Cost Free Vacation, almost

I am back at work today after being on vacation all last week; at least as far as work is concerned it was a vacation. I went to Arkansas to sort through 30 years of slide pictures my parents had taken while with Mid-America Mission and Woodland Acres Bible Camp. I looked at and organized about 1500. About half of those have been marked for scanning. Probably about 100 were actually scanned. I have about another 1000 still to go through. (Not to mention that I think there is more in another big box.)

What has this got to do with a cost free vacation? It was a trip down memory lane going back to the mid 50's when I was a 'mere child,' including one summer in Canada. That cost me nothing. It certainly did a good job of blowing the dust and cobwebs out of my memory. Some was successful, some were not! This trip mainly cost me gas, and a donation to the camp for housing me for the week. It was a very interesting trip bringing back a variety of people, places and things we did:
• like 4 blow outs in Ohio one year when driving back to MO from NY,
• like a visit from our grandparents when we lived in western Kansas,
• like the first time I wore a formal (piano recital),
• like visiting Hannibal, MO (boyhood home of Mark Twain), on our return trip home from NY state.
• like the Christmas program when I was one of the sandmen, (I still have the costume),
• like getting the chicken pox when we (my parents and I) were at a camp for the summer,
• like visiting the Niagra Falls on the Canadian side, -& taking a picture of yours truely, holding her skirt up at the sides so you could tell it was a full circle skirt!,
• like going to Wooley Creek for sunday school (yup, that really was the name of it)...


I also got to see a high school friend, DC. We went out to eat and tried catching up on news. Our High School class will celebrate our 40th year anniversary next year. Hopefully we will be able to get together and do something. It would be nice since we have only had two other reunions: 20th and 25th! We have already lost over 13% of our class-almost all of them tragic deaths: accidents or suicides. We have had one die of cancer.

My daughter who is mentally handicap went with me to Arkansas. This past week was Junior High week which fits in perfectly for her social level, even though she will be 30 later this week. I didn't see her much except at meals, so I knew she was having a good time. On our way home she was getting settled down to sleep while I drove. She raised her head up and said "I had fun" and put her head back down again!!! I could tell she did - she was exhausted! Sunday afternoon she slept about 5 hours and still went to bed at her usual time. They also had crafts that she could do. She was thrilled with her creations!

Now maybe this week I'll have some library news to report. We-4 (library staff) are taking a field trip Friday to visit other libraries in the area. That is always enlightening and educational to see how other libraries do things. It gives you good ideas.