Adventures in Mississippi

H spent a week at an engineering camp in Vicksburg, MS put on by the Society of American Military Engineers. He got to sit in a Black Hawk helicopter and steer a towboat down the Mississippi River. He visited Vicksburg National Military Park and some private engineering firms. His team won the camp competition due to his superior math skills, allegedly. The week ended with a catfish fry and shaking hands with a general from the Army Corps of Engineers. This week, he and Geo are in Florida with the Scouts, so the Southern adventures continue.

Whole Lotta Love

Geo played some Led Zeppelin at his drum recital, while everyone else was doing Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift songs. He also smuggled Snoopy into the recital. Unfortunately, his teacher gave Snoopy a shoutout but called him a whale. 😭

Five Below

There is this store called Five Below that keeps popping up everywhere around here. We love it because it has an amazing candy section. Every time we go out, we end up here to replenish our candy supply. 

Even Snoopy has gotten in on the action.

BolderBoulder

H ran the 10k again and shaved 12.5 minutes from last year's time. Way to go, Henry!

Buc-ee's

For some weird reason, M is obsessed with this new mega gas station that opened up about an hour north of Denver. Its mascot is a goofy beaver. She has already gone twice, each time buying way more beaver merch than we ever needed. We have a beaver mug, shot glass, wine glass, hoodies, t-shirts, and even swim trunks.

H and Geo are not impressed and deny that they are "beaver believers" like M. Geo refuses to put a Buc-ee's sticker on his cello case but did deign to wear his new swim trunks to his Boy Scout swim test. 

Albuquerque trip

Whenever we are going south on I-25, Geo says we should keep going because he wants to eat at Slice Parlor in Albuquerque, a pizza restaurant close to our old house. So we made it happen. Ostensibly, we were buying new instruments at Robertson's, but it was all an elaborate and expensive scheme to eat at Slice Parlor. 

We ended up staying in the same hotel as we did in 2017 when Geo fell and hit his head on the fireplace, necessitating three layers of stitches. 

Buh enjoyed coming back to his home state. He is showing off Geo's new cello case. 

Eclipse trip

After catching the 2017 eclipse in Casper, WY, we were determined to catch the 2024 eclipse. We picked Waco six months ago based on historical weather trends. Then the cloud cover models predicted better visibility in Indiana, so we pivoted to Bloomington at the last minute. We drove for over 15 hours, narrowly missing a dust storm in Kansas that forced us to detour, and driving through insane rain in Illinois. Big Peep, Snoopy, and Buh accompanied M, D, R, and Geo. H stayed home to do homework because he is a gigantic nerd.

We caught the eclipse at the science museum just down the street from our hotel. D set up his old Pentax with a solar filter and took some old timey photos. It went by in a flash, then we decided to head back a day early because the traffic wasn't horrible like it was in 2017. It was a crazy road trip and convinced us not to try to drive to the Go Congress in PDX.

Caught mid-dab

Some local humor?

Waiting for the magic to begin

Snoopy needs some eclipse glasses

Luckily, we have a ton leftover from 2017

Totality, shot from Geo's Google Pixel