in the park, Mom and Dad decided to hike to Nymph and Dream Lakes. It was uphill all the way – about 1 mile. They liked coming down a lot more. Then that wasn’t enough… Oh, no! They, then, went another mile to Albert Falls. Then it started to thunder. They just made it back to the shuttle bus before it started to rain really hard. By the time they got back to the Park and Ride lot, it was hailing very hard. We got caught another time, too, when it was hailing. That was fun for me, but I don’t think that they enjoyed it. I liked chasing the little ice balls around, but Phaedra thought I was crazy. She’s old, you know.

We’re going to Nebraska next. Mom used to live there when she was a little kid like me, and she wants to visit her old homes. I don’t get it when Dad says that it took him 3 days to drive through Nebraska one day. I guess I’ll find out what he means when we get there.

Phaedra will tell you all about that next time.

Z