Thursday morning, 01NOV, we once again caught the
Edmonds/Kingston ferry to babysit the grandkids at their house in East
Bremerton, while parents Rebecca & Raymond both worked. Saturday morning we headed to the US Naval
Undersea Museum adjacent to Naval Undersea Warfare Center – Keyport, WA. (See our
BLOG from 5-11OCT09, Groton, CT, when Dan visited the US Naval Submarine Force Library
& Museum located there.) Note the
Groton museum says it is the only submarine museum operated by the US Navy;
whereas the Keyport museum is a US Navy Museum operated by a non-profit
foundation. As the Keyport museum
website says:
“The U.S.
Naval Undersea Museum was established on July 23, 1979, by the Secretary of the
Navy. The following year the Naval Undersea Museum Foundation was formed as a
non-profit organization 33333to raise funds to build and outfit a museum
facility. Construction of the 68,000 square foot building occurred in stages
beginning in 1985 and concluding with completion of the Jack Murdock Auditorium
in 1994.”
“The
museum opened as a preview center in 1991 while building construction and
exhibit development continued. In 1994, the museum transitioned from a preview
center to a fully operational museum.”
We were extremely lucky that this Saturday
was a STEM day (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) & there were
numerous hand-on exhibits that kept both grandkids interested for hours. In fact they didn’t want to leave. The two exhibits they enjoyed the most were –
1) Operating remote controlled submersibles
made out of PVC pipe & small electric propellers (all items you can easily
buy & assemble) to dive to bottom of pool, retrieve a plastic ring, &
return to surface.
2) Assembling different colored 1-1/2 inch by
1-1/2 inch cubes (marketed as CUBELETS) to make robots capable of many
different activities. The color of the
cube indicates what it does – blacks are power, red inverts, silvers rotate,
& so on, & so on. The cubes
connect via magnets & can be assembled in any fashion as long as the sides
connect evenly. So you can have a long
linear contraption; or something that is 3 cubes wide, 4 cubes long, by 3 cubes
high. But the trick is to assemble them
such that every cube is of use in you creation, & doesn’t work against
other cubes. One young girl created
something that was 2 cubes by 2 cubes by 4 cubes that moved forward by rolling
around it long axis? Dan checked out the
price of these cubes on line as potential xmas gifts; we will have to wait for
our lotto numbers to come up before purchasing anytime soonJ!
Besides the STEM activities, the museum also
has many interesting submariner exhibits (many of them hands on).
From there we proceeded to the small town of
Keyport for a late lunch. We dined at
the Keyport Mercantile & Diner. Half
diner, half store – pretty good. Sunday
morning back on the ferry & home.
Tuesday, 06NOV, & Wednesday Frank Morse Tractor Service
shows up for several small jobs on the property that are beyond the capability
of our tractor. It seems like every year
we have the need for either a trac-hoe or tractor with back-hoe. This year’s projects included gravel pad seating
area around the family fire pit, preparing foundation for garden shed
extension, gravel “patio” outside shop building, & several small &
large improvements to our gravel driveway/parking area.
Thursday AM, 08NOV, it was off to Evergreen Hospital for a heart
stress test on Dan. We won’t bore you
with all the medical history; but starting when Dan entered the Coast Guard
different doctors have not “liked” his EKG and/or sound of his heartbeat. This has resulted in stress tests over the
decades. As detailed in our last month's BLOG, our GP didn’t like the
sound of his heartbeat either, resulting in a detailed ultrasound & this
stress test.
Turns out that today’s modern stress test does not involve running
on an inclined tread mill? Instead you
sit in a chair, they inject radioactive dye, then inject the chemical
stimulant, & when the stimulant kicks in – they take pictures of the heart. Dan thought this would be easier than running
on tread mill until you almost collapse.
Not! When the stimulate takes
effect, it feels like you are running a marathon & you don’t want to sit
still, but you have to remain seated! All you are allowed to do is furiously pound your feet on the floor. After
that it was home for a real heart stress test – mowing, leaf blowing, shoveling
& smoothing gravel w/rake, chain saw, pruning, power trimmer, etcJ Eventual diagnosis was that Dan does not have
a “clean sounding” heartbeat, but no discernible problem(s)?
Early evening on Tuesday, 21NOV, we head to the kids/gandkids to
have early turkey day dinner since daughter Rebecca works Thursday/Friday/Sunday. So on Wednesday
we had an early turkey day family dinner (ham for main course), followed by family games. Thursday (turkey day) morning it was back on
the ferry back to our house w/grandkids.
We babysat them for a few days while their parents worked, &
returned them via the ferry Saturday AM.
Not much else happened, other than xmas preps, for the rest of the month.
