A Dam Post

I was reading a book last night with one of the girls and it was mentioning a dam... which made me think of driving to Washington this last time. On our travels through Oregon, we come upon 3 separate dams. They are pretty amazing to me really. Normally they all have water shooting out of them. We always tell the kids, "look at the dam" or "here comes another dam."



When my parents and brother & family came to visit they drove past these 3 dams. As they were driving by one of these dams, my dad told a story that his mother told him. It goes something like this:



A man went to the dam to get some dam water. He asked the dam man for some dam water. The dam man said he couldn't have any of his dam water. The man told the dam man to keep his dam water.



While my dad was telling this story, my nephew who has a grandpa with a fowl mouth, was shocked to hear my dad (his other Grandpa) to talk this way. He just sat there with his mouth open!

When they arrived at our house they related the story to us. Then my brother wanted my dad to tell Emily the dam story. So again, the story was told. Emily just looked at him and was like, oh-okay. Again, my nephew Thomas was just cracking up and now thought it was pretty funny. But my innocent (sheltered) daughter only heard it and understood it as I wrote it, only having thinking about the dam. She responded to it the same as if my dad had told her the man went to the lake to get some lake water... she saw nothing funny about it.

It made me realize how sheltered she is, which is good and bad. My mom then explained to her that dam could also be used as a bad word.... Still Emily was like-oh. No humor in it at all for her.

On the other hand, Robert and I found it to be pretty funny (and my brother Kelly and his wife Sarah).

As we drove to WA, we approach the first dam on our trip. Robert says, "Look they even have a dam flag!" I of course look, see the flag and crack up laughing. I text my dad and Kelly & Sarah saying what Robert said. (I had been texting back and forth with Kelly and Sarah most of the way.) As we are getting closer to the dam (which we have pointed out to the girls by now) Emily asked if we can drive across the dam. Robert starts to crack up and then says, "There's no dam road!" I am now cracking up. I text what Robert says about the dam. We come up to the dam, and see they do have a road on the dam. I tell the kids (but mostly to Robert), "they do have a dam road, we just can't use it."

We drive past it and look back at all the water pouring out. Then one of the kids asks how the water comes out of the dam. Robert must be a dam expert or something, because he replied, "through the dam holes!"

We had many more dam jokes as we were driving by all the dams. I just can't remember them all.

It was hilarious, maybe one of those "had to be there" jokes. I was also texting back and forth with Kelly and Sarah. Sarah or Kelly would text, "where are you?" I would respond, "in the suburban" It made for a fun road trip even though it was long. We kept joking back in forth. At one point they asked where we were, and I told them "Fairy Queen" but I had just mistyped.

I would frequently just text "176 miles to Portland" which gave them an idea of where we were. They were at my parents house waiting for us to get there. I would text mile post markers or certain exits they would know of, or what the signs said, "Entering Washington" or "Oregon thanks you for coming" type signs that would give them an idea of when we would arrive.

We would have gotten there faster, but Sgt or maybe Trooper Ring (not sure his real title) stopped and wanted to talk to us. He got Robert for speeding, and also crossing over the line while driving. He asked Robert why he was doing that. Robert kind of looked at him, and then looked back at the 5 girls and said, just a car load of girls. The officer of course asked for all our info, and we didn't have a current insurance card... sitting at home on our desk. The officer went back to his car, came back with some "Oregon Junior Trooper" silver star shaped stickers for the kids and let Robert off with a warning. I guess he felt sorry for him and all the girls! We made jokes about that for many miles too.

I guess road trips can be fun, if you are in good company. A few great dam jokes help too. Maybe you should think about taking a dam road trip too. LOL