Saturday, November 17, 2012

St Jude's and Downtown Memphis

Some of you know that we have a 2 year old granddaughter at St. Jude's in Memphis. Next week will be her 4th chemo treatment. Hopefully there will be an operation in December that will cure our girl. She is doing well and we appreciate everyone's prayers.
Our son has 3 older children and we enjoy taking them away from the apartment to enjoy things, when we can. Yesterday was the "trolley day". Memphis is a very nice and clean older city, downtown now. They have worked hard to clean and keep the river front area really nice for visitors. Memphis is a St. Jude friendly city also.

Nic and his big sister Essie getting ready to board the Riverfront Trolley.

Alexis and Grana hopping on board.

One happy girl. Alexis has to walk on cruthches,a birth defect called spinabifia. Memphis and lots of private buisinesses, along with the zoo, give special attention to kids from St. Jude's. The conductor assumed that Alexis was from the hospital. We told him no, her little sister is there. The conductor says "your trolley ride is free". Wow. They only charge a dollar anyway to ride but we appreciated the conductor. He let us ride twice and then parked the trolley close to our car to save Alexis a long walk. Everyone downtown is St Jude friendly. St Jude is one fantastic children's hospital. I will never hesitate donating to this work. We" made over" Alexis saving us 5 bux and treated her to her own pizza for lunch.

Oh boy. This is how a 4 year old grandson sees his grandfather. Now I know why they think I am so old, ha.

Essie and Grana having fun on the ride. We got to ride down around the riverfront then up through downtown. It would be nice to see all big cities take care of the downtown areas like Memphis does. We saw no trash. All empty storefronts were clean and well taken care of. No homeless people hanging around and the police presence was great.

This 4 year old was having the time of his life. We stopped at the welcome center. Nic touched Elvis' shoe and the alarm went off. He never left my side from that point on. Was nervous the police might question him.

Just a shot of one of the cars. This is a great thing that Memphis has. Good transportation and cheap. I am sure the city loses money. The driver that we had was just a super guy. He has a personality that lends itself to the job he does.

A little time in one of the city parks to burn the energy up for a 4 yr old grandson.

We loved going to Mud Island and watching the barges.

One last shot of one of the trolley cars.
Just a few short hours with our grandkids but hopeful the memories will last them a life time. Teri and I are blessed to have 16 grandchildren. Each one makes us feel very special.
Thanks for riding the trolley with us. Have a great Thanksgiving.
Dan

PS
The new car gets great mileage. We had a headwind coming home from Memphis yesterday, so it hurt our overall 300 mile trip average. Was only 49.8 mpg.

A Lttile Geocaching

We work two or three days a week. Sometimes only one day a week. Those days are in the middle of the week. Always off on Fridays and Mondays. So, last Friday we needed a little shopping trip, Teri did. I am kind of the complaining chaueffer. Sure some of you can relate. Anyway, I try create a little fun for myself on these trips, usually to Cape Girardeau.
Oh yea, geocaching breaks the trip up. Here I am grabbing a cache from a shoe pole out in the middle of nowhere. It would take me all morning to go through all of these shoes. So, I got a little help from the owner and went to the correct shoe quickly.

On up the road Teri grabbed one I could not find.

And another. It is great being a team. 4 eyes are always better than 2.

Well, I dropped Teri off at the stores and struck out on my own. I enjoy these kind of caches. They blend right in with what ever is in the immediate area. This one lives in a hole that looks like a normal bolt hole in a sign.

Look at this one. It is 7 ft. high and in a busy shopping district. It is also hanging over a busy street. These are night caches because way too many people can see you during the day "jumping and yanking". I did not sign the log, just shot a picture.
We also searched for a cache on an ice machine. Took too long and too many muggles so I took Teri to the stores and then went back by myself. Just too many muggles buying ice so I emailed the owner of the shoe pole for a clue. She sent the clue, I grabbed the cache and was on my way. Forgot to take a picture, just trust me it was a great hide and we have only seen a few like this before.
Teri calls, finished shopping for now and is hungry. Off to my favorite lunch time place in Cape, Sam's Club. Best pizza in town, and cheap. I park our new car away from traffic with a "cart" storage bin on one side. Won't have to worry about any door dings here.

Yea right. Look at this dent below Teri's door, the one facing the cart bin.

Yep, that bad boy knew there was a brand new car sitting there and "wham". What to do? I tried hard to let no bad words slip out while Teri took off back inside the store. She had no plans to leave without voicing a complaint. I just sat behind the wheel and tried to "cool off".
Well, out come two folks, with Teri, and started shooting pictures. She filed a formal complaint and advised them how this kind of thing could be prevented in the future. I guess we will see if they offer to fix it. Not real noticable to anyone but the owners of the car. Oh well, just a material possession that means little in the scheme of things.
So, life is good here. Getting ready for Thanksgiving and family next week.
Thanks for riding along.
Dan