7/1/2010 Gone for a Ride….

Bob and I decided to get away for awhile today so we went for a ride. In search of two things actually, a barber shop for him and to see what an RV dealer that we thought was closer than it actually was had to offer.

We never did find a barbershop, however, we did find a unisex shop but Bob was adamant that we find a shop with the red and white and blue…. barber pole.

We had to drive farther than we thought to get the dealership we wanted to check out. We still have our eye on that one I told you about a few days ago but it never hurts to look.

I don’t remember what brand they had the most on the lot of but it wasn’t one we had heard of before. I spent all of five minutes inside and I had seen enough. This was supposed to be their “high end” units and you just cannot believe how cheaply they were made.

I wanted to move one of the dining room chairs and when I put my hand on the back support I found it was nothing more than foam rubber nailed, perhaps glued to the side supports and then covered in a faux suede material. I was stunned. It this what the RV industry has come to? I never did see a price sheet in any of the rigs we went in which is unusual to say the least.

Moving on to the bathroom I wanted to see how much room there was in the shower and when I opened the door the entire shower stall moved. I put my hand on the front of the stall where the door closes and shook it once again. Yep, the whole darn shower stall moved. High end my foot!

I pulled out one of the drawers in the built in chest of drawers in the bedroom. It was deep top to bottom and wide left to right and all of eight inches front to back. What the heck are you going to put in a drawer that is eight inches deep? It was a perfect drawer for rolled socks!

I figured I’d check out the mattress in this high end unit while I was there. A stack of pancakes would be thicker than this mattress, a short stack at that!

I’d had seen enough and had to get out of there. Of course when I left the unit I was met by a salesman and I looked for Bob and there was one with him also. Bob took an immediate dislike to his sales guy. The man noticed the “Retired Army” sticker on our back window or perhaps the base sticker pass on the front window and he was laying the thank you for your service, I feel much safer because of men like you, thank you for putting your life on the line for my freedom, yada, yada, yada. I thought I was gonna have to get the hip boots on. Don’t get me wrong, Bob very much appreciates the thank you’s he receives when the stickers are noticed, as all servicemen do, when it is sincere. Sincere being the operative word here.

We said our goodbyes and were on our way. We couldn’t help but notice how heavy southbound traffic was and the realization that this is 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND hit us….like a ton of bricks. How did this get here so fast?

LaVon, we saw this dead tree and thought of you right away. Bob took this out the driver’s side window when we were crawling in the traffic.

After dinner I thought the sky looked like it was going to render a beautiful sunset so I made my way to the Inlet, camera in hand.

I stood next to this young girl, a sophomore in high school and we took pictures together. Me with my Canon and her with her phone. She’s a straight A student she told me and wants to be a doctor. She could make it as a model if she wanted to, she was just beautiful. So pretty that it was hard not to stare at her but I have a feeling she isn’t aware of her stunning looks. She was much more interested in talking about science and medicine (like I had a whole lot to add to that part of the conversation) and then she told me that she was taking photography as one of her high school classes. PHOTOGRAPHY? A credited class in high school? Oh, I feel a rant coming on, but not this day. I have to think about this for awhile. I’m still too flabbergasted to write about it. Photography,,,,

So I did manage to get some shots in as my mind swirled about the very idea of photography as a high school class and getting a credit for it. The phrase “dumming down of America” keeps going through my mind. I can only wonder what those straight A’s were in now.

So I’ll close this with pictures taken with a camera that I taught myself about. (giving credit where credit is due my friend Bobby has answered some camera questions for me and LaVon has been helpful more than once in Picasa3)

….and the sun sinks down below the horizon for yet another day.