Time to Travel

The time has come to take a trip. As I did last year, I'll travel to Clarks Hill, SC. The return visit will be as special as the first time I went there, which was Last Year. It will be special for a number of reasons.

My two oldest Grand children will join me along with the spousal unit, Mrs. Spadoman. We traveled with the kids last Summer and they proved they can be good. Good for an eight year old and a ten year old. I guess it's me and the missus that they might worry about. We have embarrassed them in the past. But they'll get over it.

The fine folks down in Clarks Hill, friends and family of my Veteran Brother Frazier Dixon, have invited us to stay at the Marriot in Augusta, GA. That will be some nice plush accommodations. It was very nice and super generous of them to give us the lodging.

I have a special gift to bring down there for the community to share this year. I was given an Eagle feather by a Spiritual Elder that I know and trust. He tells me he saw it in a dream, me giving them this feather, and that it would represent the Warrior Spirit that I have returned to the community. I framed it and I will present it to them during the Veterans Program.

I also flew a flag at a Pow Wow last August. The flag was symbolic of the deceased
Veteran and was flown in a memorial Veterans song that was sung, honoring all Veterans who gave of themselves. I bought a case for that flag and I will present that to them as well.


This is at the Flag Raising ceremony last August. My friend Mike, also a Veteran, helped me fly this memorial flag.

We'll be leaving here on Wednesday and arriving in Augusta on Friday. We'll spend three nights there and start back on Monday. We'll pass through Chicago on the way home and visit my Mother for one overnight. She will love to see the kids.

The route I'll take down there might be a little squared off. I want to drive through as many states as I can. The kids want them for their resume. After last years trip to Washington DC, they added quite a few states, that they have been to, to their accomplishments. This trip will add a few more. I am thinking of getting them one of those US maps that people put on the side of their RV and then fill the spaces with stickers or magnets of the states. They could mount it in their room and as we travel to different places, they can fill the spaces with the magnets.


Wouldn't this look nice and colorful for a kids room?
I want one!!

As they get older and we have these travel experiences, I am likely to want to take them to more places and show them the wonders I have had the luxury to have seen in my travels throughout my life. Last Summer to the East coast, maybe this Summer to the West. I better watch out. I want to take an epic motorcycle journey through Canada to Alaska on the bike. It could happen that I would return from that and load up the van and take the kids to Grand Canyon, LA, San Francisco, the Redwoods and the Ocean and without blinking an eye log in 15,000 miles of highway time.

I sure could think of worse ways to spend retirement. Like in a lazYboy watching infomercials. Did you see the new power scrubber? I mean two of em' for $19.95 (plus S&H), and you get ten free exchangable cleaning heads.


A Tennessee hillside last November on our way to South Carolina.

So, I hope you'll miss me. I'll be gone for about two weeks altogether. I'm sure I'll enjoy the warmer weather as I am going to the South, and the trees might have some color on them. Here, the blustery winds and rain of the past few days has pretty much left the streets and lawns with a mat of yellow, waiting for a good opportunity to get the rake out there and pile them up in bags for removal. Fall is over. Winter is here. We had snow twice now, both times it 'stuck' and showed up on the car windows, then melted away by late afternoon. One of these days it will become three feet deep. White Christmas anyone?

Peace to all of you.