Earth, Wind and Fire in my Backyard
August 25, 2011
Earth
It’s been an interesting week in our neck of the woods. On Tuesday, while sitting in my fourth floor office building, it moved. Well at least it moved back and forth. It was my first experience with an earthquake. Ironically, the epicenter of the earthquake was in Mineral, Va. which is only a 10 minute drive from Bumpass, Va. where my parents own their lake house. I think the news reports would have been much more interesting had it occurred in BumpAss over Mineral.
Wind
We are expecting Hurricane Irene to make landfall in my town this Saturday. Our state commonwealth has already been declared to be in a state of emergency. We have been through a few hurricanes here before. Hurricane Isabel arrived in 2003 and spent our time doing this. A few years ago, we relieved stress caused by Hurricane Hanna by doing this. The easiest time for us was with Hurricane Bill (not so much).
After work, I plan on filling my car with gas, buying some water and beer. We have a generator so in the very likely event we lose power, our beer frozen things will remain cold. In 2003, we lost power for about five days. It took me up until the fifth day, last hour to stop flipping light switches when I moved from room to room. Some habits are hard to break.
Fire
After a ridiculously hot July, we’ve been experiencing quite pleasant temperatures this past week and to give our A/C and wallet a break, we’ve had the windows open. This morning I woke up to the smell of smoke in the house. The Great Dismal Swamp located about 20 miles south of my home has been on fire for several weeks. Despite their best efforts, firefighters have not been able to put out the fire and so far 5,500 acres have burned and continue to burn.
It’s unrelated news, Troy started real school yesterday. He was only there for a hour and parents were invited to stay.
One advantage of seeing a “daycare baby” make the transition to pre-Kindergarten is that they’re used to the drill of sitting still, paying attention and more or less following the classroom rules.
Today was his first full day and I snapped a few pictures before we left this morning. This clearly demonstrates his impatience with our photo shoot.
Let's hope we don't lose power for too long this weekend and all the trees stay where they're supposed to in the backyard.
Monkey see, monkey do....
Stay tuned to learn more about Bumpass!
Honking going under the bridge was a definite highlight. 
At one point we saw three doe running through a field, a fish jumping and a bald eagle flying. This was the first time I had seen an eagle in the wild.
It was another good day on Lake Anna especially since Tim didn't try to kill me like he attempted to on 
Cary 
On the second night, before the fireworks over the lake, Justin and Dylan erupted with screams from the dock while everyone else was up on the deck 
After telling them what they would have to do to prepare the fish for dinner, it was quickly released back into the water. 
We were left to eat the all-American meal on the Fourth of July, hamburgers and hot dogs plus some 
Shortly after they moved into their 55+ retirement community, my Mom took one final trip for work to Prague for a month. Tim and I were in need of our own trip so we drove to Florida to see the new house and visit with my Dad. We also were were worried he'd starve to death and shift to a "liquid diet" without my Mom there to cook for him.
It's no exaggeration that we stuck out in the large community of retired people for a few reasons. Tim and I learned a few things that are not acceptable and for some reason frowned upon:
We have made two other trips to my parents' house in Florida. 
