Happy 4th of July!

KABOOM!
As always, I went to the local fireworks show. It was, as always, pretty darned awesome. About a 20 minute show, set to music and ending with a 3-4 min barrage of aerial bombs. Can't beat that. My ears are still feeling a bit odd. I like to sit up fairly close. I refer to it as being in the "ash zone". The wind actually blew the ash to the side, away from me, but in other years, you get to feeling kinda gritty by the end of the evening. For giggles, I tried taking a few photos during the show. I discovered it takes the camera a while to process the image, which is distracting and kept me from watching the show itself, so I quit the photo thing and got back to watching. But this picture turned out pretty well, if I say so myself.

My neighbor:
As my time here in C-U winds down, I have found myself pondering what things I will miss when I'm gone. One of them in my neighbor. There is an Asian family who lives in the house on the corner. As far as I can tell, there are three generations living in that house. The patriarch of the group is a rather distinguished looking gentleman, who is often found puttering about in the yard. In the mornings, he does exercises on the back sidewalk. He always waves or says hello when he sees me. Occasionally, he'll sing to himself as he works. He once showed me a small garter snake he killed while he was trimming the hedge in the front of his house. I like that he just goes about his business and doesn't seem to care that the rest of the neighbors might think he was nuts to be doing stretches, knee bends and arm circles in his backyard. He reminds me a bit of the Dalai Lama--always rather serene in nature and smiling bemusedly. A fine role model to emulate. The matriarch is often seen in the evenings taking her grandson (I think it's a boy) for a walk. He's now large/old enough to toddle along for a block or two. I don't recall seeing much of the mother. Dad works quite a bit, I think. Nonetheless, I'll miss them when I'm gone. I sort of feel like leaving them a note saying I'd enjoyed living next door to them these past five years, but they haven't a clue who I am.

Mapping.....
Here is the beginnings of a list of places in I want to visit, based solely on the names of the towns: Spot, Hurricane Mills (nevermind that this place is hundreds of miles from any hurricane area....), Littlelot, Guys, Arp, Glimp, Gilt Edge, Bumpus Mills, Skullbone, Hanging Limb, Difficult and Nankipoo.

Moving plans:
I have decided to ship my motorcycles to rather than move them myself. I'm not going to bother with trying to secure them inside a truck. I can ship both of them on a trailer for under $500. That will be money well spent to not worry about the CBR getting damaged due to my inability to get her tied down appropriately (or having other stuff fall on her during the trip).

I have decided that I will drive down a small U-Haul for the closing, towing my car behind. I can move as many small boxes and small furniture things as will fit in the truck and get them out of the way. Then I'll have less to move when it comes time for the BIG furniture stuff. That would certainly eliminate any worry about having enough space for everything in a single trip. Need to reserve truck(s) tomorrow.