BOAT, POOL, PLUMERIA & BUGS

It is Summertime in Texas!  Our garden is all but done for this year.  We are still picking a few "veggie stragglers", but it is drying up pretty fast now, although we did have a surprise rain shower a few days ago!

One nice way to cool off on a hot day is to go to a lake for the day.  Lucky for us, my friend Mary Ann's boyfriend has a pontoon boat and they invited Tom & I out to Joe Pool Lake last weekend!  Even though the temperature got to 107 that day, there was a nice cool breeze blowing across the water and kept it quite comfortable.  Getting in the water was also a great way to keep cool!  Mary Ann packed us a lunch of delicious sandwiches to enjoy while out on the Lake, and Tom & I brought  assorted cold fruit, and of course we had plenty of bottled water and sodas.  We really enjoyed our day on Joe Pool Lake on Dusty's nice pontoon boat, which had a canopy over the back half of the boat providing us with nice shade. Mary Ann's daughters, Jill & Ellie really liked being pulled behind the boat on an inflatable raft!

Jill & Ellie

I have also enjoyed going over to my friend, Sue's, and cooling off in her beautiful swimming pool! 

What a refreshing way to spend a hot afternoon!  Beautiful pool and great friends!

Our plumeria plant is blooming!  These are the kind of flowers that are used in Hawaii to make leis.  Of course, I'm sure they grow much better in Hawaii than our one plant does here in Texas!

While I was outside this morning, scraping off the old paint off the back of our house, getting ready to prime, caulk, and paint the final section of our house, (Yea!!) , this giant, moth-looking bug flew around me and then landed right where I had just finished scraping!  This was following the episode of the wasps crawling in and out of the main electrical power line fixture that is mounted high up on the back of the house.  I had to get down off my ladder to get the can of wasp/hornet spray to eliminate this "wasp party" activity where I was working! 

I have no idea what this giant, moth-like bug is!

Well, like I've said before, life is truly an ongoing adventure!

Walking Again

When I returned home from my hike last October, I felt like I was probably in the best shape physically of my entire life!  However, it sure was easy to slow down and become more sedentary and I soon put on 25 lbs.!  By April of this year, I knew I had to do something!  Or get bigger clothes!

My friend, Mary Ann, who lives in Grand Saline, about 16 miles from me , motivated me to get back to walking!  I guess we motivate each other, because we began to meet, twice a week, to go for a seven mile walk, down little black-top country backroads near her house or mine.  We take turns meeting at each others place.  It is so invigorating to begin my day, at least twice a week, with a brisk two-hour walk!

Tom and I are also walking the trails on our place, checking for deadfall, following last year's drought.  There so many dead trees, EVERYWHERE!  When one falls across our trail, we sometimes have to just clear a new path around it.  Clearing trail is very hard work, and I am so thankful that Tom embraces the idea of keeping our trails cleared each year. 

Since a creek flows thru the middle of this land, just below our house,  the bottom land on both sides  of the creek is like a "jungle", with many vines, poison ivy, and all other sorts of undergrowth!  What a challenge!

It is a good feeling to know that I have enough hay for my horse, "Tex", to get him thru this coming winter.  Tom helped me go pick up 32 bales of some good coastal hay that Fran, ( a Saddlebag friend), had stored in her barn since last fall.  So hopefully, that will be enough for the winter, since we are getting adequate rainfall this year to keep "Tex's" pasture thick and green for good grazing thru the Fall, I hope.

Last Thursday, I gave a presentation about my 2011 A.T. Hike to the Van Kiwanis Club.  That was my third time to do this sort of thing.  I was so nervous the first time!!  That first time, the Wednesday Study Club, a women's group in Canton, I managed to flounder my way thru a short talk and had some of my hike photos scrolling on a large screen at the same time.  The photos were certainly the highlight that day, so in May, when the Canton Lion's Club invited me to speak to their group, I relied more on putting together a slideshow of some photos that would help me to tell about my daily experience on the Trail.  Again, the photos were very descriptive themselves, and I'm discovering that even though I wondered at times if I was taking too many pictures while hiking the A.T., I know now that the 2,800++ photos I took were probably not nearly enough!  Even though before I began my Hike, I vowed to take a lot of "people/hiker photos", and I did take a lot, I still wish I had taken even more!

This is Dwayne Wheeler, who heads up the Van Kiwanis Club.  He is the one who contacted me, and he told me that he has read a lot about the Appalachian Trail, and he has always dreamed of hiking it himself!  I encouraged him to go for it, do not put it off too long and regret that he did not fulfil his dream.

I carry my camera along everywhere I go, snapping "gate pictures" as I go, for my "Gates of Texas" book that my friend "Thimbleberry",  suggested that I put together.  It is quite surprising how many Texans have gates on their property!  Some are fancy, some are plain, some are closed, some seem to stay open, and some are heavily padlocked and have all sorts of warning signs posted!

Thank you, "Thimbleberry", for suggesting this book!!  I am definitely having fun with it!

My house painting project is nearing completion.  What a huge undertaking this has been for me.  Challenging but Rewarding!  I had originally set a goal of being through by the first day of Summer, however when that didn't happen, I set my sights on finishing by the 4th of July!  Still didn't happen!  Now my goal is to be thru by the time I leave on my trip to Ireland with my sister,    September 12th!   I feel confident this is doable!  The problem is that sometimes I only get to work on this project about one day a week.  Plus now that it is so warm, that amounts to only one morning per week!  I am beginning to wonder how I ever had time to work a full-time job!

I remind myself daily that "Life Is An Ongoing Adventure"!

Great Get-Away / No Place Like Home

Since July 4th holiday fell on Wednesday, Tom's regular day off, he had today, July 9th off instead.  So, when he got off work on Saturday afternoon, we drove north to Broken Bow, Okla.

Yesterday morning, we went kayaking on the Mountain Fork river.  The outfitters dropped us off  just below the Dam of Broken Bow Lake, for the 4-mile float trip, thru "rock gardens", rapids, some cold, calm water, and over Presbyterian Falls, a fun little 3-foot drop-off in the river!  Fun on a hot day!

In the afternoon, we drove another hour north of Broken Bow, thru the rolling hills of eastern Oklahoma until we reached Hwy. 1, Talimena Scenic Drive.  We followed this road west for 25 miles, over some quite beautiful mountain ridges, with many places to pull over and admire the grand beauty of distant mountains and lush valleys.

This drive reminded me of all the scenic views I enjoyed last year while hiking the A.T.  It was awesome yesterday to be enjoying these views together with Tom!  On our way back to Broken Bow, as we were coming down out of those beautiful mountains, we drove thru some very severe thunderstorms and some torrential rain!  I could not see more than a few feet in front of our car!  Being on unfamiliar, winding, mountain roads, with no place to pull off and take cover, all I could do was keep going forward, at a very slow pace!  So glad there was no cars behind me, only a Tyson's tractor-trailer in front of me!  Very tense driving, I was so glad when it finally let up a little! 

We really enjoyed our little 2-day "get-away", however how sweet it was to get back home!

That's right!  There's no place like Texas!!

We came though Paris, Texas and saw the Paris, Tx. Eiffel Tower!

Last Thursday, I hosted the Saddlebag Trail Ride here at our house.  I always enjoy having the gals come here to ride on our trails.  There were seven of us who braved the hot weather to ride for a couple of hours.  We came back here to the house to have our lunch on our shady back patio, where three other Saddlebag women came and joined us.  Great friends!  Great ride!

The gals getting ready to ride!

Our garden is about done for this year, and we are ready to be done with it.  Our freezer is full!  We have shared  many, many veggies with friends and family!  One of my favorite things about gardening is making and eating good, fresh pica de gallo!  Yum, yum!!

GARDENING & PAINTING

Tom is gardening and Erma is painting!   Since we returned home from our trip to the East Coast, our time has been consumed with picking vegetables from the garden,  processing some to be put in the freezer , sharing a lot of veggies with friends and family, and continueing the project of painting our house.

This is how our garden looked when we got home from vacation on May 13.

Here is some of our first picks from the garden!  Love those frech picked veggies!

At the end of May, we traveled south to the Houston area.  We stopped by to see Patti H., Tom's neice who graduated from high school, and plans to attend U.T. in Austin in the fall.

Patti & her Uncle Tom!

Then we attended Donald and Becca's wedding. (Donald is my son, Darrell's, oldest son.) He and Becca had a beautiful outdoor wedding on May 27th, their sixth anniversary of their first date!  So sweet!  I enjoyed being with my son and his family for this special day in Donald & Becca's life!

The "Happy Couple"!

It is Summer in Texas!  It actually hasn't been that hot yet, however today it may reach 100 degrees, and we haven't had any rain here at our house in a couple of weeks now.  Unbelieveable to us is the fact that Tom has not yet watered the garden this year.  We were blessed with regular rain showers until now.  This is a first for Tom, because he can't ever remember a year that he did not have to water the garden!  We have really been blessed this Spring!

There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about my Thru-Hike on the Appalachian Trail last year.  I began on March 13th last year, so this year on March 13th, I began to read each day from my handwritten journal from the Trail, to remember and relive each day whatever I was doing on that day last year.  I am amazed how much I recall (that I did not record) each day as I read my journal. I was so tired at the end of each hiking day, after walking up and down mountains carrying "everything I needed to survive" on my back, that usually I was barely able to hold my eyes open long enough to write as much as I did in my journal.  But now as I read each day's journal account of that day, I think about all the things I left out.

Today,(a year ago), was the sixth day of Tom's visit with me on the Trail!  Together we hiked 4.6 miles, and made it to PenMar Park (before lunch), which is on the border of Pennsylvania/Maryland. Tom toughed it out over some very difficult, boulder-strewn trails for 23 miles in Maryland with me during some very hot days!

                                             Tom "Pyro" navigating the rocky trails in Md.

Tom's visit really lifted my spirits and made me even more determined to finish so I could go home!  I missed him so much while I was on my Hike!

I'm happy to be home this year with my Sweetie!

CALABASH SEAFOOD

On Wednesday night, before we left Ocean Isle Beach, "Skid", Pat, Tom and I went to the quaint town of Calabash for some of that world famous Calabash-style seafood.  We were not disappointed!  The shrimp, flounder, and everything else was scrumptious!  While we were having dinner, overlooking the fishing boats moored in the channel, it came a big thunderstorm and downpour of rain, however the skies cleared by morning, and it was a beautiful, spectacular day for our drive across the top of South Carolina and into Georgia.

We had one more stop to make on this long road trip.  We headed up into the mountains of north Georgia, to visit with Tim and Kathy H. at their beautiful home in Big Canoe, Ga.  Tom's brother and sister-in-law always make us feel so welcome in their home, which sits on the side of a very steep mountain!  What a workout it is just to walk up or down their street!  Steep!  Very steep!

I took this photo while standing inside their home, looking out the front door.  See how steep the street is!  Crazy!

Tim, my brother-in-law, is currently planning his own thru-hike of the A.T. in 2013!  He plans to retire at the end of this year, and will celebrate being 66 yrs. old next year by thru-hiking the A.T.  I will be rooting for him and cheering him and supporting him in any way I can, because I know first-hand how much that means when you are plodding along every day, up and down mountains, swatting bugs, getting rained on, getting blown around by strong winds, sleeping on the ground, sweating, being dirty, and on and on and on!  A kind word or goodies goes a long way to making it  all seem worthwhile.  I know I couldn't have made it all the way last year without all the support I had from my family and friends back home.

Tim & Kathy's neighbor, Paul, is planning to thru-hike with Tim!  Amazing!  We went to their home for dinner Thursday (May 10th) evening, right after we arrived at Tim's home.  Talked about the Trail and their plans!  Fun!  Paul and his wife Suzanne are such great people, and we always enjoy seeing them while we are in Georgia, visiting our family.

The next night, we went to see Tom's nephew, Jeff and and his family, in Cumming, Ga. and enjoyed dinner with them.   

Here, Tom is playing "microfone" with Grace, Jeff & Elizabeth's daughter!

An this is Emma!

We also saw a bear in Tim's neighborhood while we were out and about!  Also, there was the coolest spiderweb on the hill in front of Tim's house, I told him to leave it. (He probably got rid of it after I left!)  Tom and I also went for a "walk in the park" with Kathy on Friday while Tim was a work.

I'm so glad we don't live where the bears come right up to your house!!  I would be afraid to go outdoors, especially at night!

We got up early on Sunday morning and made the 12+hour drive home safely.  There is no place like home!

Hello Atlantic Ocean!

After our hike up McAfee Knob in the fog, we sat near our car at the trailhead parking area, waited a few minutes, and sure enough more northbound thru-hikers came along to enjoy some of our Trail Majic of cold drinks and chocolate!  Among them was Barbara "Mawmaw B" Allen, who Pigeon and I met last year at the Spence Field Shelter in the Smokey Mountains.  Wow!  What great timing!  Barbara has done a lot of backpacking in her lifetime, but she tells others that I was her inspiration to attempt a Thru-Hike of the Appalachian Trail!  I feel honored and really hope she sticks with it and makes it all the way to Mt. Katahdin in Maine!

On Tuesday morning, May 8th, we drove over to Wilson, N.Carolina, and stopped in for a brief visit with Brenda T., my sister-in-law, while she was at work.  My neice, Christy, stopped by to chat while we were there.  It was really nice to see them again, and I hope they can make a trip to Texas soon to visit all of us!

We then headed south to Ocean Isle Beach, N.C.  "Skid", who was part of my "Trail Family", and his wife Pat welcomed us into their beautiful island home.  What a tropical paradise!  I loved it!  While we were there, "Skid" took us on a bicycle tour of their island, and we walked along the beach, wetting my toes in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, all the way up to the north/east tip of their island.  Their darling little 4yr. old granddaughter, Sarah, walked with us on the beach.  The weather was spectacular while we were there, and "Skid" and Pat treated us with such awesome hospitality in their lovely home!

 We were pleased to meet their daughter, Andrea, and also their son Nate, while we there.  Nate was actually getting married in a beach wedding ceremony on Thursday, the day we left. 

On Thursday morning, May 10, we left the beautiful, tropical paradise of Ocean Isle Beach, and headed west, thru the lush farmlands of South Carolina, and on over to the mountains of northern Georgia.  More later about our "3,000 mile road trip"! 

MY, HOW TIME FLIES!

Time really does seem to fly so quickly sometime!  It has been 28 days since I sat  down at my computer to post anything at all on this blog!  What in the world have I been doing with all of my time?  Between work, painting, mowing, gardening, laundry, tidying up the house (sometimes), walking, and countless other activities,  the month of May has slipped on by!

On Saturday, May 5th, Tom and I left our house around 4:00 p.m., and drove all night and arrived in Roanoke, Va. at 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning.  We took turns driving, switching off every couple of hours, when we stopped to stretch our legs and move around a little bit.  We encountered a little rain occasionally, and Tom drove through some pretty dense fog in Tennessee.  We were pretty tired when we reached Roanoke and were very glad our room at the hotel was already available, thinking we would crash and nap for awhile.

However, I checked our email and found that Greenstone & Thimbleberry had just left Waynesboro earlier that morning.  So we decided to drive another 100 miles north, and try to find them as they cross Skyline Drive at Turk Gap.  It was a cool , misty day in Shenendoah National Park, and we had only gotten to the parking lot at the  Turk Gap Trailhead about 20 minutes before they came walking up the Trail.  Surprise, Surprise!  We had ice cold sodas and chocolate candies waiting for them!  Two more hikers, "Caps Lock" and "Applesauce") came along and enjoyed the Trail Majic also!

It was so good to see "Greenstone" & "Thimbleberry" again and glad to see them doing so well while hiking  their next section of the A.T.

Following our short visit with G. & T. and the other hikers, Tom and I drove back to Roanoke to our hotel. In the rain!  By this time, all we had the energy left to do was grab a sandwich to take back to the room to eat and fell asleep soon afterward!

The next morning (Monday 5/6) we drove west on Va.Hwy. 311 for about ten minutes to the Catawba Mtn. Trailhead parking area where the A.T. crosses, just south of McAfee Knob.  With water and snacks in our daypacks, we headed north up the trail for 3.9 miles to the top of Catawba Mtn. so Tom could enjoy the view and "dangle his feet" off McAfee Knob!   Unfortunately, the clouds and fog and mist never lifted from the peak!  I was so disappointed that Tom could not have the views and experience on McAfee Knob as I had on my thru-hike last year!  We sat up on the rocks at the top for an hour and had a snack and waited for the fog to lift.  We shared McAfee Knob with a lot of  Va. Tech college students who were rejoicing their completion of 4 yrs. of classes and their upcoming graduation.  It was interesting to chat with some of them and hear of their dreams and goals for their life ahead!

O.K. So here's the view from McAfee Knob when "Flame & BooBoo" hiked thru last year!

  
And here is the view that Tom and I had this year on Monday 5/6 !!  Waaaa!!