I?ve spent the past five days or so hanging with my grandsons. I?m telling you, it doesn?t get any better than that. Now that they?re 13 and 15, it?s a whole new ballgame.
We tried to figure out how many consecutive years the Cameli boys have been here in Kansas for the Marion County Fair and we believe it to be eight and counting. Makes keeping a diary of events seem more useful now than ever.
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When they arrived last Tues?day, the first thing in the agenda was a trip to buy groceries. It took three of us to carry it in, with each carrying at least three bags full.
One of the purchases was a package of Chips A?Hoy chocolate chip cookies. This was at 3 p.m. By 7 p.m. the bag was empty.
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We found it most interesting that the royal baby was named after the male Cameli family members in order of age, oldest to young?est.
George Alexander Louis… whatever his last name is.
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Susie McEntire put on a great show to kick off the fair this year in Marion?s Sports & Aquatic Center. I hear she was treated so well by the folks of Marion County that she would like to do a return engagement. I?d vote for that.
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When I asked the boys what they wanted to do this year, they definitely were wanting to go geocaching again, and wanted to make sure we went to the artesian well, and back to the Burns Cafe and Bakery for lunch.
So we plotted out a handful of caches to find in that direction. This year I sprung for the official $9.99 geocaching app for my phone, which I would recommend if you are serious about geocaching.
The photo above is from our day hunting for new places as well as old. If you can believe it, the cache near the photo is named ?Left or Right? and the person who hid that one was extremely clever.
Among the caches we found (seven of eight for the day) were at Cedar Point, Nowhere Bridge and a couple of spots at El Dorado Lake, which was a spur of the moment idea.
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I had a piece of coconut cream pie at Burns Cafe?the last piece they had?and the boys didn?t have room for one. Actual?ly, I didn?t either but I ate it anyway.
I talked Louis into getting a piece of butterscotch to go, and by the time we got home it was consumed. When I started to eat my pie, Louis said, ?It ain?t healthy, but it sure tastes good.? I believe he read that on the wall someplace.
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We didn?t know we had to buy a park permit to go geocaching at El Dorado Lake. The park attendant didn?t know what I meant when I said all we wanted to do was find a geocache. He then asked what we did with them if we caught one.
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Using a GPS?device has its pitfalls. It told us that a driveway was a road but we met a car on it and it was actually the woman?s driveway. She said it happens often. So we turned around and hightailed it the other way.
If you wish to share your comments or ideas, my e-mail address is joel@hillsborofreepress.com.
