We had a busy November! We went camping, had Thanksgiving, among other things.
We had a great campout! Early Saturday (the 9th) morning, at 3 o'clock! Eeek! Oh, well. We left here and got to Jim Weaver's (our scoutmaster) house and left there at 4. Then it was a 3 1/2 hour drive to Red River Gorge in Kentucky! We got there set up out tents and what not, and then ate lunch. Then it was hiking time!
We happened, or actually planned, to be there right when the leaves were changing. We lucked out. It was beautiful down there. Hills, trees, the views were pitsquese. We went almost 10 miles on the trails looking at them. It was very exhilirating. By the time we got back, one of the new boys (David) immediatly pulled out his sack of Twinkies and Vieanna Sausages. Man, he had a whoel gym bag full! Luckily for us he shared it! It was kind of going overboard, though, because he also had cans of Coke and packages of Oreos.
Little red sports truck! Dad bought himself a '99 Ford Ranger. It's a sweet little truck. It has a lot of neat stuff like a CD player and A/C, which the old truck lacked. There is actually room for all five of us to sit in there, too! Well, the old truck did, too, but that was when Nick and I were, like 8 or 9 years old. I'm so tall my legs barely fit in there! The Ranger gives me a lot more room!
Goodbye old truck! :( Before we got the new truck, we had a '90 Nissian truck that I have always remembered. We used it for our trips up to Ohio and back when we lived in Florida. It carryied a lot of the wood that built the house. It also has carried load after load of wood to heat the house. It was sad to see it go. I think I'm always going to miss it. It was the weirdest thing how we sold it, though. Some guy with a Middle Eastern accent called one afternoon (about a week after we put it up for sale) and said he wanted to buy the truck. So, that same evening, the guy flew up from Atlanta to buy a truck he'd only even looked at in a magizine! We drove to Dayton and waited for him. Sure enough, he showed up, looked at the truck, started it up in the parking lot, and said he'd take it. He took out some cash, gave it to Dad, and changed the plates with ones he brought. Then he drove off. That was the end of the truck. Man, it was the weirdest thing. The guy said he does this all the time (he's a used car dealer or something) so I don't know. Either way, it's gone.
We ate our supper of instant noodles and other things we packed along and kicked back around the fire for a while. After a while we were all playing Spoons (a card game involving spoons :) and were sharing jokes with (and at) one another. We had a blast. I think we all enjoyed that weekend.
Thanksgiving turkey! Thanksgiving is a big day around here. Mom puts the turkey in the wood stove oven, bakes a ton of food, and here come all the relatives! We congregated at about 2 o'clock that afternoon. I think we all enjoyed stuffing our faces. :) After that we sat around, talked, and watched The Matrix. I had just seen it for the first time a few weeks before, and none of the rest of us had seen it, so we all watched it. We had a ball that day.
The ham radio club! The next day, one of our relatives, Chris Patterson, took me and Nick to the Radio Club place up in Greenville. Chris is a really big ham operator. Nick just breifly mentioned it last month, but man, he has a ton of stuff! Anyway, we went to the club building and used their equipment to talk to people all over the country. It was pretty neat. One of the things that I really like is that with a mobile radio you can dial the repeater in Greenville and tie the radio into the telephone system. In other words, he could make phone calls with the radio in his car! No need for a cell phone. :) Chris bought me some books to study, so hopefully I'll pass the test next month.
See ya! That concludes this month's newsletter. See ya next time!
Mark