A Turkey On The Side of the Road

Last week I saw a turkey on the side of Winhall Hallow Road. I was in Vermont in the car when my mom saw it.

My Mom said, "Look there is a turkey."

I said, "Where?"

She said, "There."

I said, "Where?"

She said, "There, on the side of the road."

So I pushed myself up with my feet out of my seat and I saw the turkey bobbing its head up and down. Its head looked like a turkey head - it was brown and had feathers. He was about up to my knee. But we don't know if it was a he or a she.

My Mom said, "Hey, lets get a closer look."

When I opened up my door the turkey ran up through the bushes and it took off and flew. It flew like it never flew before. It flew up over the trees. It flew up over the houses. It flew up over the hills, over the clouds. It flew higher then a turkey ever flew before.

Where did it fly? We don't know.

But I hope that turkey will live a well and good life.

And I hope it won't get caught at Thanksgiving but if it does, I hope I will be the one who eats it. Although I doubt it will.

Le Mix

A pretty long while ago when we were driving from New York to Atlanta we stayed at a dumpy McDumpy hotel (ed. Note in southern Virginia). It was terrible, it looked terrible, it was terrible. The bed sheets felt rock hard, the bed felt rock hard. When the hot water was on full blast it felt like the cold water was on full blast. The colors were terrible it was like the mess if you got a bald eagle and smooshed it and squirted green goo on it.

But looking at the bright side, after that we went to our friends in Atlanta, the D’s [Ed. Note real names not used for reasons of Internet privacy / security] who have a boat on Lake Lanier. We got to ride on a tube towed behind a jet ski. At the start it was freakishly scary, I mean we were going about 28 miles per hour and it was really scary and our friend Mary D. was doing all sorts of things like pretending to do the “can can” and lying on her back without holding onto anything. Then I got the hang of it and started doing all of those things too, though my Mom was a scaredy cat. My friends, Nick, Matt and Zack like to do even more scary things – they like to put four people on it when it’s only supposed to hold three people and they flip it. The people closest to the handles will hold onto the handle and everyone will push forward and the whole tube will flip. My favorite move was the one where you crouch down and jumped and the one where you go backwards with no hands and let the waves take you by surprise.

The day before I went on the tube behind the D’s jet ski, I actually rode on a jet ski for the first time at some of my dad’s friends, the R’s. They also live on Lake Lanier but far away from the D’s. I liked riding in the front of the jet ski. There were two, a red one made for going fast and a yellow one made for bouncing. The yellow one was my favorite but the red one was also fun. I liked to see how fast we were going on the red jet ski which had a speedometer – the fasted I went was 51 miles per hour. I got to ride on the red one with Mr. R. and my mom and my dad, and then Mrs. R gave me a ride on the yellow one. We bounced a ton (boing, boing, boing) and then we sped up and jumped really high waves. Jet skiing is so fun, it’s even more fun than real skiing I have to admit. We were at the R’s on the third of July and after the jet skiing and dinner we got to watch the fireworks at night from a boat. The fireworks were really cool. One of them was a sideways smily face.

Me on the red Jet Ski with Dad

Me driving the yellow Jet Ski with Mrs. R.

For the last week, I’ve been going to a camp called Camp Kingfisher at the Chattahoochee Nature Center. My counselors were Scott and Lucy and we did all sorts of things – We went swimming every day and my favorite part of lunch was not the food but the “bug juice”. They always made some yummy juice cocktail that they called “bug juice”. And there were all sorts of different colors, orange, blue, yellow and pink. We went on hikes, we went to the aviaries, the “disco” center (ed. note, the Discovery Center), all sorts of fun things.

On Thursday I was on TV – Fox 5 news to be exact. They came to camp and were filming us doing all sorts of really fun things. I was filmed in the disco center and we looked at all sorts of things from nature and we were asked to pick out our favorite thing that we found and tell Fox 5 news what we thought it was. I chose a really cool shell that I said “it looks like a pen and the water is like ink – put the shell in the water and you can write.” I was also filmed getting my face painted.

[ed note, below are the two videos. Simon is wearing the orange shirt and appears near the end of each one]

First segment with Simon talking about shell (simon starts at 2:01)

Second segment with Simon getting face painted (Simon starts at 2:10)


Then on the last day of camp, which was today, something very bad happened. We were doing a mini competition and the first activity was tug of war and I was in the front. The rope was too short so we had to tie two pieces together. My counselor Scott was holding the rope together so it didn’t fall, but then it wasn’t the knot that broke, but I snapped a part of the rope and I got a bad rope burn and started bleeding on one finger. But I was a trooper and didn’t cry although I couldn’t join in for the rest of the activities. Today was popsicle day and everyone got a popsicle except if you picked up a piece of trash you got two, but I got three – I got a normal one and then my counselor Scott offered me a second one and then one of my friends in my group said “here take mine.”

Coming soon to Simon’s Blog – Apple pie across America.

Tune in very soon to watch. Here’s a picture of me with my first slice, at Greenwood’s in Roswell, Georgia.

Cracker Jack

Yesterday I had my very first Cracker Jack. For those of you who don't know what a Cracker Jack is, it is a special type of food that is carmel coated popcorn and every packet comes with a special surprise inside.

Cracker Jack is very yummy and they are like a supreme delicacy although the surprizes are not like plastic bunnies because they always are flat to fit into the box. For an example a pencil topper. A pencil topper goes on to your pencil and has a picture on it and when you twirl the pencil the picture will move.

My great Aunt Jean introduced me to them. She is 92, almost 93 and she lives in the Versailles - when I say the Versailles I don't mean the Versailles outside of Paris - I mean an apartment building in Philadelphia.

Now I have to go. Ta ta for now.

The Banksy Exhibit

For those of you who don't who Banksy is, he is a graffiti artist. And last Saturday I went to go see his exhibition in Bristol, it is at the Bristol City Museum and it is called Banksy V Bristol Museum.

We got there on the train and I went with my friend Dom, my brother, my mom, my dad, my brothers friend, and our friends Peter and Juliane. First we took a taxi to Mathews house, then Dom's house, then to Paddington Station to meet Juliane and Peter. Paddington Station is the same station where Paddington Bear was found and he was named for the station.

At the train station I went to The Candy Factory and picked out some very yummy pieces of candy - some white chocolate fudge, a couple of gummy coke bottles, a marshmallow twisted thing, a candy blackberry and a sticky thing covered in chocolate sprinkles that tasted like coffee which I did not like.

The train took about an hour and a half. However me and Dom were prepared. I had brought some Simpsons Uno Cards and Dom brought a kids crossword puzzle book, a dot to dot book, a Horrid Henry Jolly Joke Book and that was it.

Then when we finally got there was a gigantic line and my dad got us some pizza to eat in a field. Finally it was time to enter. It was a very funny show because Banksy just snuck around doing all sorts of crazy things like the hen house with the hen and the baby chicken nuggets coming out of the eggs. There was an ice cream truck inside with a giant ice cream on top covered in graffiti. We also saw a miniature Stonehenge made out of Port A Loos with a picture on Stonehenge on the morning of the solstice. We were also there on the solstice - June 21st.

We saw the funniest thing ever - we saw a picture of baby Jesus and Mary - and Mary was listening to an Ipod and the picture was called Silent Night.


We also saw a picture of some UFO's sending down some green laser beams. It probably meant that the aliens were going to abduct some people.

There was also a picture of a woman looking through a window with a computer note saying that an error has appeared on the computer and to please X out and try again. This was funny because you don't normally see a computer error in a picture. [ed note - picture titled "Woman at Window"]

One of the funniest things was the living hot dogs. They were moving hot dogs. One was plane, one s was still in a wrapper, one had mustard on it and in a bun - and they were all moving. And now I don't think I will ever look at a hot dog the same way again.

And now last but not least - the attack of the LIVING CCTV Cameras. There was a mother CCTV camera up in a tree and two baby CCTV Camera in the nest and another baby on the floor. It was probably saying, "You don't get the CCTV cameras the CCTV camera get you."

Graffiti can be bad for the earth but if it is done by Banksy it is very funny.

I would recommend anybody who reads my blog to go and see it.

My Later Impressions

I am really excited about the whole RV trip but also really sad. I can't decide if I am happy or sad. I am really a cross between the two.

I am really sad because I am going to be leaving all my friends and I probably won't be able to travel back to London again. I am also really really sad because I have lived in London almost all my life and I have lived on the same street for 6 years. 6 years is like forever when you are 7 years old.

I am really going to miss my bedroom and the view from the window when it is sunset or sunrise. From my bedroom window I can see most of the garden and part of the crematorium and part of our neighbours gardens. The colors in my garden are mostly green, black, gray and red. The red part is the shed and the playhouse. The green part is all the grass and plants and the bamboo. We have bamboo in the garden becasue I like pandas. The black part is the soil and the gray is the stones.

We have a swing set, a wagon, a playhouse, and a lot a lot a lot of green space. We also have a sprinkler and a hose. We have a lot of gnomes to take care of the garden - but I am not a gnome expert.

I will miss the London Eye, Big Ben, the aquarium, the Natural History Museum, and riding on Bus Number 82. I will miss the All You Can Eat Chinese Buffet especially because of the chocolate fountain.

The Spaniards Pub I will miss because it has good food and it is also really cool because there are ghosts living in the shadows - that are going to come and eat you!

But I am also really happy because we are going back to American where I was born and where all my family was born. We are planning on seeing most of our family - but not everybody. We are going to see my Oregon Grandpa, Mama Jo and Grandma and Grandpa.

And we are going to see some volcanos in Hawaii and have a ton of fun in the RV.

I am not a Volcanologist but I am hoping to become one.

As you can see I am both really sad and really happy. But I am mostly happy.

Ta ta for now.

Here's a picture I did in computer class. We had to draw what summer means to us. And, to me, it means the soon coming trip in the R.V.

What I want to Know About RV's

Here is a list of things I want to know about RV's:

1. If you have a big RV that is about 15 meters long and 10 meters high, and you are completely out of gas how much does it cost to fill up the tank in dollars?

2. Is it really messy if you empty out the toilet?

3. Is it easy to get into problems? Like - the RV rolls away by itself or if the RV gets a breakdown.

4. If in the middle of the night and you have a breakdown - what do you do?

5. How much room do you have for toys?

6. Is it fun in an RV?

7. Is taste testing apple pie as you are travelling around the country a good way to judge places?

8. Is there a bathtub in the RV?

9. Are there any stairs in an RV?

10. Are there radiators in an RV?

11. Is there a home phone in an RV?

12. Do you sleep in sleeping bags in the RV?

13. Do you have a garden in an RV?

14. Do you have a refrigerator in an RV?

15. How do you make friends if you live in an RV?