I Knew It Wasn't My Fault...........

Tuesday, September 29, 2009


Remember back in May when I blogged about a little "incident" that happened to me while driving to the marina for dinner?  If not, here it is again:  


"It was a beautiful evening.  The stars were out; the sun was setting and Liz was dared to go 90 mph in her old lady Toyota Camry.  Never being one to turn down a dare, she did as she was dared.  Unfortunately, the gas pedal stuck in the DOWN position and nothing she did could get the car to slow down much less stop.  Another unfortunate part of this story was she was on the road that leads directly into the lake......yep, the LAKE was getting closer and closer and she was running quickly out of road.  As she tried in vain to stop the car by standing on the brakes to no avail,  and passing the Marina going 90 mph, all the friends waiting on her to arrive there thought that the blur that just went by looked like her, but just weren’t sure.......until they heard the grinding gears and burning rubber of the car going into neutral.  They waited anxiously to hear the “splash” that they just knew was about to happen.  Fortunately, that never happened.  She got a glimpse of intelligence & turned the car off.  As she tried to turn down the volume of Chuck yelling at her and making sure her backseat passengers, Troy and Becky, were okay and hadn’t soiled themselves from fear, she discovered the floor mat had wedged itself on the gas pedal which caused a near-catastrophe.  And that was Friday."


Wellllllllll.........I saw an interesting tidbit go across the TV screen on Glenn Beck this afternoon that brought the whole incident above into focus.....and I quote, "Runaway Toyota Recall

In its biggest recall ever, carmaker warns that floor mat could jam accelerator. (Ya think????) DETROIT -- Toyota Motor said Tuesday it will soon issue a recall for at least 3.8 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to fix a potential (Did they say, "Potential"????) safety problem caused by a car's floor mat jamming the accelerator.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, meanwhile, urged motorists not to wait for a fix. (I didn't; I sold the car soon after) "This is an urgent matter," (again.....ya think!!)  said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. (Someone give Ray a raise!!)   "For everyone's sake, (especially the passengers in Liz's old Camry...) we strongly urge owners of these vehicles to remove mats or other obstacles that could lead to unintended acceleration." (and one last time....YA THINK???......)

Ha!  I knew it! I knew it wasn't my fault, although you couldn't convince those in my car that day of that.  They are still in therapy from the experience and always say a prayer before getting in the car with me........

P.S.  I added the picture of Glenn Beck just because........... I like Glenn Beck

We Learned SO Much Today!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 - Petit Jean State Park

Well, here we are on the last night of our mini-vacation.....hate to pack it all up and head home tomorrow, but we must.

Today was a good day.  Didn't do much; learned how the park got its name; really cool, romantic story.  Won't give you the massive details, but here's a quick synopsis:  Some young French dude named Chavet needed some land, so he asked the King of France if he could sail to Arkansas and check out the land and keep whatever he found.  The King said "Ya, whatever".  Now,dude Chavet was engaged to a beautiful girl from Paris who wanted to go with him to discover Arkansas, but he said, "No, its rugged out there...its no place for a girl".  (Such a male chauvinist!!)......Anyway, his fiance wouldn't take NO for an answer (you go girl!), so she snuck on board as a cabin boy which the other men called Little John or "Petit Jean" in french (didn't know I knew French, did ya?!?!).  When they sailed into Arkansas, the Indians met them at the river and said "Welcome to Arkansas!  What's up, dude?". Well, Chavet thought the Indians were pretty cool so he and his sailors stayed the summer.  Finally, the day came for Chavet, Petit Jean and his sailors to head home to France.  They told their Indian friends "Adios....we'll be back next year to take your land away from you" and boarded their boat.  But Petit Jean was feeling sick and they postponed the trip.  She continued getting sicker and sicker and within a few days, she was near death.  Before dying, she confessed her deception to Chavez and asked to be buried on the mountaintop.  Now her spirit hovers over the mountain named after her which explains the overcast weather we've been having.  THE END.

You know, Chuck and I have never been the "rugged" camper type, preferring instead to have a nice bathroom, microwave, refrigerator with ice maker with us at all times, so of course we had no idea what to do with this shepards rod-looking thing that we found at our campsite.  We kept looking at it, wondering why they would put a plant holder at a campsite.  Then it hit us........its a Pet Holder!!  I love this campground!!


P.S.  No Animals Were Injured in the Writing of this Blog......

Is It "Hump" Day??

Tuesday, September 22, 2009, Petit Jean State Park

Is it Tuesday already???  Seems like we just got here and our time is already half over.......

Well, we made it through a very rainy, storm filled night and woke up to beautiful sunshine!!  YEA!  We were afraid we were going to be stuck in the RV all day watching it rain outside and checking out old reruns of Bonanza.......but nope, nope, nope......it was a motorcycle day!!

We scoped out our ride for today and realized that yesterday we just went the wrong direction on Hwy 7.  We were still in search of the "Grand Canyon of the Ozarks" and figured that maybe, just maybe, by going North instead of South, we stood a better chance of finding it.  So we headed North to Russellville among dark, rain threatening clouds and then on towards Harrison........I researched the heck out of this ride and knew right where to go.......at least I thought I did.  We arrived at what was suppose to be, and I quote:  "Of all the roads in the area, this is the most memorable. Hwy. 123 has everything going on. You'll get your monies worth from your tires on this road. Road gets tighter near Mount Judea." Yep, that's what the website said.......but it was headed in the opposite direction from the map on the website.........so we just flipped a coin and turned left.  What a good choice!  Still wouldn't have used the phrase, "Grand Canyon of the Ozarks" but beautiful nonetheless.  As a plus, it had AWESOME curvy, twisty roads that put a smile on our faces!!  


Here's some of the highlights on CR 123:  1)  Three dogs in the middle of the road; two "getting lucky" and the other watching.  They wouldn't move nor stop what they were doing; we had to go around them.........all I've got to say, is those are going to be some bad, ugly babies in a few months.....2)  An awesome one lane bridge  3) The sweetest little Yorkie dog and his best friend, a mutt, walking down the center of the two lane road who appeared to be homeless or at best, living in the ghetto.  We turned around, pulled over and called him over to us.  He ran right up to us and was definitely, the ugliest little Yorkie I've ever seen, but oh, what a face he had.  I scooped him up and immediately noticed he had fleas running all over his little body....did I mention what a sweet little face he had??  We got him safely off the road and knew we couldn't keep him.....but oh, how we wanted to.....he deserved a good home.....and then, to break our hearts even more, he chased after us when we left......until he saw a grasshopper on the road and then he forgot all about us.


After a long day of riding, we finally made it back to the RV late in the afternoon and not a drop of rain hit our helmets all day.....


Murphy was only too happy to see us and decided to take out his built up frustrations out on Senator McCain in front of the RV and the world.  Our boy body slammed that poor man around for 30 minutes.....neighbors walking by were watching....other dogs were sitting around watching......it was embarrassing.  He had his leash so tangled up on McCain it practically severed his head.........took 30 minutes to untangle it.  


The day ended with Liz chasing Murphy around the RV to give him his Bronchitis medicine; went to stand up and hit her head on the bottom of the dining room table.  As I'm holding my head saying ouch, ouch, ouch (& yes, that IS what I said!!), what do you think my dear, sensitive husband Chuck had to say???  I quote, "Ohhhh....you almost hit your bald spot".  Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..........

Did You Know There's A New McDonalds in Hope, AR??

Monday, September 21, 2009 - Petit Jean State Park

Well, today started with the sound of a helicopter....then another.....then another......then another.....I think we're over the flight path of the helicopterport or something.....but we seriously had helicopters going over every 5 minutes for an hour or two.  No idea why.....

Then we headed out on the bike to what was suppose to be "The Grand Canyon of the Ozarks" according to MotorcycleRoadsUS.com.  THEY LIED.  Not that Hwy 7 wasn't beautiful; it was......but I guess we're just comparing "The Grand Canyon of the Ozarks" to....well......The Grand Canyon and that it wasn't.  But we did ride to Hot Springs, had ice cream, and then headed back a different route.

While in Hot Springs, we were enjoying our double dip waffle cone ice cream when we noticed out the window that there were people checking out our trike.  Now, we get this all the time.  We hardly ever go out when people don't come up and ask us about the trike....but this time, we noticed they were taking pictures of each other in front of the trike.....then as a couple in front of the trike.....then thumbs up in front of the trike.....we just sat there and enjoyed the show.  They finally moved on and we finished our ice creams and headed out to the trike.  Along comes another couple.......now, I'm going to try and be sensitive here when I say they were a little "simple" (see attached picture).  They were super nice; asked if I had been in Hope, Arkansas lately (why Hope, Arkansas.....I don't know) for which I said we had driven through there yesterday on our way to Petit Marie State Park.  The guy just said, and I'm not making this up, "Shucks, I guess you know about the new McDonalds then."  Well, I told him I didn't know about the new McDonalds but was that where they were from?  He said, "Nah, I'm from San Diego."  Turns out, she was from Memphis and he now resides in Oklahoma and they just got married last Saturday.  They were on their honeymoon.   But I'm so glad I now know about the new McDonalds in Hope, Arkansas.  I bet my friends Troy and Carla didn't know about the new McDonalds in their hometown, though.

Once we arrived back at the campground, Murphy and I decided to head out on the trike in search of a waterfall hiking trail........which we found.....only after a two mile hike.  A LONG two mile hike......  I discovered I'm clearly out of shape when an elderly grandmother and grandfather and their three small grandchildren pass me by on the trail.  That was humbling.....  But Murphy did great...quite the good hiker....it must come from all the exercise he gets body slamming his Senator John McCain doll......

They're predicting rain tonight and tomorrow......I wonder if it will ground the helicopters????

On The Road Again......

Sunday, September 20, 2009

On The Road Again....Just can't wait to get on the road again......yep, we're on the road again and so HAPPY to be traveling again!  We've not gone far....but far enough!!

We are in Arkansas at the Petit Jean State Park just northwest of Little Rock, and plan on staying here till Thursday.......a whole week without doctor appointments......YEA~~~~~~~ This state park has it all; waterfalls, great trails to explore, an RV spot with a view of the lake, TeePee's AND an Airstream convention!  We are totally surrounded by Airstream travel trailers..........and what a rowdy bunch of 80 year olds they are!

Anyway, today was a travel day, so pretty uneventful.  We'll see what kind of trouble we can get into tomorrow!

Our Munchkin Has Bots.....????

Thursday, September 18, 2009

Ok, this is not for the faint hearted......and this is not for those of you with a weak stomach or those of you prone to nightmares......I've given you fair warning, so don't blame me if you're grossed out.

Last weekend, our little munchkin, Murphy, had a nasty, no-good, very bad cough. We couldn't tell whether he was "snorting" from his nose or "hacking" from his mouth or both; we just knew he wasn't right. We did notice, however, that his Senator McCain doll was losing some of his innards and had some fluffy white stuffing laying around. We thought maybe he ingested some of Senator McCain and it was caught in his throat.

So we headed to Doc Reed, Mt. Vernon's resident Vet who works on everything in town from baby kittens to donkeys. His assistant, Pam, is definitely one of the most interesting people I've ever met. It took me about three years to figure out she just has a very very very very very very dry sense of humor (remember this fact; you'll need it later). As we explained to Pam our concerns regarding the possibility of Senator McCain's innards being stuck in Murphy's throat, she just sat there, stone-faced; no words coming from her mouth; I don't think she even blinked; she just stared at me.........After what seemed like 2 1/2 years, she shook her head and asked us to leave Murphy there so they could run some tests and check him out.

When it was time to pick Murphy up later that afternoon, Chuck and our neighbor's teenage son, Dylan, went to Doc Reeds to get him. Once they arrived home with our little patient, I met them at the door eagerly wanting to know what they found out. This is a somewhat paraphrased transcript of that conversation: LIZ: "Well, what did Doc Reed say was wrong with Murphy?" CHUCK: "I don't know." LIZ: "What do you mean you don't know?" CHUCK: "I couldn't hear what Pam said." LIZ: "What do you mean you couldn't hear what Pam said?" CHUCK: "I could see she was talking, but I couldn't hear her. You know I have bad hearing. She just kept saying something but I couldn't hear her." LIZ: "Dylan, what did Pam say?" DYLAN: "I don't know; something about Bots." LIZ: "Bots??????? What's that??" DYLAN: "I don't know; but I think our horses had it once." LIZ: "Chuck, why didn't you have her write it down?" CHUCK: "I don't know; next time you go pick him up." Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So, I spend two hours on Google trying to figure what the heck "Bots" was. WARNING: Here's where it starts getting gory......It appears that Bots is a "bug" that is caused from flies laying their eggs on blades of grass and cats and dogs get it on them by walking through the grass. This "bug" then gets inside the cat or dog and lays eggs or hatches or something, but it grows these ugly white worm things that we've all heard of called maggets.....yep.....our boy supposedly had maggots. And to make things worse, these maggots can come through the skin in the form of a HUGE zit-like sore....ALIVE. I know this, cause I watched the YouTube video showing these two Venezuelan guys popping these zit-like sores from their poor German Shepherd and dropping the maggots on the ground. They then proceeded to talk about it over a dinner of quesadillas. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Well, you can imagine who wasn't sleeping with us that night..............

The next day, I called Pam to find out whether this Bots thing was contagious to other animals, humans, pillows, etc. Here's my conversation with Pam: LIZ: "Pam, can you tell me more about this Bots thing that Murphy has? Is it contagious to other animals?" PAM: "What Bots?" LIZ: "Chuck said ya'll diagnosed Murphy with Bots." PAM: "Nah, I was just kidding about that. He's got Bronchitis."

So, there you have it. If it weren't for Chuck, I'd have nothing to Blog about.............

Nine Phrases Women Use

Friday, September 11, 2009

Remember my last post? Well, I'm still reeling over the "Rogaine" incident......which led me to think about how my sweet, innocent, typical male, scatter-brained husband Chuck, not unlike most men, lacks understanding on what not to say to a woman. This isn't going to be a "pick-on-poor-old-Chuck" blog, so the Chuck Etheridge Fan Club can settle down, BUT, he, like most men, haven't yet learned what a woman "means" when she says certain things. You can't always take a word at face value when listening to us women; so for this reason guys, I'm going to help you out. Check this out and LEARN................

So there you have it. I couldn't have said it better if I had produced the video myself!! Some enlightened guy finally got it!

The responses I received from the "Rogaine" blog were quite interesting. They ranged anywhere from "I've never noticed the bald spot on the back of your head, Liz" to "I have some time this week and thought you might like to update your "Doghouse"; it sounds like you may be spending quite a bit of time there." Quite interesting, indeed!

He Said I Needed "Rogaine"........

Monday, September 7, 2009


Ok, listen up MEN! Don't EVER tell a woman they need Rogaine to help reverse the progression of hair loss. Chuck knows not to do this now, so let his little mistake help you avoid one.

Picture this: We're at Dairy Queen. I am wearing ugly lime green work-in-the-yard pants and my now short hair is up in a itsy bitsy tiny ponytail. I'm looking BAD. We are sitting in the car waiting on our order to be brought out to us when Chuck, out of nowhere, says to me, "We need to get you started on Rogaine". As I felt my head take a couple of extra Linda Blair-Exorcist-Type turns around my body, I heard the words, "What Did You Say??" come out of my mouth. With as straight a face as I've ever seen on Chuck, he repeats himself, "We need to get you started on Rogaine". Had he cracked even a slight smile on that face I was about to slap, all would have been well. But he didn't. He was quite serious. He's sensing at this point that all is not well in his universe and proceeds to "explain" himself. Supposedly, according to Chuck, I have a "bald spot" down the back of my head that he, innocently, thought needed some help. As, in his own words, "I was just trying to help" and "It's really not all that bad" were flying out of his mouth, he scooted further and further away from me. That was the smartest thing he'd done since we arrived at Dairy Queen!

As I tried to explain to him, I don't have a "bald spot" on the back of my head. I have a "part" that likes to separate down the back of my head and my hair picks a side and goes there. I also have a spot on the top of my head where the neighbors' garage door hit me when I was 10 years old and the hair grew back "kinky". Strange....yes; Bald....NO! Errrrrrrr.....

So men, let this be a lesson to you. Don't ever, EVER, tell a woman she needs Rogaine........even if she does!! Just ask Chuck!