On July 9th we went to my parents lake house on Lake of the Ozarks for a few days. Todd spent lots of time fishing and came back with a couple of prize bass late one morning.
A proud moment for the Captain!
I took Todd back to Springfield on July 14th to catch his flight to Colorado. The following day he attended the wedding of one of his longtime childhood friend’s sons.
Dave Clarkson & family at the wedding.
On July 16th Todd and his dad took off for Gunnison, CO to spend a few days trout fishing and enjoying the company of mutual friends. Looks to me like all they did was eat corn!
One of the evenings while Todd was up in Gunnison they went to dinner up in Crested Butte at Joe & Annie’s home. After a wonderful dinner, thanks Annie, they were headed back through Crested Butte and ran across this bear that was just roaming through town. Kids on bikes were following the bear and finally he had enough and climbed a tree in someone’s front yard.
Then came the morning of July 18th when I learned that my only niece, Jennifer, had been injured in a diving accident. My parents and I saw her briefly at the hospital in Houston, MO (my home town) just as they were loading her into the ambulance to take her to the hospital in Springfield. So we went back home to put some things together and headed for Springfield.
When we were finally able to speak to the surgeon we learned that Jennifer had crushed her C6 vertebrae, breaking her neck and paralyzing her from the chest down. She has use of her arms but not her fingers (no grip and/or motor function), at least not at this point. Jennifer just turned 27 on July 7th. Such a senseless tragedy!
One reason this was such a blow to Todd and myself is because Jennifer is the closest thing to a daughter we have. She came to live with us when she was in high school and graduated from a high school in Springfield, MO. Since then we have been very close. She was finally able to come visit us on the boat at Bay Springs and Pickwick Lakes last fall and we had a wonderful ten days together.
When Todd learned of the accident, he cut his trip to Colorado short and flew back to Missouri. Needless to say, it was a very stressful and heart-breaking time for all of us. Nila & Everett graciously told us that we were welcome to stay with them as long as we needed to and to make ourselves at home. I don’t know what we would have done without them!
Cleaning homegrown corn on the cob with Nila on the back patio. My younger brother grew the corn in his garden and brought some to the hospital when he came to visit Jennifer.
During the next couple of weeks, I spent a lot of time at the hospital with Jennifer, offering whatever support and assistance I could. Todd also spent time with her and documented a few of our activities.
One of my duties was to comb out Jennifer’s long hair after her shower, something only I could do to Jennifer’s satisfaction!
Jennifer’s occupational therapists help her apply makeup. What great guys! Jennifer said the one on the left reminds her of Dr. Phil.
Jennifer works at performing a task during occupational therapy.
While I was hanging at the hospital, Todd had several opportunities to go fishing with some of his former bass fishing buddies. He and his partner, Mike, even took second place at one of the tournaments they fished!
Johnny Creech & Mike Duncan, thanks guys for getting me out of the hospital and back on the water!
The next day a former colleague of Todd’s, Saba, who lives and works in the D.C. area, came by the boat for a visit. She & Todd walked over to the seafood market to buy some steamed shrimp and we had a fun evening of food, drinks and conversation. But again, no photos to share. The Captain has been slacking off! Ah, but the Captain went on Saba’s Facebook page and copied a photo of Saba and her best friend Baci.
On Thursday Todd went to visit the National Museum of the American Indian while I stayed on the boat to take care of some paperwork for Jennifer. That afternoon we met at and toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. What a sad testament to human nature!
On our final day in D.C. we went to the National Museum of Natural History where we meandered through all three floors and watched an IMAX presentation called Wild Ocean 3D which documents the incredible feeding frenzy that takes place in the oceans of South Africa as billions of sardines migrate up the Kwazulu-Natal Coast.
For me, however, the best part of the whole museum, and probably the most interesting display I saw while in D.C., was the museum’s amazing collection of minerals and gemstones with their distinctive shapes and brilliant, varied colors. We even saw several exhibits from Joplin, MO, a small town just west of Springfield. And we got to see the 45.52-carat Hope Diamond. It was really a phenomenal collection!
And so ended our sightseeing in Washington, D.C. We left the marina about 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning and covered more than 65 miles over nine hours to anchor at Swan Point for the evening. Sunday we traveled another five hours to a nice anchorage up the St. Marys River just below Tippity Wichity Island.
Our goal is to be back in the Chesapeake early next week and continue north to Solomons, Annapolis and Baltimore, MD. I suspect one or both of us will be flying back to Missouri some time within the next month so we need to position ourselves relatively close to an airport.
In the meantime, we are looking forward to a reunion with Bill & Ana aboard “Knot Tide Down” who we last saw in Portsmouth, VA, on June 13th. At the time, we thought we were going to reconnect with them a few days later. Just another example of how “boating” and “plans” don’t mix!
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