Bicycle Built for Four
Last Friday morning I headed out to Lowes to buy a couple of things. I needed a flush valve seal for the low flow toilet in the bathroom next to our bedroom. I put off getting one for days just because I hate anything to do with plumbing. Plumbing is wet and it leaks and it frustrates me. However, a water bill that is bigger than it should be due to a bad toilet frustrates Diane so I found myself at Lowes buying the seal, some light bulbs (the old fashioned kind). I also picked up a Roman Shade for the coach bedroom door window.
Diane didn’t want me to get one of those yet, not until she could shop with me. I wanted one right away because we were leaving later that afternoon in the coach with our grand boys for a little weekend camping trip to the Virginia Beach KOA. We needed the shade because Teddy Bear tore up the mini blinds that use to hang on the bedroom door. We had accidentally closed the door before we left Teddy alone in the coach while we took a trip to somewhere. He likes to sit in the bedroom chair and look out the window. He tried to open the door and in the process bent the blinds beyond repair. It didn’t matter that much, because we never liked them.
So I came back with a shade. Diane was going to hang the dog blanket over the window for some privacy but the shade was on sale so I hoped the low price would compensate for a color she might not like. She frowned at me when she saw it, and reminded me that we were supposed to look together but she also said that it didn’t look all that bad.
So I avoided that problem, and then tackled the leaky toilet. I did manage to fix it pretty quick so we packed up the coach and waited for the boys to arrive.
Christine, Rob and little Brooklyn along with Carson and Austen pulled up around two in the afternoon. By two thirty, the car was hooked up and we were on our way to the Beach.
It took about forty minutes to get parked on the site. The boys went exploring while I hooked up the coach and set up our patio. Then I hung the Roman shade. Diane actually thought it looked good. I was relieved.
Once that was done, I went looking for the boys and found them on the basketball court. We played Cow, then Bird, and no matter what I could not beat Carson. The old man can’t out shoot the eight year old.
They talked me into trying the giant jump pillow. This is a very large air filled trampoline. I gave it a whirl but I didn’t stay on it long. I figured if my knees gave out my butt would take a big bouncing whack. Actually, it was fun. You can get quite a bit of height, enough to do flips (Not Me!) and there are no springs to trap you and then break your leg.
I fired up my Char-Griller kettle and I put chicken breasts with rice and mushroom soup wrapped in foil on the coals. Forty minutes later when had tender chicken, with rice and steamed broccoli for dinner. I used the coals to start a fire in the ring. Austen had procured the wood from the camp store earlier. We roasted marshmallows and made smores.
After all the dinner stuff was cleaned up the boys came into the coach to watch “Back to the Future’ part one. They had never seen it before. It was fun to watch a movie with the boys about 1955 set in 1985. All of it was a trip to the past for them, big video cameras, Sony Walkman cassette tapes and all as well as Mr. Sandman and black and white television sets. The line in the movie “Who the heck is John F Kennedy?” is ironic for a number of reasons. They want to watch part 2. They will both find out the future, now their present, didn’t turn out exactly like the movie predicted.
Saturday morning arrived clear and cool. It was going to be a glorious day. We all had sausage and egg biscuits nuked in the microwave, except for Teddy Bear of course. Then the boys took off for the jumping pillow on their scooters. I decided to make some minor repairs to the coach.
I climbed up on the roof with needle and thread and repaired one of the bedroom slide out toppers. Then I waxed and buffed a section of the roof. I had some samples of RV wax-cleaner and I just wanted to see what they would do. Not that much it turned out. That reminds me I need to climb back up their and buff that stuff off.
After my trip to the roof, I tightened up a loose bolt that holds the bay heater element wire to the snap fuse. I think that it being loose was the cause of the heater not blowing warm air last winter. That resulted in a frozen water pump. I would like to avoid replacing it again this winter.
Diane and I let the boys set their own schedule for the morning. We figured as long as they were having fun…then we could have some time to ourselves. Both of us opened e-books and read most of the morning. I was trying to get through “Endeavor in Time” a Christian novel about time travel. It wasn’t written very well at all. The author borrowed from the TV series “Quantum Leap” and I think he should have left it alone. I finished the book and parts of it were okay but that is the best thing I can say about it. “The Door into Summer’ written in 1955 is a much better book if you want to read a time travel novel. It too has some predictions about the future that didn’t work out the way the author envisioned. That is part of what makes it fun.
We read until lunch time which was the same time the boys came back to the coach.
After lunch, all of us piled into the car and headed for the Virginia Beach boardwalk. After we parked we walked to a bicycle rental stall at 11th and Atlantic. We rented a surrey, one of those four person pedal cars. Diane had a coupon for the rental and we bought an hour for half the normal price.
Carson and I took the front seats, Diane, Teddy Bear and Austen sat down in the back. We set off down the bike path.
Pedaling that thing was hard work, plus the brake didn’t function. We could only stop the rig using the Flintstone method.
I found out real quick that Carson was not much help propelling the coach as he could not reach the pedals. Teddy Bear was not comfortable riding on Diane’s lap so we decided to rearrange things a bit. Carson and Diane switched seats, Teddy went in the baby seat all the way up front.
That worked out really well. The dog seemed to like being in the basket and he got lots of attention from the people we passed. Carson could stand up on the pedals in the back and so he became more than just dead weight. He became the afterburner. Whenever I called for "Turbo power", he would hit the pedals and give us a sudden burst of speed that didn’t throw us back in our seats but still moved us along at a much faster pace.
We pumped that thing for an hour. It wore me out, but it was a lot of fun for all of us. As we were pedaling along we watch people horse back riding, and kite flying. We saw one person on an electric unicycle. We passed other surries and gave the passengers a big wave as we went by. We sang as we rode. It was a good hour.
We returned the bike and then went to the closest grocery store for some ice cream. While there I bought some of those packaged adult juice boxes….Mar-Go-ritas or something like that. You put em in the freezer, until they get slushy and then serve them. You have to squeeze them to get the good stuff out. I bought them for all the adults coming for a cook out that night.
Once we were back in the coach I served up some pretty good coffee ice cream to Diane while the boys and I had some Chocolate Truffle. Then Carson and I hung a string of rope lights that had been on the ground, from the patio awing. About the time we finished Christine showed up with sleeping Brooklyn. They left her with me while everyone else went back to the bouncing pillow.
As soon as all were gone, Brooklyn woke up and started screaming at me. I guess she might have been hungry but there was nothing I could do about that. I couldn’t find her always near pacifier either. The only bottle I had was in the freezer and it contained booze. I thought about it but I figured if I drank a Mar-go-rita, it would only dull the pain in my ears for a second or two. So I paced around and patted her little bottom until help arrived.
Christine took her from me, laid her on the dining table to change her and Brooklyn immediately shut up and began to smile.
If I had known that putting her flat on her back and letting her kick her feet was all she wanted well, I could have done that.
We all sat around and talked for awhile and then I fired up a chimney of coals for the grill. Joel and his girl friend Ashley were planning to come for burgers and baked sweet potatoes.
I threw some Bubba Burgers on the grill, started a camp fire and put the Beatles in the coach CD player.
When Joel and Ashley arrived I handed them each an adult juice box. Ashley, who had never been in the coach before, got the ten cent tour.
Dinner was good. The conversation was good. Smores afterwards were good to.
The evening flew by and soon the boys, Diane and I were left alone in the coach. We hit the bed around eleven.
Sunday was simple. We packed up and were out of the KOA by noon. Home by one, boys gone by three. A quick weekend but it was really nice. Carson and Austen loved it. Christine got some time to herself, as much as you can get with a newborn daughter. Diane and I got to spend time with our grandsons.
There is nothing wrong with that. I look forward to taking them out again.
-Gramps-
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