Great trophies for the hot eating contests…

Imagine our surprise….

…when we realized the monorail was ACTUALLY RUNNING.  Better yet, they were handing out ride tickets.  We jumped at the chance and enjoyed a snail's pace trip over the parking lot.  They delivered us right to the main entrance and dropped us right over top of Starbucks.  My kind of ride. ;)

Funny to see the monorail…

…they've been threatening to have this runnings since Julie and I first started going to Jungle Jim's back before the kids were born.  I think they bought it off the Cincinnati Zoo decades ago .  They were hosting part of the Weekend of Fire in the Oscar Station event center and I snapped this pic on the way in.  Turned out pretty good.

Checking out this beauty!

Julie and I decided to hit the Junlge Jim's Weekend of Fire between services last Sunday.  This was displayed in the car show that was part of that.  Pretty sweet machine!  The Ford Shelby Cobra.  He won the "most likely to get pulled over" award. Hahahaha.

It’s pretty inside of Sky

Lunch out after church at one of favorite spots.

Sadly, our favorite waiter moved on to school in the Carolina's, but we like all the other wait staff there too. :)

I like this little lighted welcome mat they use sometimes too.  Cool colors.

A cool layout of Jeeps over the years.

Can you tell which one is the same age range as Brutus?  Drop me a message or email if you think you know.

Matchy matchy knife, shoes and pants, haha.

Julie stumbled on a whole new lego series!

All the cool kids are doing it…

…putting stickers on their water bottles.  I figured I better use up some of my spare ones.  Since Maui was partly responsibly for me ending up with this Jeep, I figured I better give it a place of honor. :)

1,000 highway torture test completed

I think that's worth another "helmet" sticker? When I get to a dozen, I'll consider it to be good enough…

I liked the look of the doors from inside Warm Glow.

Fall is coming…!

I liked the vibe in their shop

They even made the Grogg with a French press.  Yum!  That might be the world's best cup of coffee? ;)

Highlander Grogg and a Pumpkin Spice caramel!

Coffee and candy store added to Warm Glow

 AND they just happen to serve Boston Stoker!

I finally stopped at Warm Glow…

I’ve driven by it soooo many times, but they added candy and coffee now so I finally HAD to stop. ;)

Some nice riverfront property I didn’t know we had… ;)

I randomly ran into this area when I stopped to get gas on the way home last week.  I wanted to explore badly, but honored their request to not trespass. 

Cleanup at the end of the day…

The Packout system makes it easy to get everything back to the truck!

Driving by the gummy bear factory

It makes me think of the boys being little every time I do.

More morning fog on the way home from Milwaukee last week

I even found a little climbing I could do.

Pretty easy, but still better than just jumping on the highway and heading home. ;)

Exploring a bit before heading hom

There were several gravel roads and trails in the baseball complex so I decided to see where they led.  I liked how the morning fog was still hanging over the pond.

I guess I need to level up my ATV game too…

Same guy.  Check out his Jeep themed ATV he has loaded next to his monster motorcycle.  

IF I ever had a motorcycle…

…it would have to be something like THIS!  It's a guy on YouTube that built it from scratch and he was taking it out on a test before loading it up to head to Sturgis.  Pretty crazy… Those off-road tires are bigger than what I have on my Jeep…!

Halfway through my torture test

At the end of last week, I had arrived at the complex where we were having our play hard event.  It had golf, baseball, skiing, and mountain biking among other things to do there.  This should be fun.

Tough day at the office…

 Our customer support engineer team from the Midwest gathered for a little golf and minor league baseball this past week.  It’s good to get together and catch up with folks as well as meet new team members from around the region.  All we could eat food and dessert plus a great ball game!

Meanwhile, back at home…

Julie's been crafting all kinds of cool earrings in her spare time.  She's come up with some pretty and cool designs.  

Baseball themed hotel decor in Milwaukee, WI

I like the purple highlights to the otherwise black and white pics.

Dual heavenly objects…

Sunrise, moonset. Halfway through my thousand mile highway test this past week. Slightly chilly at 49° but fun to catch the moon and sun in my view together.

Glad I wasn’t headed the opposite direction…

TWO accidents had the westbound 70 closed twice and backed up for a long ways, twice, right back to back.  I was still able to enjoy a nice, cool morning sunrise drive headed east.

Cool LP coasters

These were provided for one of the meetings in the space we rented for the day.

A pretty field of sun flowers along the way

Stating a 1,000 mile torture test this past week.

I decided I was ready to make sure Brutus was up for a regular highway road trip too so this week I took him along to Columbus and back Wednesday and headed to Milwaukee and back Thursday and Friday.  This was the first pit stop Thursday.  Let's hope he's as ready for 75mph as he is for trail crawling.  I think he is…

Helping John put the art in his early birthday present.

He's been getting into street fighter games and needed a new controller stick for his competitions.  You can customize the art under the stick and buttons so he and I worked on it together.  We had to disconnect all the buttons and carefully made it work.  It turned out great and we had fun in the process.  

The end of a long Andy day…

Sometimes you just have to throw your tolls in the back of the van and get out of there.  

I like the one random DeWalt blade on all the red Milwaukee tools… 

A new Star Wars themed background for work

We don't take ourselves too seriously, hahaha.

It’s fun to see some of Matt’s vehicles lined up.

Bombi, World's Largest Wrecker, Banana, Morvair, and the current project (Baja 1000 race Corvair).  It's fun how his boys spend so much time in the business with him too.

A new way to keep me company at work…

The boy’s Sunday School teacher, Chuch Colvin, retired

These are just some of the age ranges of people he's taught along the way.

Just some cool storm clouds building on the way home

No stickers…

I was nearby and thought I'd see if they had any stickers for my rig or desk.  They don't, but I did enjoy the view and the smells!

Julie planted these squash from some seeds

She got the seeds from squash she’d bought to use for dinner. 

They’re going nuts on the porch near her herb garden.  We had to add some lattice for them to climb and it’s amazing how far they go each day. If you look closely, you can see a young squash peeking around the corner on the upper right of the lattice. 

I just like these pics of the beefy undercarriage of Brutus my Jeep…

The goal of my build is to have something that drives nice on the highway all week and can still survive being bounced hard on the weekends.  It's a delicate balance…

Zoe is collecting all her bones…

And it looks like she might be trying to install a phone charger in her den? Dogs are advanced these days…

Andy’s my dealer for tools and knives…

He pushes them like a plug! Kind of fun to explore the new deals together (and to keep a list of what we'd like to get).

The new collection at the end of the day.

I figured I couldn't leave without a Young's Jersey duck a seven year old girl was offering everyone.  The one with the tag is one of my Jeep clubs, so I had to grab one of those.  It will be fun to put my Jeep toy together too. 

Their ribs were AWESOME!

And they even gave me a sticker so I "had" to add it to my rig… ;)

Mission Barbecue, my kind of Ohio vibe.

They have all the best soda selections!

I opted for a sip of Andy's Cheerwine. :)

Andy and me trying out the new BBQ in town…