On the Road with Ron

So what does one do when driving 21 hours by himself besides fighting boredom and trying to stay out of the way of aggressive drivers, come up with weird ideas. As I was driving down to Pensacola, I was struck by the number of dead deer I saw. Unofficially, I counted 10 and thought to myself that on the way home I would make a more accurate count of what I saw along the roadside.


Well, I did just that. While driving home, I gave Tammy a count of what I saw, and she recorded it for me. So with no further ado, here is what I saw on our 1260 mile trip from FL to CT traveling Interstate 65 to 459 to 59 to 24 to 78 to 75 to 40 to 81 to 287 to 684 to 84 to 91.

3 Birds. 5 dogs. 4 Cats. 1 porcupine. 5 raccoons. 9 skunks. 1 squirrel. 1 fox. 15 deer. 50 animals that were cremated beyond recognition.

Some items of interest I saw while driving were 1 gas tank, 1 ball cap, 1 purse, 4 five gallon buckets, and 1 Christmas tree. I couldn't travel a couple hundred of feet without seeing some sort of tire tread chunk lying in or on the side of the road. I also noticed that Subway restaurants far, far outnumber any other restaurant I came across. And lastly no trip count would be complete without the number of police cars seen -- 23.

If you would like more information on animals killed on American roads, check out the following link:

http://culturechange.org/issue8/roadkill.htm

A Trip of a Thousand Plus Miles...

As may be deduced from the last post, we spent the Thanksgiving holiday with Jaclyn at PCC so we could be in attendance at her Nurse Lamp Lighting ceremony. I drove the 21 hours - 1260 miles - down by myself. I arrived Sunday. I spent Monday at the Penscacola Naval Air Musuem, then checked in to our condo on the beach, and visited with the Beauchemins who were down with the VT Grandparents visiting PCC as well. Tammy and Lizzy traveled by air and joined us on Tuesday.

Lizzy attended Campus Days and visited several classes on Wednesday as well as spent the night with Jaclyn on campus. Tammy and I visited the PCC planetarium and the radio station WPCS. We all attended the Thursday Thanksgiving Day praise service, watched the Turkey Bowl,and then had Thanksgiving dinner on campus.

Friday was a lazy day with Grandpa and I surf fishing. After about two hours, a storm front came through and put an end to that. My cousin Tim and most of his family were up from Gainesville for a wedding and stopped by that evening for a visit.

Saturday we attended Jaclyn's ceremony and the Fine Arts play Our Town. We packed the vehicle that night for the long drive home the next morning which will be the subject of the next blog.

For Immediate Release

Jaclyn Kelly Gangwer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Gangwer, participated in the annual Nurse Lamp Lighting Ceremony held at Pensacola Christian College on November 27, 2010.

Many parents, friends, and professional staff from the various clinical institutions where the nursing students will receive their clinical experience were in attendance. The lamp lighting ceremony marks the beginning of the students' professional experience.

The program included an address by Dr. Karl Stelzer and the Florence Nightingale Pledge to uphold the ideals of the nursing profession.

(Pictures are to the right.)