Category Archives: United States

Iceland, United States

Charlie’s first week as a Deutscher Dog…

As of today, our new rescue dog, Charlie, has been here for a week. Charlie has been spending his first week in Germany with Noyzi and me, because Bill had to go to the States on business. He was in Texas for a few days, and now he’s in Utah with his mom, visiting his daughter, son-in-law and their four children.

This is a pretty special visit for Bill and his mom, because they had little to do with Bill’s daughter or her older sister after Bill divorced their mother in 2000. His absence in their lives was not because Bill didn’t want to be their dad. It was because their mother decided to punish him by alienating the children and telling them multiple lies about him and the nature of their divorce. Through it all, Bill faithfully paid $2550 a month– $850 each for his daughters, and $850 for his ex stepson, who was also estranged from his father, who didn’t pay child support. Ex also has two more children with her third husband.

Maybe it seems wrong for me to mention this stuff on my travel blog, but I never miss the chance to have Bill’s back. People love to blame men when marriages fall apart. It pisses me off that his ex wife denied him access to his children, especially since I would have loved to have been able to have children with him. That couldn’t happen, though, for a few reasons. So here I sit… a dog mom to many and barely qualifying as a stepmom. I have only met Bill’s daughters in person once, and that was in 2003. The older one is still estranged, but the younger one came around a few years ago. Fortunately, she’s a lot like Bill. It’s a pleasure to know her, if only by courtesy of the Internet.

I decided I didn’t want to go to the States with Bill on this trip. I had a few reasons for not going. First, and foremost, I really felt like Bill needed more time to bond with his daughter without me around. He saw her last in March 2020, just as COVID-19 was messing up the world. That visit was just for two nights; it was the first time they’d seen each other in person since 2004. Just after he came home from that trip, everything shut down. Since then, she’s had two more children and moved to a new home.

I also wanted Bill’s mom to visit her. She lives in Texas, and hasn’t seen Bill’s kids since the late 1990s. Bill’s ex wife despises her, and cut her out of the girls’ lives in favor of Bill’s dad and stepmother. So this trip is the first time my mother-in-law is able to see her younger granddaughter in about 25 years. I thought it would be best, given that the trip would be pretty short, that they have some time together.

There’s also a much more selfish reason why I didn’t go. I didn’t want to sit on a plane for many hours just to sit in Killeen, Texas all week. I haven’t been to the USA since November 2014, and I want my first trip back there to be about seeing people I love. I don’t love Texas, even though I still vote there. My decision to stay in Germany turned out to be a good thing, given the recent computer SNAFUs in the US. Bill ended up being stuck in Detroit for hours after he landed in the United States. I’m glad I wasn’t involved with that.

My decision to stay home also means that I can be here with Noyzi and Charlie. It saves us money, and helps Charlie assimilate. However, Charlie really hasn’t needed any help assimilating. He’s fit right in and, aside from a few marking episodes, he’s even managed to be about 95 percent potty trained. He’s picked a spot to sleep in, and is now even using the expensive dog bed we bought in Jettingen for Zane and Arran that barely got used.

Charlie is quiet, cute, enthusiastic, and always super friendly. He was even adorable a few nights ago, when he slipped out the front door and started running down to my neighbors’ row houses. Fortunately, those houses are fused together, so I managed to corner him before he slipped through a crack in a fence near their garage. I wasn’t wearing shoes or street clothes when this happened, but luckily no one was any the wiser.

None of my neighbors have met Charlie yet, and he doesn’t yet have his Tasso tag. It could have been a real disaster if he’d gotten away. Somehow, I think he would have found his way back, though. He’s a street dog, and they are smart and resilient. He wasn’t scared or trying to escape. He was just curious and wanting to explore.

Every day, we’ve taken walks around the neighborhood. He’s getting to know his new environment, and he and Noyzi seem to get along fine. They aren’t total buddies, but they don’t fight or bother each other. Noyzi stays in his room, and Charlie hangs out in my office. I can’t believe he’s only been here a week. It feels like he’s been here a lot longer.

There have been a few very short play sessions. I think Noyzi’s getting a little arthritic, though. He’s been a little gimpy all week, although he does seem to be slightly better than he was a few days ago. We’re going to have him examined by the vet, probably at the same time we get Charlie checked in with a well visit.

My big plan for today involves going to the grocery store. I don’t often go, as Bill usually picks up stuff on his way home from work. So, even though I can walk to the store from our house, going there still manages to be kind of a production. I’ve really fallen into a pretty boring lifestyle lately… It’s kind of stormy and rainy today, anyway.

The good news is, we now have firm plans for Iceland. Bill has already wired the money for our bespoke tour with Iceland Luxury Tours. I booked business class seats on Icelandair a few days ago. So, from August 29-September 7, we’ll be visiting a place I’ve never seen, and Bill only got to see on a very short business trip in 2008. The trip is paid for, and we’re just waiting for the big day to arrive!

I thought about flying on Lufthansa, so we could score more frequent flyer points, but the flights available were significantly more expensive and operated at a less optimal time. Icelandair isn’t in the same rewards system Lufthansa is… but the good news is, it is in Air France’s program. And although I’m in Air France’s reward program, I don’t have any points! It’s been ten years since I last flew on Air France– and that was to go home to Virginia for my dad’s memorial service. So here’s a chance to try a new airline to me, and to score some Flying Blue points.

I’m really looking forward to seeing Iceland. I’m sure it will be enchanting! I can’t wait to take and share the photos. I also have a feeling I’m going to enjoy the people. This tour is costing a bundle, but so far, it’s not as expensive as last year’s Scandinavian extravaganza… That was a longer trip with more people, but less personal attention than what we’ll be getting in Iceland. The tour company gets really outstanding reviews, so I’m sure we’ll be in good hands!

Well… that about does it for today’s post. I look forward to later in the day, when Bill wakes up and tells me about his first day seeing his family. I look forward to hearing from his mom, too. I’m sure she is absolutely delighted!

Edited to add: After I went to the store, I took the boys for a walk, and they met Isabel, our very young and pretty neighbor. Noyzi absolutely ADORES Isabel, and Charlie was happy to meet her, too.

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camping, United States

A random travel memory from my youth…

Warning: this is kind of a horrifying story about a trip I took to the Eastern Shore when I was about ten years old. It was originally posted on the Blogspot version of my Overeducated Housewife blog. I would put it on my newer WordPress version of that blog, but when it comes down to it, this is a travel story… and this blog needs some love. So here’s my mortifying camping story from the 80s. It’s not for the faint of heart!

The featured photo is of a 1977 Volkswagen Westfalia camper van. My dad had one exactly like it back in the early 80s. In fact, this guy’s video below shows a van that looks very much like the one my dad had, right down to the green plaid upholstery. Wonder if it also smells like pancake syrup, like my dad’s van did… When the top wasn’t popped, I could swing on the bar used to push up the camper top as we cruised down the interstates. In those days, kids didn’t have to be strapped down.

Here goes…

Back in the early 80s, when I was about nine years old, I went with a friend to Annapolis, Maryland.  I stayed with her and her grandparents for about a week.  Then my parents picked me up and we drove back to Virginia by way of the Eastern Shore.  I seem to remember stopping in Chincoteague and Assateague, where there are wild ponies. 

Being a horse crazy kid, I was pretty excited about visiting there.  My dad was driving an ugly, bright orange, VW van with a popup top.  I remember spending the night in it at a campground in Maryland.  The next morning, my dad decided he wanted to go swimming in the pool.  I went with him.  Unbeknownst to us, the pool was closed, but for some reason, we were able to access it.

After a few minutes, my dad got out of the pool, but left me in the water.  Next thing I know, I hear this old man yell “Hey!  What’s that kid doing in the pool?!” 

I quickly got out.  He confronted me, asking what I was doing swimming.  I told him my dad had gone swimming and I was with him.  The guy said, “Oh, so your father can’t read either?  There’s no swimming when no one’s around!”  In retrospect, I realize that guy was unnecessarily mean to me, but at the time, I was really humiliated and upset.  I’m sure he yelled at me because he was worried about liability, but as a young girl, I didn’t know about such things.  He made me cry.

Mortified by the man’s sharp words, I ran back to the camper, where I refused to sit on a seat, lest someone see me.  My parents took me to breakfast at a Hardee’s.  Because it was late morning, I wanted a cheeseburger, but they weren’t serving them and my dad said, “This is one of those places where you have to order what they want to serve you at the time they want to serve it.”  

My parents hadn’t seen the guy yell at me, and when I told my dad about it, he kind of blew it off.  I stayed upset, though, because it was his fault I was in the water in the first place.  And hell, he hadn’t even gotten me out of the water when he decided to get out himself.  As an adult, I realize how stupid that was.  Nowadays, someone might have called CPS.  Fortunately, the only harm was my extreme embarrassment and shame.

Later that day, we went to Assateague and Chincoteague. I remember going to the beach at Assateague, marveling at how much less crowded it was than Virginia Beach usually is. We drove through the national park and picked up a book about the wild ponies, though I don’t remember if I actually saw any. I did have a friend in school who owned a Chincoteague pony and used to win a lot of awards with her in barrel racing. Then later, we visited a water slide… the very first one I had ever been on in my lifetime, at that point.

It was a pretty cool slide and I couldn’t wait to get on it.  As I was about to sit down, I slipped and went down backwards.  I was terrified, but apparently going down backwards impressed a bunch of people, including a cute teenaged boy who congratulated me for my “bravery”, even though I had only gone down backwards because I’d totally slipped and fallen.  The water slide fame made up for the scary encounter with the campground guy.

Over the years, I remembered that trip so fondly. Even the campground was kind of fun… at least before the guy yelled at me. I haven’t been able to visit Chincoteague or Assateague since then, but I always fantasized about going back, and maybe riding the slide again.

Don’t read any further if you’re squeamish…

Years later, I wondered about that water slide. Out of a sense of nostalgia, I went looking for evidence that it still existed. I finally found it when I read a story about the man who had owned the slide at a water park he and a friend had opened called “Wet & Wild”.

Turns out he was a sex offender named James Jenkins, and years after the water slide closed, he got caught molesting a 13 year old girl. That, in and of itself might be shocking, except for the fact that Jenkins was so upset about his uncontrollable urges to molest little girls that, in 2003, he decided to castrate himself with a razor while taking a shower in jail. He’d asked a guard for a razor so he could be clean shaven for court the next day. The guard had hesitated, but then gave him the razor. Jenkins put an apple in his mouth to muffle his screams and tied a shoelace around his scrotum as he removed his own testicles. Having cut them off, he then flushed them down a toilet in the jail.

Needless to say, I was shocked to read about that.  At the time that I found the news story, it was the only thing I could find that mentioned the 80s era water slide in Chincoteague that I remembered so well.  I don’t think the slide is still in existence.  I’ve looked for pictures or mentions of it.  I’m pretty positive that Jenkins’ slide was the one we visited because, at the time, it was the only slide in the area.  

So, on that trip to Chincoteague on the way home, not only did I get yelled at by a scary, mean old man at a campground, but I also visited a water slide owned by a pervert.  And not only was the guy a pervert, but he later actually took it upon himself to cut off his own balls with a razor and flush them down the toilet. The up side to this story is, Jenkins later said that castrating himself “saved him” from his obsessions.

And all those years, I thought it was the mean guy at the campground who was offensive.

I’m glad childhood is over.

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