Author: trendfamily

Colin has been thoroughly enjoying playing percussion, and has recently started on the drum kit. He is very pleased with this Christmas gift. And it’s all electronic, so quiet practice session, which everybody enjoys.

We started the new year with a 10 km hike with friends at Lake Houston Wilderness Park. It was a lovely day for it and we saw 15 bird species.

Cliff is nearly finished his anniversary puzzle.

Hello. day 51 was the day we finally got home! this is the first post i’ve written at home since day 0.5. i wrote day 1 at our first campsite. yesterday was the last day on the road. we did the same things as always. so, this post is recap time! in total, we have traveled through, in order: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New york, Connecticut, Massachussets, New Hampshire, Maine, then in Canada: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Newfoundland and Labrador, and then all of those again in reverse. In Total: 20 States/Provinces! we have been a long time on the road, with 26 days of driving. the trip has been amazing, and I’ve really enjoyed writing these posts. if we go on a road trip again, i will write more, so stay attentive! this has been a really fun new thing to do, and i look forward to writing more in the future! for everyone mentioned in the blog, hello, and to everyone who’s reading it, Thank You. for the last time this trip, that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin 🙂

DAY 50! YAAAAAY! we are almost home! we will arrive home today. today is day 51, i am writing day 50, and i will write (in total) 52. yesterday was a great day. we did a lot of driving, and had less than it seems in fancy places. we were going a long way, and i am a bit stuck. the day was not a huge day, but i was happy. we did many things in the car. i played a lot of video games, including quite a bit of Minecraft. i am getting very excited and i feel like i am repeating myself and not saying anything useful. okay. yesterday we drove through Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee again, Alabama, and finished in Mississippi. we listened to the fourth book of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, called So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish. it is a reference to the dolphins, from book 1. if you want to understand what the heck i could possibly mean, then go read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. now. i’ll wait. okay, i’m kidding. it is really funny, just like the others. please read them. i played Minecraft while we listened, and i made some really cool structures. the day felt kind of long, and i took many breaks just staring out the window and listening to our book. we had a playlist playing some random songs, and we decided to put on the playlist of music from the Super Mario Bros. Movie. very little notable happened, apart from what i just explained. that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin

Hello! day 49! we will be exactly at 50 on the day we get ome! well, i’ll write day 50. it’ll be day 51. anyway! almost home! yay! yesterday was long. yesterday, today, and tommorrow are all going to be long days. but, we got aways! tommorrow we will be home! it started at an okay time. we got going, and we were off! not much eventful happened yesterday. we drve all the way across Virinia, and finished in Tennessee. we drove the longest straight path that was possible across Virginia. we didn’t stop at anywhere special, so i will explain what we did that day. i was playing on my phone and Switch for a while, and i also played some Minecraft. we listened to music, and we talked sometimes. the day was uneventful. i guess that i don’t have much less to say. that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin

hello. day 48 didn’t have as much driving, but was still nice. and also was nice because we didn’t have much driving. i’m not sure how this will be interpreted. it was a nice day anyway. the day started a bit early, because we wanted to go to Maryland to see some of Daddy’s friends. we drove for a bit, which was pretty uneventful, and once we got to their house, we stopped and said hello! we stayed there for most of our day, but still got to the campsite at a reasonable time. at their house, i met their dog who was named Ellie. she was very excited to se someone else, and we played a lot that day. we stayed inside for a bit, then went outside to meet their ducks.the ducks weren’t theirs as much as were living in their pool. the ducks had only hatched the day before, and they were all swimming and walking as though they were adults already! most of our time was spent watching the ducklings, playing with Ellie, and i played on my phone. after a while, we took Ellie for a walk down to a boat club nearby. once we got back, they offered if we wanted to norrow their jetski. we said yes, and they showed us how to use it. one of them offered to take me and Daddy for a ride, and we gladly took up that offer. once we got back from a really fun ride,they offered for me and Daddy to go out together, without them. wwanted to, but i was super thirsty, and i didn’t want to go up to the house and all the way back, so we took a break and went back up. we played some more, and then we had to leave. before we went, they asked me to name one of the ducklings. i named it Penguin, since when the sun caught it right it looked like a penguin. we left, went on the road for another hour, and got all set up for the night, just like any other day. that’s- not all actually. i want to see if emojis work here. 🙂. they do! cool! that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin 👾

Hello! day 47 of our road trip had the biggest stop for a while. we were staying where we were for one more day, so we could visit the Statue of Liberty! we got up kind of early (7:30), got ready, and went out. we were a bit late for the boat we were aiming for, but that didn’t matter. we got on the next boat, and we were off! the trip was relatively short, and we first visited Ellis Island, which was an immigration center for the US, but is now a museum. the museum had information about the settling of America, and about the immigration center. the information was complicated, and i couldn’t fit much of it in to here nor choose which things to write about. once we left there, we visited Liberty Island. Liberty Island is the name of the island with the Statue of Liberty on it. the Statue of Liberty is placed upon an old army base called Fort Wood, and that is located on Liberty Island. the Statue of Liberty was gifted to the US from France, in something of a birthday present, celebrating the day when the US officially seperated from Great Britain. it is made of copper, which seems strange since it is green. it is green because the copper oxidises, which makes it turn green after having been exposed to oxygen. we didn’t go up into the Statue, since it is also technically a building, but we walked around the statue and went to a museum about it. in the museum, there was information on the design, construction, meaning, and purpose of the statue of liberty. the official name is Liberty Enlightening the World. it is meant to celebrate freedom, and almost everything on the statue is a metaphor for something. that would take a really long time to explain. the most interesting thing to me was the torch. the torch was originally made of copper, much like the statue. however, the US altered it by adding portholes and windows to allow a lantern inside to shed light. they then changed the entire flame by swapping it for a lot of stained glass window panels, followed closely by adding a skylight. due to the windows, rain regularily entered the statue, and has now been replaced by a copy of the original design, covered in 24-karat gold. while we were visiting the island, daddy let me play some pokemon go. i opened the app, and then was almost immediately swarmed by a lot of Poliwag. Poliwag is adorable. it turned out it was a special day for catching Poliwag, and i caught almost 50! they were also providing candies, which is how you evolve pokemon in pokemon GO. i caught two shiny Poliwag, and since i caught so many others, i was able to evolve both of them to maximum form. Poliwag has two evolutions, and i evolved to both of them. it isn’t rare for pokemon to have more than one possible evolution, but it is normally controlled by, say gender or an item. i got some pretty strong pokemon, but i feel like I’m rambling. that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin

Hello. Day 46 of our road trip was pretty relaxed, which is nice. we drove a ways again, but it was much less compared to the day before. we drove through Massachussetts, a bit of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. the drive was uneventful, but fun. we did pretty much the same as we’ve done every other driving day. we didn’t have as much audiobook as normal, but we finished Life, the universe, and Everything. by the way, the next two books in the series are titled: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish; and then Mostly Harmless. we are making very good time through the books, and we are staying in a campground in Pennsylvania right now. once we arrived here, we got all set up, and then wennt to play mini golf! the campsite had a very good variety of things to do, but the thing we wanted to do the most was mini golf. the course wasn’t as fancy as others i have been to, but it was fun to play through nevertheless. daddy probably would have won, but i wasn’t paying much attention to the score. we got back to the camper, had some supper, and then we started up yet another Star Wars movie, which was called Solo. as the name suggests, it is about the early life of Han Solo and how he became who he is. it falls between episodes III and IV, since it is early Imperial era, although it falls before Rogue One. we haven’t gotten a huge way into it, but we are enjoying it so far. once we had watched a bit of the movie, we went to bed. that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin

Hello! day 45 of our road trip was another long driving day, but I’m still going to write about most of ot! i am not entirely sure why i’m yelling. anyway. yesterday we passed through Maine, New Hampshire, and finished off in Massachussetts. on the car ride, i watched some movies, we listened to the third Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, Life, the Universe, and Everything, i read, i played some games. Life, the Universe, and Everything is, like Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is about finding the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. not the answer, as they found that out in the first book. i will not spoil it, so if you want to know the answer (not the question) then please read and/or listen to the HItchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. it’s near the end of the book. i watched a couple of Star Wars movies, starting by finishing Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which we had started before, and then watched Rogue One, a somewhat sad but also kind of funny movie that falls between III and IV. for the reason of prequels, episodes I-III were made after IV-VI. then Lucasfilm made a bunch of stuff between the two, which is honestly some of the best stuff there is. the day was largly uneventful, and we didn’t stop anywhere interesting. at the end of the trip, i decided to prepare for my… uh… 5th(?) try at the Elite Four in my Pokemon game. in every Pokemon game, there are four Trainers at the end of the main storyline who pose the final challenge to those who collected all 8 Gym Badges. in the newest ones the elite Four wasn’t as hard, but there was a much more challenging fight at the end, and in gen 7 (Sun and Moon) there wasn’t the Champion. the Champion (or in the newest ones champion ranked trainers) is the final enemy you must face before you can claim that the title of the best trainer in the region. the Champion is normally a Dragon type trainer, meaning they train dragons, or at least has a finisher of Dragon Type. they are also often HORRIFICALLY challenging battles. the Sinnoh group are some of the hardest there, due to their strange type combonations. i have made it to the champion twice, and i only really did that by exploiting the dual types of the Elite Four. I’m getting off track, and i can probably ramble aimlessly about Pokemon for a good day or two, so that’s all for now. Bye! -Colin