Tales of the Ordinary Days

Our evening view Okoboji Day Two is now in the bag. And it was a good one. God gave us sun from morning to night. God also challenged my patience a bit with many calls from back home to interrupt the day. Home ownership issues never go away and contractors, many times a pain. But after a run and some thoughtful reflection, I had to separate myself. We all fall into this. Annoyances in life that pull us down when we should be enjoying life. The bottom feeders will always be circling, wanting to pull us down with them. It is so much easier to go down and wallow rather than fight to join the fish swimming in the sun. I chose to fight for the sun and it was well worth it. Our crew of seven meandered back to Arnold's Park for more rides and water fun before boarding the Queen II for a great tour of this beautiful lake. Captain Bill was our skipper and a fine one at that. Grandpa Larry, Garrett and I enjoyed the hour-long descriptive tour. The kids relaxed and slept for mos...

The infamous Kingman pool a few years after the incident noted below A friend once described an upset mother by saying "she's like a mama bear protecting her bear cubs". Yep, been there, done that. As much as I would like to say that I've always kept my cool and been the exception, my mother bear mode has kicked in on many occasions. One of these occasions occurred on what was to be a casual night of swimming in Arizona. In hindsight, I would label this incident 50% mother bear syndrome and 50% a turf battle with a lifeguard drill sergeant. The boys and I were visiting Mom & Dad in Kingman, Arizona. Their cousins from Las Vegas joined us for some relaxed family fun. In the heat of the Arizona summer, the decision was made to enjoy some evening swimming at the local public pool. In my mind, this should have been an everyday occurrence at the Kingman pool; visitors to their pool who weren't local residents with a pool pass. I quickly found that our ...