The Great Loop ( Louisiana & Arkansas Style)

A big part of leaving for new adventures is leaving behind family and friends you love.  Luckily our family tolerate our sometimes adventurous portions of our lives.  Our friends mostly being in the boating community get it.  This is a report of our great trip with family.

We had debated about getting a SPOT or inReach or some other satellite tracking device.  All have various reviews, pros and cons.  We settled on the SPOT for simplicity and cost. The Spot allows you to set up custom messages.
https://www.findmespot.com/international/

We noticed other friends who got it at the last minute and really did not play with it to figure out the device before leaving.  Thus leaving it hard to track and weird default messages.  The SPOT has an on/off button. A custom message you set up (Imagine is on the move!). A button to activate the tracking. An Ok button that you can customize also ( Imagine is done for the day). A reach out for help button, I am in the process of programming a custom message. (Imagine is OK, Still Sailing) Then the infamous S.O.S. Does anyone really know what that means?  Save Our Ship!  That goes to a monitored facility who can send help.  We also have an EPIRB for a special kind of EMERGENCY! Like I am stepping up and off my boat into the life raft.  As we visited family we set them up on the email list so they automatically get notifications.  It also lets you set up a private personal page where people can track you live.  The post to Facebook are only a snapshot of that moment and cannot track you from it.

The adventure begins leaving Kemah, TX for Jonesboro, LA to visit James Paul, Hailey, and two of our grandchildren, Cason and Cadie.  Of course, on drive we have to stop by Rabideaux Sausage Kitchen at the Kinder exit off I-10 to get some dinner and fresh hot cracklins. The pure pleasure of eating fried fresh pork skin with just a hint of pork meat is just hard to describe how dang good it really is.

We finally arrived at 10:30 PM and the grands are still up!  It has always been such a joy to see their little faces and excitement to see us.  Cason is our little Dump Truck, being all boy. He plows through everything and has no fear, but has the kindest heart.  Cadie (Cadie Bug) for us is just an angel.  Her pretty blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair is just so cute.  She loves to talk and have you read to her. We taught Cason how to play WAR and Go Fish and he loved it.   James is a Deputy Sheriff in their Parish and has done well with them.  In this day and time it is a very hard profession to stick with.  James is very compassionate and is fair with people.  This is why we are so proud of him.  Our daughter-in-law Hailey is a RN at the local hospital caring for the small community they live in.

Next stop, Searcy, AR to visit Ken's dad and step mom.  Dad, who is a gadget person like his son, tracked us on the SPOT most of the way.  He has been retired for several years and always seems to have a new hobby or project he is messing with.  He also works at his church out reach center food pantry a day or two every week.  His wife Joyce still works, but we were lucky to be able to arrive on a day when she was off for a couple of days.  My Dad is one of the kindest men I know, and no matter where I have been, what I do, he has always been there to support me.  Joyce has been such a great influence in his life and the love they have for each other is obvious.  The one thing that stands out about Joyce is she can always find the good in people. While there we got a great home cooked meal, finished up a couple of small projects I needed some woodworking tools for too.  It was a great visit and we will miss them till we come back for another visit.

The next leg is Carol's mom and dad,s in Mtn.View, AR, and I must say the temperatures were much better than the 104 in Houston area. During the drive we drove by our old lake house on Greers Ferry Lake, and stopped in Shirley, AR to get some good ole purple hull peas to put up.  Since we have moved to Kemah they have retired.  They built a very nice home on top of a mountain 12 years ago. We spent several hours a day sitting on their front porch watching the hummingbirds. They had a really awesome bountiful garden and we got to eat lots of food out of it and even bring some back. Daphne (Carol's mom) had a foodsaver and it convinced us to get one.  I must say it is the BOMB!  We canned 27 jars of peas, and 4 or 5 bags for the freezer.  We have garlic, peppers,and okra and tomatoes.  When we left Arkansas we had 2 dogs I had brought back from the Bahamas. Abby and Gabby, both potcakes, they are just the coolest dogs.  We struggled what to do while moving to the boat.  I could not just coop them up on the boat and limit them to that.  They really have loved living at the lake.  So Carol's parents offered to take them in.  We send them money for the food and vet cost and they have 40 acres to run around on.  They really are happy dogs, and I can feel good that we made a good decision for them.

Next stop is Conway, AR to visit Brad, Rachel and our other two grands, Savannah and Emma.  It is just so amazing a short period of time can change grand kids.  Emma, the youngest, has really come out of her shell and really likes to put on a show for you.   Savannah is in the 2nd grade and has grown up so much. She has been loosing teeth left and right. Both girls enjoy dance and gymnastics class. We got to see their new house plans and property by the river where they are going to build.  It is fun to see how excited they are about building their first house.  While in Conway I ran by my old ambulance station were I worked for Metropolitan Emergency Medical Service for 20 years. I had worked from an EMT to Paramedic, Field Supervisor, then Operations Supervisor, and Tactical Medic.  Greg Thompson, Director of Operations, really was a great leader and inspiration during my tenor at MEMS. I enjoyed visiting with some of the people still there and some new ones starting in the field of EMS.  We got lots of hugs and kisses from the grands, but it was time to move on to the next stop.

Our next venture is Maumelle & Little Rock AR to visit with Grandma Stokes, Aunt Judy and Jim, John & Rachel, and Virginia.  We arrived at my Grandma's house before lunch where she prepared us a light lunch.  She is 92 years old still lives alone, and still drives on rare occasions.  If you get into a card game with her, well just plan on being beat.  My Aunt Judy & Uncle Jim have always been a strong influence in my life and even at 53 they still are.  My son and his wife just got a new home that we visited.  He is such a hard worker and will never fully understand how proud of him I am. He was the first Ekenseair to graduate college and with honors.  My daughter, Virginia, graduated a year later and has started a career actually using her degree! Is that not crazy these days.  She has found a company that appreciates her work ethic and is doing great. The final stop in Little rock was touring the new MEMS headquarters in Little Rock.  It was amazing to finally see it, and it is a model to what a great ambulance headquarters should be. I am proud to have been a part of it for so long.

The trip back to the boat is the longest trek about 7 plus hours of driving.  We have the last minute projects to get finished up. So, as most of you know by know  Hurricane Harvey has done a bit of changing to our plans.  It is going to make landfall south of us in Corpus Christi. It has turned into a significant storm. For us it is mostly a rain event and I a lot of it.  The earliest we may be able to head out will be September 1st.  Time will tell.  We are well prepared and can run our generator for over a week if needed.  We provisioned for our trip so we have food for weeks.  We have 110 gallons of water so we are good.

Harvey 2017