The Travels of the Agnew Family

April has just flown by. Unpacking, fitting everything back into the house, cleaning and just settling in took a few days. Throw in sorting mail, income tax and a trip to Burlington and a week was gone. Ed decided to start our summer project, which means it should be done before the official start of summer. This will give us time to actually enjoy summer, I hope, and help friends with their summer projects. Our neighbour (Rob) had a new electric service put into his cottage this winter and Ed said he would help with any re-wiring that needs to be done. Zaph is all for this and hopes it will require many days resulting in many trips to the beach. The other big project is to help Victor (our friend) build a deck at his home. Zaph is all for this project as well as there is a creek that is usually deep enough for swimming.

I’m still working on organizing photos from past years. 2007 has been made into slide shows and now I’m working on 2012. After much thought I decided to jump forward and do 2012 followed by 2011 as they are relatively fresh in my mind. Once these two years are done I’ll go back to 2008, 2009 and 2010. Ed loves to take photos so I have anywhere from 6,000 to 12,000 photos a year to sort through choosing the best thousand or two of photos. Then I build slide shows. All in all a time consuming process.

My plans for the past week were changed rather abruptly. On Wednesday, Ed and I had driven down to Brampton to see our friends Henry and Connie who were visiting Connie’s family. Henry and Connie moved to LA at least 15 years ago. My mother’s friend Louise called to say that my mother had fallen and probably broken her hip. Ed and I drove to the hospital in Burlington and hung out in the emergency room for awhile. My brother also showed up, so after another hour or so I sent the boys home to my mothers while I stayed with my mother. After about 6 hours in the emergency room which included a trip to X-ray and a visit from a doctor who got to decide if my mother was fit for surgery, she was moved to the Surgical Ward. Another hour passed and a nurse appeared with good news and bad news ….the nurse would bring my mom some food and the surgery was bumped to Thursday evening. A “more critical” surgery had come in. Thank goodness for morphine as that was keeping my mom more or less comfortable. A little after 10pm I left the hospital, picked Ed up at my mother’s house and we drove home. Our wonderful neighbours, Rob and Ellen, had gotten Zaph so he had been walked and fed and walked some more.

Thursday I packed an overnight bag and drove back to Burlington arriving at the hospital a few minutes after 4pm. By this time my mom had been moved to the orthopaedic ward, so after I tracked her down I chatted with her nurse. The surgery was scheduled for 4:30ish ---- just love the “ishes” at the hospital, they don’t like to be exact when it comes to time. About 4:45 two ladies arrived to transport my mother and her bed to surgery. By 5:15 pm she was being wheeled into surgery and just after 7pm she was back in her room with a plate and a screw in her hip.

Friday afternoon I headed over to the hospital again and was happy to find a much happier mother. The physiotherapists had her out of bed Friday morning and she had walked a few steps in her room. My mom is on the way to recovery.

Now for the "summer" project. The 2nd half of the basement is to be insulated.

The following two photos are the storage room before we start. Paint won't stick to the floor in one area, the wall between the storage room and stairway room only has stubs at four foot intervals.






DRIcore subfloor was installed.


Installation was installed followed by drywall.

The almost finished storage room ... still need a door.




The stairway room, doesn't look like it needs work but we wanted to insulated the outside wall and replace the old drywall / paneling.



Outside walls insulated, a new shorter bulkhead built, new drywall put up and painted. Now Ed just needs to be build the storage cabinet, trim the room and put the drop ceiling back up.

It's two days of hard driving to get home from Bella Vista. The first night was spent at a Walmart in Terre Haute, Indiana. The day was beautiful till we drove into Illinois. Dark clouds lay ahead of us. Turing on the weather radio we heard about the severe thunder storm warnings the area was having. Lucky for us the storms were leaving the area as we were moving in. The roads were wet but we only experienced a small bit of rain.

2nd day of driving saw us arriving home after 12 hours on the road. Timing was good as it was Saturday thus no rush hour traffic through Indianapolis. We did hit traffic backup at the border which added about a half hour to our day. The day was cool, cloudy and dry though the sun did shine when we arrived in Ontario.

April 1st brought drizzle to Walkerton so only a bit of unpacking was done .... I kinda of needed the food that was in the trailer.

April 2nd brought beautiful sunny weather which allowed us to unload the majority of items we bring into the house.

April 3rd saw me cleaning the house and Ed starting to work on some of his spring projects. Guess life is back to Bruce county normality.

Har-Ber Village can be found on the scenic shoreline of Grand Lake O'The Cherokees of Northeastern Oklahoma just outside of Grove, Oklahoma about an hours drive from Bella Vista, Arkansas. Jean was the only person from our group that had visited the village but we trusted her judgment when she said that we would like it and like it we did. It is not just a collection of "pioneer buildings and their furnishings" but a collection of a lot of collections. Can you image a collection of 700 types of barbed wire? There was pottery, bricks, dresses, hats, military items, Indian artifacts, farm equipment and much, much more. To see more about Har-Ber Village go to http://www.har-bervillage.com/home.html


Harold, Zaph and I walking through one of the buildings holding some of the collections.


The buildings were taken apart at their original locations and rebuilt when they arrived at Har-Ber Village. Many times original furnishings were found in the buildings sometimes stored in attics.


Some of the grounds and the church.


The music building.


Some of the farm implements.

Two years ago, Ed and I stopped in Bella Vista for a visit with our friends Bob and Jean. A short drive took us to Bentonville and Walmart Museum housed in the original five and dime store that Sam Walton founded. While there we got directions to Crystal Bridges Museum of Art that was currently under construction. The Museum was finally opened on 11-11-11. When Jean and Bob suggested that we stop on the way home to visit the museum we jumped on it.

Alice Walton, Sam Walton's only daughter is the driving force behind the museum. If you want to read more about the museum go to http://crystalbridges.org/

Ed and I were both suitably impressed when we saw the finished building. The building itself is a work of art and it is set in "natures art". It's worth the trip just to see the building. Currently, admissions are covered by Walmart which is an added bonus.


The museum restaurant is set in a "pod" with glass walls overlooking the water and the museum pods.


The "last supper" is reproduced upside down using spools of thread suspended on cords (or some such thing). Looking through the sphere sharpens the image and turns it right side up.


This bird looks like it's going to fly out of the picture and reminds me of the movie "The birds".


We walked outside and enjoyed the gardens and the view of the museum.




One of the many outdoor works of art.


Looking down from the restaurant area at a lower patio and two of the pods containing part of the American Art Collection.

After dinner we drove over to Bob and Jean's house to admire the Dog Wood Trees.





Zaph was happy when he found a stick under the leaves.


Zaph and Gypsy. Something must smell good here.

A couple of years ago when we visited our friends in Bella Vista we saw Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville under construction. It was finally finished enough to open on 2011-11-11. So, when Bob and Jean invited us to stop on the way home to see the finished Crystal Bridges we jumped at.

Bella Vista has a cute RV park at the Blowing Springs Park. You must be a member of Bella Vista or a guest of a member in order to use the park. Luckily our friends Bob and Jean are members.


Glenn (Bob's brother), Linda, Gypsy, Harold and Mary Ann also stop at Bella Vista. We came from two different places and arrived with 5 minutes of each other. Glenn, Linda and Gypsy were parked beside us and Harold and Mary Ann were parked behind us at Oleander Acres.


There were two geocaches in the park and Ed couldn't wait to find them. He went straight up the hill instead of following the path. Lucky he isn't allergic to poison ivy.


There is always a cool breeze coming off of the spring.


Boys will be boys ... Glenn climbing the rocks to look at a cave.

Eisenhower State Park is on Lake Texoma near the Texas Oklahoma border. A couple of years ago we stopped here and enjoyed it so we stopped again. We arrived at the park at 2:30 so we had a few hours to explore the park finding geocaches. Six geocaches were found with three of them being found by me. The other three were in bushy areas that I refused to go into.


The dam that created the lake.




A watershed area across from the dam.

Carol, Darryl and Sarah stopped by for a visit this morning before hitting the road for home. Darryl's mom turns 95 this year so they are planning a visit to Ontario so it won't be long till we see them again.

Ed had seem a number of airplanes flying over the RV the last couple of days, so he decided that we should check the airport out. Turned out the airport was bigger than he expect but he did get to watch this plane take off and land a few times.




This little guy was watching the planes as well or not.

My sister Carol, brother-in-law Darryl and great niece Sarah drove from Tyler to Georgetown for a weekend visit. On Friday evening we had a nice visit and a spaghetti dinner at the trailer. Saturday we combined some geocaching and a event for children at the local park by the RV park.


There were lots of kids at the event.


Zaph managed to get some attention. The little girl had want to pet a dog which jumped a lot, so when the older girl saw Zaph, the older girl decided that he would be a better dog for her sister to pet and asked if it was OK.


One of the things the kids could do was throw a spear using a spear throwing device (it's got a name but I don't remember it). Sarah did pretty good.


Another activity was building a rattle using a stick, dried grass and beads. Darryl helped Sarah to make her rattle. At another station the kids drew on rocks.


Sarah with one of the caches, or treasures as she called them. Hanging out at the pool after a tiring day.

Sarah had a great time "treasure hunting". Ed showed her how to use the GPS to track down the location of the treasures. She was also pretty good at finding the caches. Watch out Darryl, you might have to buy a hand held GPS and start geocaching.

Decided to check out downtown Georgetown today. The fellow at the information center told us the town was named after a man named George ... you couldn't have guessed that could you. George Washington Glassock, Jr. donated the land for the town. The downtown area isn't very big but it's cute. We stopped for lunch at a bistro on the square and enjoyed local artists works on the walls.


The court house is in the middle of the square and is very majestic with it's domed roof.


There were many interesting statues around the square, a huge scorpion, a preying mantis, mules being watered and this lady on a bench.


The church was built in the late 1881 and is in it's third location. These days it mostly used for weddings. The Palace Theater was built in 1925.

Ed realized that he hadn't downloaded the little camera for awhile and found these photos on it.

Back on March 7, we went out for Sushi. John had tried some of the sushi that is sold at the grocery store and was interested in trying some real sushi ... i.e. the kind with raw fish. As Ed and I enjoy Sushi we said we'd be happy to go with him. Carol said she'd go if she didn't have to eat Sushi.


The Sushi for two dinner that Ed and John shared. I had my own Sushi for one dinner .... pretty much the same thing but not as pretty.


Carol opted for shrimp tempura.

John enjoyed the sushi but won't rush out and have it again. Ed and I were impressed that both John and Carol persevered and used chop sticks for the entire meal. If you saw Carol with the chop sticks you would have thought she had used them for years ... she said it was from years of writing on a blackboard.