Home Safe and Sound... Kinda!

Well, we made 'er back to town after a wonderful trip to TN. It's hard to believe the trip went by so fast. It didn't seem like enough time as there was still things I wanted to do but yet in other ways, it was long enough and good to be back.

The trip home went uneventful and perfectly smooth, for the first 3/4ths. of the journey. All layovers were caught and luggage arrived in one piece. All hell broke loose though just as we were about to land in Presque Isle. Now I've done my fair share of flying and Dad's done probably double that again. We were on a 45 seater and for those of you that don't know much about planes, that's not very big and are known for their turbulence on the best of conditions. Yesterday was far from, "Best conditions," with extremely high winds. The whole trip was rougher than most I've seen but I love the bumps and jolts, that cool butterfly feeling you get, borderlining on weightlessness beats driving really fast over a bump in the road any day. There's bumps and jolts but this was something else!

We were about 20ft. over the runway, just about to make contact when this huge sidewind comes along and threw us at about a 45 degree angle from the runway. I felt like I was in a toy plane in some kids hands. The crazy part is I was taking a bunch of pictures and some videos for Ashley and Cole. They've never flown before and I thought it would be cool for them to see as you can't quite describe flying to someone who has never experienced it, let alone to a 6 and 7 year old. Well, that landing was one of the videos I took. The video's rolling, you can hear me commenting a little as I wanted to explain to them what it was all about. Right after you hear me say, "Here's the landing," you'll notice a big jolt, the runway practically disappears and you'll hear me saying, "Oh my!" Oh my was an understatement but I now have two things going through my head, "We're going to die or at the very least become a plane crash statistic," and believe it or not, "Try not to sound too scared so you won't freak Ashley and Cole out while they watch the video."

I've since determined not to send them this video. Needless to say if I do, they'll be walking to Canada when they come. I will however put it up here for your perusal as I finally have a video that I don't have to worry about passing Darcy's inspection. Obviously none have passed inspection before... you've likely noticed there's none on here! For the video, click here...

We finally get off the plane, gather our luggage and then head for the border. Had I known that cigarettes could only be purchased at customs, I wouldn't have drug along the two cartons I did from TN. Future lesson learned there, the $21/carton ended up costing and extra $15/carton Canadian at the border. Other than that, all was cool, no strip searches.

We're cruising through the Plaster Rock at a very reduced speed and in four wheel drive as the roads are an absolute nightmare. Made even worse by the fact that we'd already seen 2 deer and four moose. We're just about to the Half Way Inn when we come around a corner and there in the middle of the road, about 20ft. ahead of us was a cow moose and her calf. It was one of those situations that happened so fast that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it yet was totally slow motion, almost like a freeze frame movie.

Dad slammed on the brakes but the joys of a truck, it just started fishtailing. The cow would have been on the yellow line (if you could see it but it was snow covered) with the calf on her left. There was enough room for us to squeeze between the cow and the ditch on the right and we would have made it too but moose being as stupid and blind as they are, she took one step to the right at the wrong time. POW! It's the only word I could use to describe the sound of us hitting her. It was like hitting a really large rock.

Her shoulder slammed in to the bush bar on the front of the truck and her head hit the windshield. She put some not so nice dents in the door and somehow took off the handle which is really odd as the handle barely stuck out. She hit that bush bar so hard that it slammed it back in to the front quarter panel of the truck leaving a perfect outline. We pulled over once we could get stopped and I hopped out to assess the damage. I looked back and couldn't see her or the calf on the road and Dad really didn't want to go back. I feel bad for that but being the animal lover that I am, I will forever have that image in my head that I'd rather take a big ol' eraser to. The main thing is, nobody was hurt and the truck, although sustaining probably close to $5000 in damage (by my estimates) came out of it remarkably unscathed. Gotta love those Chevy Silverados, they really are, "Like A Rock!" I just shudder to think of all the trips we made through the Plaster Rock with our Trans Am with the T-bar roof. We're extremely lucky. Matt, I'm also some glad you took the other way home. There was no blood (a few hair clumps) so I hope her and her calf are going to be ok. I am stiff today though, I must say!

The bush bar, notice the perfect outline on the quarter panel...

The door, cab and edge of the bed with some hair...

The windshield and mirror. Thank goodness she didn't smash out the windshield or driver's side window as we only passed a handfull (6 actually) of cars on the way home. It could have been so much worse in so many ways than it actually was...

Leave it to the Dickson's... we don't do anything unless we go out with a bang! Other than that, the vacation was a blast and couldn't have gone better. It was really great to see the kids again. I can't believe how much they've grown and how much they've learned since I've seen them last which was only 1.25yrs. ago. It was really tough parting with them, goodbyes are never easy. Sheesh, you'd think I'd be used to them by now.

Now, I finally got everything installed and uploaded from my new camera. I still have a ton of unpacking to do as it looks like my suitcase has exploded in my bedroom. I probably should get back to that but I'll most likely be going up to the Skidd's tonight as I probably wasn't making too much sense and definately wasn't taking in too much while there last night. 2.25hrs. of sleep the night before and a few naps on the plane, not to mention almost dying twice will do that to you. I know I still have to get caught up on stories that can't quite get summed up on e-mail. Apparently one story provided me with further dyslexia blackmail by Darcy (surprise surprise) blaming it on being tired, coming up with, "Tomorrow we're turkin' a cookie." - Darcy. Holy frig that's funny. That's up there with my favourites.

Since I got more pictures uploaded (not to mention video) I'll use this as a chance to put up some more. Enjoy...

I know I've told some of you about the cat my friends Jim and Cathy in TN have. For a refresher, just in case, he's hairless, just to prepare you. He's so cute with the most amazing personality of any cat you'd meet. His name's Ptrinko (a Russian breed) aka. "Trink."

This next picture's in a Harley Dealership in Murfreesboro. It's only a few years old and I always loved it there as there's a ton of bikes. I got myself a really cool camo hat there but this is what I really wanted...

A bike that was used in WWII. It was this that helped bring Harley Davidson back from the edge of bankruptcy...

Some of the Harley Dealerships have really cool diners in them and this was one of them. I loved these stools so thought it would be cool to compose a picture of them. Notice how they look like bike seats...

You may remember, "Princess," stories. If not, she's this cat that's not even theirs but has adopted them even though she already has a perfectly good home. Santa had to bring her something too, of course...

As promised, more pictures of the hockey game. This one's of a mad scramble, almost fight in front of the net...

This next picture's of the scrap that Tootoo was front and center for, notice the officials trying to break it up...

I took this next picture just a moment too soon, this goal actually went in...

This is a picture I got of Tootoo on the jumbotron when we thought he had the goal, turned out he didn't as it was deflectected by another player. He still got third star of the game though which I got on the jumbotron as well. That was a great source of entertainment. Being in the nose bleed section at center ice, it was right in my face...

This picture's of the sea of people or at least that's what it looked like when looking around...

Now, this next one is a video I took for the boys. The Nashville Predators Cheerleaders, click here... Sorry so short but I started recording, they finished... doh!

Some flight pictures. The clouds are always great entertainment for me, particularly when you get to watch a sunrise come up over them or fly through them...

This was just plain (or plane, either way, pardon the pun) too pretty to not put up with the fuselage, engine, blue sky and mountains in the background...

The clouds as we're starting to come through them...

And a cool video of coming down through the clouds. Click here...

And last but certainly not least, a family picture of us the night before we left. I thought it turned out pretty good considering I'm not really in to portraits. I prefer things that you don't have to worry about making sure they're looking at the camera, have a cool pose and are smiling niceley...

left to right, front to back: Cole, Ashley, Cindi, Mom, Me, Dad and Steve (Cindi's hubby to be)

Hopefully you've all enjoyed the pictures and it's made up for lack of updates while I was gone. It's great to be home again as I really did miss all y'all.

Ya know, it's really nice to be able to put up as many pictures as you want without having to worry whether each picture you add's going to take or not. Particularly when you have this many to put up.

As for the game, you'll find it in the comments section, as always. Feel free to throw out new ideas for games too guys as I'm running out of 'em. Off to visit Liss now!

'Til next time...