Drifus' Travels – Well he thought he would

Well a new very minor change will now take place. I will add the subject or subjects I am going to blog about to help all of my readers find stories of interest easier. (All 0 of my readers)

So before I moved to St. Charles I started an account on 3 of the most popular online dating services. I was completely honest with what I wrote or selected about myself. I included a picture of myself that was less than 60 days old. I was as honest to a fault, I checked the things I highly desired and things I did not. Then the fun (cough, cough) began.

1) Match.com – Good looking site would seem to have potential, but in my opinion it’s the worst. Within a few days I was approached by a lady who was “supposedly” a model on a shoot in Nigeria and lived in Cheney, KS. Ok flag number one was Nigeria, while if you do some searching it seems as if this is a modeling capital of some sorts. Flag number two Cheney KS, yes there is such a place, but why would a “model” live in the middle of no where.

Anyway I bit, knowing I had nothing to lose as I am smart enough not to send money to anyone! So we chatted a few times and she was supposedly still living with her boyfriend/husband who would beat her and put her down etc, etc. Shortly into the conversation she began to speak as if we were going to be the perfect couple and live happily ever after. OK PUT THE PROVERBIAL BRAKES ON NOW!!! She wrote to me in broken English and was going to make me the happiest man on earth. Oh and she was returning the following weekend and would fly to Kansas City to meet me, after she got paid for her work in Nigeria. Are people on the Internet still this dumb? (Don’t answer that please). While dealing with her I found a few websites that people on online dating sites found to be frauds posted pictures and descriptions of them.

I don’t understand why people bother to join dating sites and make contact with X amount of people and that’s it. Sure I know they are trying to scam money from some, but why don’t the owners of the site do anything. I know, I know, it’s all about capitalism. I “joe” owner will take your money and enjoy my life while you think you might have success on my website. O by the way, I ran into the same person I mentioned above 2 weeks later via Yahoo messenger and she gave me basically the same story and didn’t remember ever talking to me though my screen name never changed.

Heck I sent out maybe 20+ “winks/emails” nothing came back.

Overall the “matches” are off, you say you do not want a smoker you will get a few, specify an age range you will be sent them but they are looking for someone older or younger that you. Now I am no database genius not do I have a doctorate’s degree in relationships etc., but I know I could match people better than this site any day of the week.

2) eHarmony – Another good site that looked promising. Again I sent out emails, winks and 2 replied with no thanks and the others I will assume they are not real people. I did get a wink from a lady in St.Charles where I was moving to in a month. We had some great conversations, things went well. I moved to St.Charles and we went out on a date. Though I didn’t feel a connection we still talk once in a while. This was a good and positive experience. I did not try this sites “ID proofing” but it looked promising and maybe it would weed out the fraudsters.

3) Yahoo Personals – Heck why not I use them for email, news etc. Again sent out winks and emails and nothing came back. The lady I met on eHarmony has a profile on Yahoo as well.

Ok I know I am a little overweight but do workout, I have all of my teeth, I shave and wear nice clothes etc. So why when I say I am looking for fit, slender, athletic, a few extra pounds, all I get in response to my profile are exceptionally overweight, wouldn’t be attractive if she lost weight women. Do I have a sign on me that says I love trolls? Am I carrying a bag of flour that I am unaware of? Now don’t go off with your “jeez he a shallow SOB” I am not. I have dated tiny women (4’10″ 90 lbs) to “full figured” (5″10 180). But now that I am older I am looking for someone I would not have to use a crane to take them to the hospital. I am looking for my last partner for the rest of my life and don’t want to spend the next 40 years of my life watching TV and ordering out. I like to work out, ride my bike, hike in the woods, travel etc.

Women !!!! If you do not want to do the “bar scene” or are shy, online dating is completely for you. Just be honest, have very current pictures of yourself showing more than your face the right man will find you.

Men and women – we need to report fraudsters they are taking away our time and effort and money during our pursuit of happiness.

Look at the photos closely, do they really look like the same person? Look again and again, pretend your being tested as a witness. You will find the fakes. If you post a photo maybe put your “dating” email address as a watermark on the photo so it can’t be hijacked.

For me I will spend my money looking for a smokeless bar and buying drinks for people. Come to St. Charles, Mo, I’ll be the nice looking guy who will treat you like your special.

Ok now on to the weather, well I guess to celebrate 9/11 mother-nature decided to send us a hurricane that would pummel south eastern Texas and then make it’s way up to the Midwest. This has resulted in some fun rain and wind storms and now flooding. Bad weather and living in an RV is always a fun time. You wonder what will happen, will there be a leak, will the awning (if let out) rip off the side of the RV and smash into a neighbors half-million dollar rig etc. In 3.5 years I can say I have only encountered one storm that made me a little weary, of course it was the first bad one. Since then I just taking the rocking as a way to sleep, if it gets a little violent then I just sit there for a minute and access the potential for a problem and then back to whatever I was doing. Winter overall is probably easier, make sure the water lines are heated and that there is enough propane for house heat and lastly no nasty trees that can fall on you. Rain I feel is harder especially if the winds are really moving, flying debris can be an issue, rain can travel to places you hadn’t thought about.

Well I had more thoughts earlier but they have left. So C ya 4 now.

Well the move for the most part is complete. We are at the new rv park, Sundermeier RV Park. This is a very nice park, built in 1999, there 106 lots all with 30/50 amp full hookups and some cabins. All of the lots are concrete with 2 water outlets.
Here are some pictures of us leaving Merriam Kansas and setting up in St. Charles, Missouri.

Well another birthday has come and gone. This year for my birthday Beth and her 2 sons and I went camping. We went to Ozark Outdoors, we rented a cabin due to the potential for rain or hot temperatures.

Well before I get to that, we delivered Linc to her office in South County. Since we are moving to St.Louis in 2 weeks we decided to take 2 cars down and leave on behind. On the way to Ballwin, Mo we stopped to see Steve (youngest) at his place of employment. This was a surprise to him as he has not seen me since my haircut (minus 18+ “). So we visited for a while and told him that we would meet him at his grandparents later that night. Next we head to the in-laws house and visit with them. We also had dinner with them, which consisted of rotisserie pork roast, a salad, potatoes au gratin. After dinner we sat in the family room and chatted for a while. Eventually they headed to bed, Beth and I stayed up for a while and then I headed to bed. She decided to stay up as the oldest (David) was going to get up at about 10:30pm (he works nights). Well they visited for a while and eventually Beth turned in too. The next morning Beth and I headed to iHop for a birthday breakfast for me. After this we ran a few errands to get things ready for camping. We went back to the in-laws to pick up Steve as he wanted to run some of the errands with us. We went to Uncle Sams surplus shop and got some groceries. After this we went back to the in-laws again and picked up Linc and headed to South County to drop him off and stop by P’Sgetties . We picked up some sandwiches and then called the boys and had them meet us at Highway 141 and Highway 44. We all filled our tanks and headed to the campground.

Well we arrived at the campground about 5 pm Friday and began to setup camp. After camp was set up we started a fire and started in on the P’Sgetties sandwiches, potato salad, beer and wine coolers etc. We were 2 cabins away from a large group of people who had been playing some good music and thought we would stop by and say that we had been enjoying it. Just before this Beth and David got into a discussion about smoking and smoking weed. Eventually this conversation ended as each has their point of view, Beth’s is that smoking is not worth the risk of getting cancer, David’s is that he won’t get cancer and if so they will have a cure by the time he is diagnosed. Well towards the end of this discussion David talked about that weed makes him feel good and that he likes this feeling. Well apparently David has some resin left in his pipe and wished he had a little more to enjoy. Beth said that our neighbors more than likely had some, David didn’t believe it. Beth and I headed over to thank them for the music and mentioned that her oldest son had some resin leftover. They said that it would not be a problem if he came over to smoke too. Well we headed back to our camp and told him what they had said and he was surprised and elated. Well Beth, Steven and I headed to bed at about 11 pm and David went over to the group 2 doors up from us. Well I heard the door at about 3:45 am and it was David coming home from his “adventure”. Well I fell back asleep, at about 4:15 am there was a commotion that woke me up again. Apparently David had to go to the restroom and when trying to come down from the loft (with no railing) fell and landed on his wrists. Beth woke up in a split second and checked on David and he thought he was alright and went to the restroom and then back to sleep. (It seems to me that a bottle of Captain Morgan and weed don’t mixed) Later in the morning David’s wrists didn’t seem to be better but worse. Well then another discussion of whether or not David should go to the hospital and get x-rays at least. This took a while, his reasoning not to go was lack of insurance, it would cost money etc. Beth finally convinced him and said that she would pay for the visit. Well they headed off to the hospital with Beth following David in her car. Well about 5 hours later Beth came back and gave Steve and I the news, that one was broke and the other fractured and that he had headed back to Ballwin, Mo.

Well while Beth and David were gone Steve headed to the Paddlers Grill and had breakfast. I stayed in camp and had some doughnuts and a root beer. After breakfast, Steve went for a walk and I again stayed in camp and decided to whittle something out of some sticks laying around in camp. Steve came back and had some long sticks with him and he began to whittle them. I ended up making a bow and arrow and he made a spear. Beth arrived back at camp and had stopped by the office and moved our float trip time to a later time.By then we decided to have lunch and then head over to the loading area to get on our way for the float.

The float trip was a lot of fun, it was a 5 mile float that for some reason only took about 2.5 hours… While on the trip, we tipped twice, nothing serious mostly funny as there wasn’t much of a reason as to why we did. There were a ton of people on the river, mostly rafts which slowed things down. We saw some people jumping off the cliffs and rope swings. Well we arrived at the take out point and decided to stay at the beach and enjoy the water and weather. Steve headed to the beach before Beth and I as we were putting things away back in the van. We headed to the beach and saw Steve down the river a bit. We eventually floated down to him and enjoyed the water.

While we were in the water we struck up a conversation with a couple on the beach (Tracy and Chad). We talked about all sorts of things and ended up talking about David and our neighbors. This seemed to spike their curiosity as were hoping to score some weed. We all stayed at the beach for a while and they shared their beer with us. After a while we offered to have them come back to our cabin and stay with us as they didn’t have a tent (forgot it) and only had air mattresses. They followed us back to our camp and we showed them around and introduced them to our neighbors. We all headed back to our camp and invited them to dinner as we had enough, since David had left. So I started grilling pork steaks, corn on the cob, potatoes and baked beans. While I was cooking dinner Tracy and Chad were talking to our other neighbors and became social butterflies. Finally dinner was ready and they decided that they didn’t want to intrude and left. (Well we figured that what they really wanted we didn’t have, drugs. So they moved on) Chad seemed ok, he supposedly drives for UPS and didn’t seem to have any issues. Tracy on the other hand works at a UPS office and was a mess according to Beth. Apparently Chad had cheated on her and she was having all sorts of issues. (maybe drug withdrawals??)

Well Steve, Beth and I had dinner and talked about the weekends events and then turned in for the night.

Sunday morning, we all got up and Steve went back to the grill for breakfast, I again had doughnuts and Beth had a PSghetties sandwich. We broke camp, Steve headed to Ballwin, Mo and Beth and I headed towards home and did some geocaching on our way home.

The drive home was uneventful and we arrived home at about 9 pm.

This trip was more or less a celebration for us boys as our birthdays are either the end of July or mid August. Heck a birthday I probably won’t forget……

Coming soon, the 8th Annual Kansas City Geocaching Picnic and “The Big Move”. Stay tuned….

Well as usual it’s been a while so it was time to post. Well we are moving to St. Louis at the end of this month. Beth, now that she has been given more time (cancer in remission) wants to be closer to her family. She put in for a transfer and got it immediately. We talked about it, I felt that she was going to move whether or not I would/could. Long story short I put in for a transfer and was given the OK. We will move to the Sundermeier RV Park in St. Charles, Mo.. It’s going to be hard because we will have to come back to get our things from the storage units. I will probably get my stuff sooner as I have found a cheaper unit in which to store my things.

Well today I did something I have never done, I received stitches, 13 of them. It’s every RV’rs nightmare, I walked into a slide out of my neighbors RV. The worse part was that I hit the edge of the slide. The 3 inch gash starts towards the top of my head and goes up and back.

I went out to start my car and get it warmed up and let it de-ice itself. I got it started and got out of the car and took maybe 2 steps and “crack”. My first reaction was “damn that hurt”. I put my hand on my head and the next thing I know blood is running down my hard. So I continue back to my RV and a drop of blood hit the porch. I make it get in the RV and grab a paper towel and put it on my head. I call to Beth, the second time she can tell by my voice that something is wrong. She comes down and I tell her that I hit my head and remove the paper towel. I see how much blood is on the paper towel and 3 drops hit the floor, I now realize that the situation is a little more serious. Beth gets excited and worried at the same time and immediately wants to take me to the hospital. She starts to yell “get in the car, go get in the car”. I realize that I feel fine and am not dizzy so I take my time while she gathers a few things. I go outside and turn off the car, check the corner of the RV it hit and noticed a small plastic plate that was cracked and loose, later we checked and saw hair and skin attached to that corner. Well just in case your a little twisted, yes I have pictures and a movie of the stitches being put in.

With Stitches

Without stitches