Introducing Jackson......

Hello there, my name is Jackson.  I am a long-haired dachshund who came to live with Rob, Trisha, and Rob's mom Von, in July 2010.  I wanted to try out this posting thing, so Rob said o.k.  I was born on May 24, 2010.  I came from a litter of six, four girls and two boys.  When they first came to see me, Ms. Cindy (the lady who has my mom and dad) got me out of our pen for Rob to hold.  They kept looking at other puppies that Ms. Susan had, and when Rob put me back in the pen with my family, I just knew I had to go home with them.  I jumped up and down, tried to bark, whined, and when they saw that, they knew I was the one for them.  Now Ms. Von wants a puppy of her own, but Rob says one dog at a time is enough. 

Now Rob and Trisha have a nice house, but they put up gates to keep me out of some of the rooms.  I would get even with them though, cause I would tear up papers, tissues, hide their shoes, and socks under the bed, just all sorts of stuff.  As I have gotten older, I am not so bad to do that puppy stuff, and they have taken down all the gates but the one into the dining room.  I am learning to be a watch dog, but with three cats in the house, Tiger, Sammie, and Mean-Cat (Callie) it has been trying.  

I love to go riding in the car or truck.  I even like going camping.  I have been on several camping trips with Rob and Trisha, even to the 2011 r-Pod round-up in Kentucky last summer.  What a fun trip!  Here are some pictures of me.  Trisha is always sticking a camera in my face to take my picture.  GRRRRRR.........You can see me in the profile picture with Rob and Trisha, and here are some more for you to look at.

My very first toy!

Here I am at the Vet's office.  Rob says I'm rowdy at the Vets!

Sitting on Grandma Von's lap.

Rob "borrowed" this picture from  my cousin Sharon's blog.  Thanks cuz!

I love plastic bottles!  Thanks to cousin Sharon again for this picture!

Rob says he just loves this picture.  Thanks again cuz!

Move over "moon" doggie, beach doggie's in town!

Hanging with Rob at Edisto Island, SC.

Ok everyone, Stay Safe out there.... R,T,&J.

Up on the Roof......

Well that's the name of that great song The Drifter's released in 1962. I was not quite a year old, but I still remember that song growing up.  Lately though, Trisha and I have been playing our own version of that great song, but ours would be titled, Up in the Attic.  It all started a few days before Christmas break.  I had a guy come by to give me an estimate to install a new roof.  In the course of looking things over, we had to go up in the attic.  Our attic is actually an  unfinished second story with close to 1100 square feet of usable space.  Let me tell you, it was embarrassing how junkie, trashy, cluttered, and all around messy it was.  So the day after Christmas, Trisha and I started the great attic clean out.  Now we have hauled unknown quantities of clothes to Goodwill, unbelievable amounts of paper to recycling, bag after bag of trash to the curb for the town to pick up, and I think I can safely say we are at least 80% done.  Whew....what a job this has been.  


So today being a dreary, rainy, generally yucky day here in North Carolina, I thought I would take a few pictures.  Now I didn't take any pictures of all the trash, nor did I take any before pictures.  I just don't want anyone to see how bad it really was up there.  But here are a few after pictures to show our progress.  

This is the view out the back window of the attic.  You can see what  a dreary day this is.  I did work up in the attic about an hour today before taking a few pictures.  

This is our "suitcase" collection.  Now my dad was career military, so I am sure that is where I got my love of travel from.  Here you see our suitcases all neatly stacked and waiting for the next big adventure.  They were NOT like this that fateful day back in December 2011.  They were all over the attic.  I wonder how that happened??

Since this is a blog, and you are most likely using some sort of computer and the internet to read this blog, I took a picture of the old computers, monitor, scanner, and printer waiting to find a new home in the recycle bins at Best Buy.  Yes, the CPU on the bottom does have a 5 1/4" floppy drive.  HAHA.

This is a picture of the back half of the attic, after being all cleaned up. When we started, you couldn't even see the floor it was so cluttered. Now at least I think it looks much better.


I didn't find any real "hidden treasures" in our attic.  But I did find lots of things that brought back memories of days past.  I took a picture of two of these.

 Any of you who happened to be following College Basketball in 1983 you will remember this. I was a Junior at NC State.  What a great time.

I grew up in Scouting.  I was a Cub Scout, Webelos Scout, Boy Scout, and later an adult Boy Scout leader.  I loved going on camporees, summer camp, trips to the mountains to Lutheridge, just anywhere that old 50's model retired school bus we had would take us.  I still support the Scouting movement today, because I think it offers many great opportunities for our youth. I also have quite a few friends I run into from time to time from my days in Scouting. I have a HUGE patch collection. The picture above is just a few. (And yes I am an Eagle Scout.) 

And while this wasn't in the attic, here's a picture of my patch jacket with a few more of my Boy Scout patches.  So no, while I didn't find any hidden money or gold in our attic, I did find many things I place a high value on.  I hope you enjoyed today's post.  I also hope you were humming "Up on a Roof" by The Drifters while you were reading it! HAHA  Until next time...Stay safe out there...-R,T,and J.

One of Our Favorite Campgrounds......

Is the New River State Park in Laurel Springs, NC.  

We usually go camping there a couple times a year.  It's a great campground for a quick weekend trip, or a longer summer time beat the heat, get away from home stay.  It's close to the Blue Ridge Parkway which is one of my most favorite National Parks in the United States.  Your just a short 12 or so miles from both West Jefferson, and Jefferson, NC.  There you can find restaurants, shopping, more sights to see, and of course everyone's favorite store to go to on camping trips.  (You know what that is!!)  Also, don't forget the Shatley Springs Inn located at Crumpler, NC.  Some of the best food served family style you'll ever eat.

Here's a picture from a trip in May of 2010.  The New River State Park has a small RV camping area.  Twenty sites total, with one being reserved for the camp host.  All sites have electric, some have electric and water, and some have electric, water and sewer.  The campground itself is only about five years old, had a great bathhouse, but not a lot of shade yet.  Still, it is a wonderful cool retreat in the hot, humid days of summer.  

There is a beautiful visitor's center and park offices located close by for all those who visit the park.  

Here is a picture from a trip in October of this year.  This was one of those trips we decided on Thursday afternoon to go on when we got home from school on Friday.  You can see Trisha engaged in her favorite past-time (napping) and Jackson is happy with a chew bone.  While the days were beautiful, we woke both mornings with the water hose frozen, but it quickly thawed as the sun came up.  Plus we were plenty warm with our little electric ceramic heater.

Here's a picture of the view from our campsite for this trip.  

Here's a view of the bathhouse.  It is extremely clean, and the park staff has done a great job of maintaining not only it but the entire park.

Here's a picture from a camping trip in May 2009.  This was still when we had the pop-up.  The tent is that cabin tent I told you about in an earlier post.  My nephew Pat was visiting for a few weeks, and that was his hang-out.


The last few pics are just some random shots from different trips in the area.  I hope you enjoy them.

So until the next time, thanks for visiting our little corner of the internet/blogging world.  Stay safe out there!  -R,T,&J.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere There's Signs.......

There are not too many words in today's post, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, then here's a bunch.  I like signs. I like to take pictures of signs. I don't really know why, but then it doesn't really matter does it.  Enjoy.....

Stay safe out there.  -R,T,&J