August 18, 2026

Eeek! 74 days!

First of all - let us embrace our inner basic white girl and have...
a pumpkin spice ice capp & donut!!

I feel like I should be dragging out headstones & touching up paint, making skeleton repairs, etc.  
But then I'd have to put them back away since it's just too early to leave them all sitting out!

I have 2 more headstones in the works - I have them sketched on plywood but still need to find the jigsaw to cut them out.  And I have a gallon of really dark green exterior oops paint and a quart of gray riding around in the back of my car for those.  The green will also be used to touch up the bottoms of the rest of the stones - since plywood + many years of Michigan Octobers = needs occasional reinforcement.     

I will make a video of when we open the shed.  It hasn't been open since things were put away last November, so I fear to see what our resident groundhogs and other rodents have done in there.  It probably doesn't help that at the end of last season, I sort of just tossed critter skeletons & stuff in there.  
A glimpse of my handy-dandy notebook.  
It doesn't look H'ween-y but this is where I keep all my thoughts & ideas & reminders & inventory lists (blowmolds, etc.)

Speaking of adding to the inventory...  I took the granddaughter into Michael's one day. 
One needs a praying mantis skeleton!
And also a giant mouse with antlers.  

Oh, and in my last non-vacation post I was torn about getting the koala skeleton from Target or not. 
Got it!

Looking at dimensions online are always deceptive.  The description said 8 inches, so I was not expecting life sized.  But this is still somewhat bigger than I expected! 

I gave up on the Home Depot jackalope.  I asked about it on the HalloweenForum message boards and someone was able to find a list of what skeletons they came out with this year. 
Damn. 

Last night I was scrolling on YouTube and came across Home Depot and Lowe's walk-thru videos from someone called @HappyHaunting (thanks, dude!).  I was mildly interested in the axolotl but didn't see it in the video or even where it would be on the shelf, but I did see the "wild boar" - it reminded me of a tiny Pumbaa.

Watching those 2 videos - it seemed to me like Lowe's actually has the better variety of animatronics.  Just my opinion, since I don't use them anyway.  I don't know the difference in quality, either.   

I might still pop in Lowe's on my way home from work tonight.  Just to see if they have anything out.  There's a few small things I might want, but the world won't end without them. 

Later this evening, we'll be making a field trip to Menards (with the grands, of course)
Same there - there's a few small things that looked interesting.  I just like to see them in person. 



Here's one thing that I did NOT see in person before buying! 
Walmart's 60" deer skeleton!  
Kudos to them for it collapsing down into a somewhat small box.  
The box also fits a small-ish 4-year-old girl with plenty of room to spare. 
The larger 6 1/2 year old boy fit with less room. 
The rear legs are attached to the pelvis but everything else fits together (and comes apart) easily.  I didn't attach the wires to see the whole body lit up, but I did play with the switch under the jaw - it has eight different flashing patterns which could be neat.  I missed where it said that on the website.  I thought it was just solid on.  And it came with 4 big metal U shaped landscape pins, too. 
In comparison to the Spouse's SUV. 

This is going to fit nicely in the giant tote with the HomeDepot horse & pony. 
It's definitely much smaller (and cheaper) than the huge deer Tractor Supply had last year! 
 
The forward-most tine of the antler is also exactly eye-level with the Spawn - 
ask me how she found that out! 

July 30, 2026

Vacation as seen by Chuck - Part 4 - the Garfield Trail

Saturday 7/11 was our last day of vacation.  We'd stopped the night before in Gas City, IN.  I only knew about this place because it's usually where the Spouse stops on his way home from Arkansas.

Grant County Indiana is where the artist Jim Davis is from.  He's the guy who draws the Garfield cartoons.  So of course there's the Garfield Trail here where there are 14 different statues of Garfield throughout the county.
this is #1 on the brochure - each paw pad has a little tidbit about Jim Davis or Garfield.
We didn't go by numerical order, more like map order - it cut down on the back & forth.
"Cool Cat" Garfield doesn't have a plaque but he's standing outside the James Dean Museum in Fairmount.  There was a family coming out of the museum as we got there so I chatted with the mom and they were also visiting from Michigan!   
Glass Blower Garfield happened to be right next to City Hall, so he had to play on the tank!
I love looking up high school mascots for podunk little towns.  
This has got to be one of the best! 
This was in the pro shop of a golf course!
Which explains why you can only visit during daylight hours between April & November!
Another one we were happy to visit - it's in the Marion Public Library.
Since we went on a Saturday, we were concerned if they were open or not. 
They were open and the librarians at the desk didn't even give me & Chuck a second glance!
This took most of the morning, so we were on our way home after this!
Woohoo!

July 29, 2026

Vacation as seen by Chuck - Part 3

Thursday 7/9 we stopped at "the Squatch" for breakfast.  I had a sandwich called the Hog Wild - a toasted croissant with ham, bacon, cheddar, bacon aioli and bacon jam.  We also missed stopping at the "Haunted Grounds Coffee".  On the list for next time!  
On our way out of town, we stopped at the Christ of the Ozarks.  I had fully planned to leave Chuck in the car, since I ~DO~ know when it's inappropriate to take him someplace.... but the lady at the gate was highly entertained by him and said even skeletons need to be saved.... so I took him!

Fun fact (according to the Rocket driver from the last post) this statue was supposed to be like a foot taller, but with it being on top of a mountain, it would have needed an aircraft warning light on top of his head - so they cut a foot off the bottom to avoid that!
Lunch at Cracker Barrel....

We stopped that night in St Louis with plans for playing tourist the next day.
The Gateway Arch!
Talk about an optical illusion - it's 630' tall AND wide!
We took a tram ride up into the Arch.

We bought tickets for a specific time and when we checked in, they gave us boarding passes and we moved into the staging area and stood on our #1 spot.  After the safety briefing and watching a little video, we moved thru the area where they took our tourist picture and we went upstairs to wait by our tram car. 
They were showing videos comparing heights of various monuments & such.
Load up!
There are 8 cars, able to hold 5 people (very cozily) but only the Spouse & I were in our car. 
There are also north side and south side trams. 
The view out the car.
Once we got out, the cars were loaded and took them back down, unloaded & reloaded and came back up - that's when we loaded back up to go down.  You get less that 10 minutes at the top.  
View from the top
The red structure over to the left is Busch Stadium, home of the St Louis MLB team (you can tell I prefer hockey since I can't remember the name of the baseball team- I keep thinking the Blues but I know that's wrong!) 
After we came down from the Arch, had a snack and visited the virtual reality theater we went out for the Riverboat cruise on the Mississippi River.  

The Cardinals!  That's the baseball team!
Photo grabbed from here
since you can't see it from the dock!
We made the mistake of going and sitting by the water for a bit and 85 million people got in line before us for boarding.  So all the chairs on the outside decks were taken, so we sat inside the cafeteria area.  But large windows & a/c were OK by me!

"Ranger Nate" came by with activity books for anyone who wanted to get qualified as a junior ranger.
Then we got to go "get sworn in" and got junior ranger badges!

Once we made our way back to the car, we were back on the road.
Next stop, Gas City Indiana!