Just Prior to Old Stone Fort State Park - Family Reunion at Thompson's Station

So my plan is for my next three posts to go backward in time starting at our stop before going to Old Stone Fort State Park

Family Reunion Period

We spent time with Jane's family in Thompson's Station,TN just south of Nashville. Jane's sister lives there and it was the destination for all her siblings and parents for a small family reunion. We were the first to arrive on Friday October 29th. Keep in mind small is relative since Jane has six siblings. Jane's sister has a small farm so we ended up staying in our camper by their barn while we were visiting there, about a week and a half.

The first week was focused mostly on family activities with me biking or doing bike related activities intermittently. A sister from Kansas sans her spouse and her brother from the military with his spouse were next to arrive on Saturday. A brother from Thailand arrived and the parents from Florida arrived on Sunday. During this wave of arrival activity planning for the week was evolving with the next arrivals being one brother and spouse on Thursday and another on Saturday.

Sunday evening a local niece and her spouse came for dinner and a bonfire. A picture of the bonfire is given below. The fire is just starting with plenty of embers flying around so the benches closest to the fire are shown vacant.

Subsequent activities were group painting where each person paints the same picture (https://www.paintingwithatwist.com/how-to-throw-a-paint-party/), visiting the town of Franklin, visiting nearby farm stores, watching movies "The Greatest Showman" and "Cruella", playing games (cards, bb gun target shooting, archery target shooting and corn hole) and culminating with an early Thanksgiving dinner family on Saturday. The picture of people at the dinner table corresponds to the Thanksgiving meal. You can see part of me in the lower left. In the picture of Jane's siblings and her parents (without the pumpkin paintings), she is kneeling in the middle of the front row.

Post Family Reunion Period

While I was packing the bikes up in NH for our travels I noticed several of the frame welds on my mountain bike were cracked. Since the frame welds had already been repaired once, I decided and Jane agreed it was time to order a replacement bike. One problem I ran into is mountain bike wheels have changed size from 26" to 27.5" or 29" since I bought my mountain bike 29 years or so ago. Another difference of modern mountains bikes that I ran into is they use through axles. These changes required changes to my camper bike storage method. The replacement bike I ordered online arrived at the beginning of our stay so I ended up assembling the bike when I got some time during the family reunion. The storage modifications occurred after the reunion and required a new wood board and fork mount (the wood board attached to the dinette bench underside with velcro).

At our previous destination, we ended up going down a back road with enough low branches that one of them took out the roof antenna. Also, while driving to Thompson's Station, a rock got picked up by a truck in front of us on the interstate. The rock ended up hitting our windshield and putting a star in it. So two activities after the reunion, were replacing the antenna and using a windshield repair kit on the star.

I sat out the large group painting activity, but Jane and her sister decided to do another session after the reunion and I joined them this time. The first group picture was of a pumpkin scene and the second was of a Christmas tree scene. Yes, as is evident there is a reason I became an engineer and not an artist.