Crematoria, Crazy Costumes, and Cruising

Sean and I watched a movie last night—Chronicles of Riddick.  Cheesy, but entertaining enough.  In the movie there is a planet, Crematoria, whose temperature rises to 700 degrees during the day.  Clearly, nobody goes outside during the day.  I’m pretty sure we are on Crematoria here at the good old Lakeview RV Resort in Houston.  

Our good ole' not-quite 6 foot wide home.

Nice little walking trail around the lake except it's hotter than Hades and dogs aren't allowed.  Such hooey.

  

Our home from behind with nice views of our neighbors and power lines.  We are missing the "campground" experience when compared to the "resort" experience.  Except for one little exception....coming up--keep reading!

Because it’s 700 degrees here, we stay in the RV during the day with all the sun shades drawn and the AC continuously running.  The AC never turns off because there is no shade here and the sun beats in on the RV all day long from every direction.  And there’s not a cloud in the sky.  You always wonder what’s wrong when pulling into an RV park or campground when NOBODY is outside.  Well, here it’s the heat, we figured.  So we decided we would tough it out in our TINY home all day, watch a movie, drink some wine, play with the baby, do some work, and then wait for the sun to go down.  And wait we did….wait, wait, wait, wait.  

Home, looking back.  Wait, wait, wait. Swing, swing, swing.

Home, looking forward.  Still waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  Come on sun!  Set already!

Finally the sun set!  Hallelujah!  Even the chicken dog was chomping at the bit to get out of this thing for the great outdoors.  So we hopped outside, sat down, kicked back, (it was only 300 degrees now), and started to enjoy being outside.  That is until the mosquitoes discovered the only 4 living beings brave dumb enough to exit an air conditioned/bug free dwelling.  Ahh…the second reason nobody was outside.  And they started to feast.  I tried to tough it out.  Really, I did.  But after 5 bites on me and even Sean being attacked for once, we ran for cover back to our home, sweet, home.  All that anticipation of a nice evening in the great outdoors was squashed.  So Sean proceeded to cook dinner inside (he usually cooks outside on the grill)—and what is the only thing we had?  Tacos.  So now we smell like a dirty Mexican restaurant and we’re itchy.  But you know what we trade for loss of shady goodness and cooler temps?  Take a look below.  Pure bliss. 

Dear shower, you are the cleanest shower I have set foot in on this journey.  I don't even have to wear shower shoes when I step into you. (But I still do, cause you never know what kinda foot fungus these strangers might have.) I love you.  Please let me put you in my pocket and take you with me wherever we go.  Love, Jo

Just in case you need a reminder of previous bathrooms.  Note hole in wall by knob and chipped paint.

 Alright, so enough complaining.  I would like to rewind a bit to share some highlights of our Labor Day weekend.  It started with Metro Dash Atlanta right in the heart of the city. 

Awesome backdrop for the race.

Little did we know that Dragon*Con, “the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!"(dragoncon.org), was actually starting their parade on the street bordering our start/finish.  We are talking 35,000 people dressed up in costumes ranging from Star Wars characters, comic book heroes, Shrek characters, Spartans, girls in costumes that left nothing to the imagination, etc…  I even saw the Ghostbusters car.  It was CRAZY!  I mean these were 35,000 grown adults dressed up in costumes marching around.  As the competitors ran through the streets, the convention-goers jumped out the way and cheered them on.  In our survey feedback, instead of competitors being annoyed about being slowed down, they actually thought we did it on purpose and thanked us for the quirky distraction.  Thank you Dragon*Con, ya big bunch of weirdos!  (No disrespect intended if you’re into that sorta thing!)

Not quite sure where Shrek was.

10 points if you can figure out who the lady in white is. (besides scary)

And no parade is complete without the man on his ostrich.

Pinky and the Brain hours later having trouble hanging up the costume.

On Sunday, we got a big treat.  Sean’s good friend from his childhood days, Jen, invited us out on her boat with her husband and adorable 4 year-old daughter.  Our only problem was what to do with chicken dog.  He was invited on the boat, but since he’s scared of deep water, we were scared of what he’d do to the boat.  So Sean walked up to the camp store to talk to Marcia, our new friend, the campground manager.  He asked her if she knew of any kennels we could bring Cooper to for the day.  We technically could leave him in the RV, since the AC runs all the time—we were just worried about leaving him alone all day.  Marcia and her husband took a liking to Sean the week we were there, and she enthusiastically offered to watch Cooper, while she worked in the store.  So we had a date with a boat, and Cooper had a date with Marcia in the camp store.

I'm ready to go on the boat!

 So when it was time for our fun in the sun, I’m talking right to our doorstep kinda service.  They picked us up in the boat pretty much at our campsite.  We hopped on the boat, and headed out for some fun in a quiet little cove on Lake Lanier.  As soon as the boat started moving, Beckett passed out, despite the life jacket that he HATED wearing.

I'm on a boat!

When we arrived at the cove, baby and daddy enjoyed swimming around in the water.  Beckett even made a new girlfriend who made him laugh uncontrollably.

Ready to go swimming, Mama, but can you take this dumb thing off of me, please?!?!?

Can somebody get this thing off my face, please?!?!

My boys bonding

Beckett makes a new girlfriend.  A girl in every state is his goal.

After a great day on the water, we returned to our campsite and grilled steaks and veggies while slurping down fresh summer fruit.  And we can't forget the s'mores.  Oh, and of course we got Cooper back--and all the campers kept coming up to our site to say hi to him.  He was quite popular after spending his day in the store greeting all the customers.  And Charlie, Marcia's husband, kept saying something about Cooper eating a peanut butter granola bar.  Now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure he snagged it off the shelf as opposed to being offered it.  That's our chicken dog, always the gracious guest. What a perfect weekend it was!

So, I will be reflecting on the cool lake waters while I shower in delightfully clean showers and hide out in the RV to escape the Crematoria like temps. and blood-sucking mosquitoes.