Good to Know

The 2017 Totality Solar Eclipse, Were you there?

She wanted to be a part. I kept a close eye on her. And no, I didn’t look up without glasses. Neither did she.

I can remember seeing on Facebook (good old Facebook) months ago that they were predicting this Total Solar Eclipse. I have to say, I didn’t know it would get blown up nearly like it did… This last week leading up to the solar eclipse people were worried that they didn’t get their solar eclipse glasses and were worried because would the weather be okay and worried because…. Because where would they go to see the full effect, etc.

I remember back in 5th grade (I may date myself here) that there was a solar eclipse. What I don’t remember was the time of year it happened. I just remember the teachers taking us out on to the school ground. The Science Teacher, Mrs. Ihm did a whole lesson on it. Etc, etc. That year (in 5th grade), we had a science fair. I remember doing my project on the solar eclipse. I made the pinhole box and used a flashlight to demonstrate my eclipse. Somewhere I even have pictures of that, but I can’t seem to find them. I did look. Just for this post or at least one similar to it.

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Happy 4th of July {And a Family Celebration!}

Happy Birthday USA.

It’s been a few years since hubby and I have hosted the family 4th of July Party. There was no way I was going to in 2014 and last year we thought we were selling our house so we didn’t open the pool. This year we didn’t open the pool until 2 weeks before the 4th, but decided to open it.

That morning dad brought over the hay trailer and they loaded up the hay bales to get them off the field so that the fireworks didn’t catch them on fire.

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How to: Clean a Mildewed Saddle

It was really funny, people around my parts of the country were complaining that it was so cold in May, then once June hit, BAM, the heat hit but so did the humidity. And it is hard for some people to imagine the midwest having humidity since we’re not surrounded by water, but there are days that you can walk out and be ringing wet because of the humidity.

So one thing we have to deal with is molding saddles in our trailer. The changing area in the trailer doesn’t get a lot of air movement so when the saddles/bridles hang out in the nose of the trailer, they sometimes mildew. Yuck! So here’s a trick to help you keep your leather tack in tip top condition!

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Hotel Cozumel & Resort, Cozumel México

Oh my goodness, this hotel was so awesome! Deb and Grady definitely didn’t steer us wrong! This is a view of the lobby. Seriously, the lobby!

As we were checking in, they brought us this drink. I’m not really sure what it was, although I do know that it was virgin (aka no alcohol). It had a pineapple taste and it was good and interesting! At check in they took a copy of a credit card and a copy of our passport or our drivers license. And then we were off to our room. Hubby left me to get the luggage to the room while he and Grady went off to get weights for our shore dive that afternoon, but we had a bell hop to help with that. I was so lost though so Deb took me under her wing, thankfully!

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Cozumel México: Cozumel Marine World – The Nuria

When it came down to the actual dives, we let Deb and Grady help us out. They chose the dives as well as who to dive with. They always use Cozumel Marine World, and why would I question that? Seriously! Grady said that he’s now made 50 some dive trips just to Cozumel… Think about that. So Deb requested the Nuria for our boat with Clemente as our Dive Master. Again, who am I to question! They did us good too!

Now with Deb and Grady, Cozumel Marine World knows their routine. When Grady tells his people boat time is 8am, that means your butter better be there and you better be on the boat. When Grady told them he wanted the boat there at 9 that first morning, they didn’t believe him I guess because they were at the doc 30 minutes early.

So about the boat. Deb requested the Nuria. This is the mid size boat that probably holds 16 max comfortably. Deb said the small boat is about 8 people and the larger boat is about 20 people.

Grady also said that any group he takes can be on the boat in 5 minutes whether there are 5 people or 25 people. The gear goes in the middle, people get on, and once the boat is off, then you situate your gear as you please.

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Cozumel México: The last day and trip home {Monday}

Friday night Jared mentioned that we had the Jeeps and I should get up Saturday morning and go to the other side of the island to take sunrise pictures. I laughed at him and told him he was out of his mind, I’m not a morning person. Then Sunday night Doug mentioned I should get up with him Monday morning to take sunrise pictures. Again, I told him he was crazy.

Jump forward a few hours and 5am Monday morning and I was almost not quite wide awake. I had looked up sunrise for Monday which was just after 6am so I decided to stay awake since I was already up. I guess I dozed off because at 5:50am I jumped out of bed, threw on my shoes, and took off running down the hallway of the hotel. Doug had told me there was a “tower” where I could get good sunrise photos. I halfway thought about waking Doug up and dragging him with me, but I didn’t. Turns out he was awake and would have gone.

Even though I’m not a morning person, there is something so peaceful about the early morning hours. I watched a couple people drive by on mopeds and saw someone sitting in a doorway and couldn’t help but wonder what they were up to. It was so peaceful and quiet and just amazing. So then I started complaining that I didn’t take up the chance to use the Jeep on the other side of the island for pictures. Grady told me, don’t worry you’ll be back. No one makes this trip just once.

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Cozumel México: Our Last full day of dives {Sunday dives}

Hey, if you’re getting tired of reading about Cozumel, the end is near…. muahahahahaha. I don’t know, don’t ask……

Sunday morning when we went down to breakfast, for some reason I paid attention to the placemats which I hadn’t the rest of the week really. Then I started giggling. Of course, that makes all of our people question what I’m seeing or what I’m thinking… and that’s when I pointed out….. this phrase on my placemat….

At the shop we have a joke. The joke is instead of saying asshole, you say assolay… So reading the mat, this is what I saw…. Oh dear. Maybe it was… well maybe it was…. maybe there is no explanation.

Anyway after breakfast, same routine, grab our stuff and head for the dock to board the boat for the last time during the trip. It was very surreal! While we were standing at the dock, we noticed all the boats running this way and that. Grady heard that there really weren’t any prize fish caught the day before in the tournament so people were racing about trying to get that prize. I wonder if our friends ever got their boat up and running….

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