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!!

Painting, Painting Painting

Lately, when I am not at work at Wal*Mart, all my time is spent painting!  I am tackling the job of painting our house, one side at a time.  I started with the new carport addition, and the entire west side of our house first.  Scraping off the old flaking paint around the windows and under the eaves, recaulking any cracks, then applying a coat off Kilz Primer over all surfaces.  After our house being green for more than 20 years, it seems to look larger with its new color of paint, "coffee w/cream", that we have chosen.  The trim around the windows and doors is called "red sedona", but actually looks more like burgundy.  We will also have a third color, "apple orchard", which is a light green, on the vertical boards that form the upper triangle on the front and back of the house, under the peak.  What a changed look it will be when I am finished with all the painting! 

A couple of years ago,my friend, Mary Ann, gave me a cookbook, The Pioneer Woman Cooks (Recipes From An Accidental Country Girl), by Ree Drummond.  Well, it has lots of pictures of step-by-step directions for each recipe, plus lots of stories behind each recipe, plus lots more photos of life on their ranch in Oklahoma.  Needless to say, it is a very unusual cookbook!  I began to read The Pioneer Woman blog also.  Well, she has come out with a new cookbook this year, and I read on her blog that she would be at a Sam's Club in Dallas for a "book signing" on April 14th!  So, Mary Ann and her two daughters, and another friend, Lanette, and her one year old granddaughter, and I decided it would be fun to go and get our original cookbooks signed and buy her new one to have her autograph also.  When we arrived at the Sam's Club (which we entered through a multi-layered parking garage, that also serves the Wal*Mart that is on the second floor above the Sam's Club), they had already sold out of the "new cookbook", (only 600 were available), before we even got in line to meet Ree!  There had to be a thousand people waiting in line!  Unbelieveable!  Who's idea was this, anyway?  We were in line before noon, and around 2:00pm, the couple in line ahead of us had just acquired one of the new cookbooks!  (the husband had left his wife to hold their place in line while he made the quick trip to a nearby bookstore and purchased one for his wife) Wow!  Maryann and her two girls immediately left me holding our place in line and drove over to that bookstore and purchased a new cookbook for each of us!  She was back in line by 2:30pm!  We finally arrived at the autograph table around 5:00pm!  Ree was still smiling and cheerfully autographed all of our books.  Thankfully, my friends were not upset with me for suggesting this little adventure, and all three kids with us were extremely patient and so well-behaved.

Lanette's granddaughter patiently waiting---------Ree Drummond signing my books, finally!


A couple of Thursdays ago, I rode my horse, Tex, with the Saddlebags at the Mineola Nature Preserve.  It was a splendid Spring day to be out on the  equine Trails there!  Here is a photo of Mary Ann on her new horse, checking out the herd of longhorns that have a few buffalo mixed in with them!

Spring Has Sprung!

Springtime is my favorite time of year!  I love it when the "brown world of winter" springs forth new life in the form of green grass, leaves on the trees, and wild flowers bursting with color.  I walked around our yard and snapped the following photos to remind me of how much I love this time of year!  

Sedum

Privet (has a stong sweet smell, similar to honeysuckle)

Iris

Spiderwort

I'm not sure what the name of these are.(I call them primrose) They grow along the field behind our house.

I'm not sure what these are either! They grow amidst the "primrose".

Honeysuckle

A Sea of Honeysuckle!

Indian Paint Brush

You can see why I love Springtime!  All this color ablaze just right around our house!

One thing I don't like about Springtime is the local "hoodlums" are cruising our country roads more than usual,  looking for "trouble", like "bashing mailboxes"!  The last few times they hit ours, Tom would leave the old beat-up box alongside the new one he installed.  We had a "monument" of three old bashed-in mailboxes, and they still hit us again about a week ago!!  Now, Tom went out and bought a new mailbox that is supposedly "baseball bat proof"!  Time will tell, I guess!

"Dead Soldiers" 

The New Tough Mailbox!

Can you see my horse, Tex, peacefully grazing in the background?

Sunshine and New Carport

Wow, there was stormy weather all around us yesterday, however we were very fortunate to have only a little wind and more rain here at our place!  The sun is shining today and it is a little cooler!  Yippee!

I know the construction crew that started on our new carport on Monday is very glad to see this sunshine today.  They were rained out on Monday afternoon and also Tuesday afternoon!

However, we are not going to complain about any of the rain we are getting, after last year's drought.  As I was working around the yard the other day, I walked upon a turtle that was crossing our yard.  By the time I ran in the house and got my camera, it had changed it's mind and was trying to get under my horse trailer to hide from me.

Tom and I managed to get a row of tomatoes and half of a row of assorted peppers planted last weekend in our garden.  The ground is very wet still, but I know it will be hot and dryer before long.
Another great thing about Springtime that I really enjoy (and missed out on last year while hiking) is watching Tom grill outdoors.  He tried a gas grill a few years back, but really didn't like it as much as he likes his charcoal grill, so he went back to it.  Oh my, he cooks so good!

On this day last year, Pigeon and I  were in the Smoky Mountains at Derrick Knob Shelter, waiting for the thunderstorms, which were  followed by sleet and snow during the night!  Boy, am I glad to be home in Texas this Spring!!

Today, I have cleaned out my horse trailer, put clean linens in it, packed some food for tonight and tomorrow, and am getting ready to load my horse and go on an overnight campout with my Saddlebag women friends, before our trailride tomorrow.  I have not been camping with my horse since the fall of 2010, before my hike.  I'm looking forward to it!

SISTERLY AFFECTION

I have four sisters, and three of them live within an hours drive from me, and for that I am very grateful.  We regularly meet at my Mom's house for "Sunday lunch/games Day".  However, my fourth sister, Donna, lives in Cody, Wy. and we don't get to see her very often!  So, I thoroughly enjoyed her visit to Texas last week.

Tom & I went to Mom's last Sunday for lunch/visit and that evening we drove Donna to a hotel near DFW, where she planned to stay before her early morning flight back home to Wyoming on Monday morning.  How lucky I am to have such a wonderful loving family!  

                                                      Donna & Me

Spring has Sprung!!  The grass is green (and growing) and needing mowing regularly, wildflowers are in full bloom!  The bluebonnets, crimson clover, indian paint brush, and so many others are just beautiful everywhere, and especially along the roads as we drive!  I must get some photos soon!

Is it snow??   No, that's where I brushed my horse, Tex, before saddling him yesterday morning before my Thursday Saddlebags Ride!

Tom is preparing the soil for our garden!  I love smelling the freshly turned dirt! 

Our neighbor has leased the twenty acres behind our house and is preparing to sprig it with coastal bermuda hay, great for his cattle!

We are having a carport/storage/shop area added onto the west side of our little house next week!  We are excited!  Since turning our "backroom" into a nice little dining area, we had no place to put Tom's workbench, and all the other things we had in that backroom!

So, I can see a lot of painting in my future!  I've already painted that dining area and our kitchen and part of our front room.  Now, I just need to finish the front room, then paint our bedroom.  Then comes the exterior of the house.  Our little house has been green for many years, but we have decided to go with a much lighter color.  Sort of a cream color with a burgundy trim!

Spring is a busy time of year for us!  Last Spring, I missed out on all the "fun" here by being out on the Appalachian Trail hiking to Maine!  I felt guilty a lot of the time while I was hiking, because "Pyro" was here doing all this Spring work here at home alone and I was just getting up each day and walking in the woods!  I am very happy to home and I'm relishing all the joys of Springtime in Texas!

Siblings and Friends

We awoke this morning to find it had rained about 3 inches during the night!  Yippee!  This is much-needed rain to finish filling all the large rivers, lakes, and reservoirs which provide most Texans with their drinking water. A little while ago,  I walked down to the creek that runs just below our home to see if the water had come up over the bridge yet, and take some photos.  The creek is flowing very fast is flooded over it's banks.  The water is also over the road just past the bridge;  I won't be going in that direction today!  And it is still raining! 

Last Friday, Tom and I enjoyed reconnecting with some of our A.T. hiker friends!  Country Mouse & Shadow, Jerryatric & Jane, and Tom & I all met up for dinner in Mesquite.  Country Mouse & Shadow, who are from  Nashville, Tennessee, purchased a motor home after their completion of the A.T., and are traveling through America!  Jerryatric & Jane live near Ft.Worth, and he is a retired college professor.  It was great fun to see each other again and reminisce about our adventures on the A.T.

Over the weekend I took a "trip down memory lane"!  My Mom, along with all four of my sisters and my older brother, drove about six hours to Louise, Tx., where we lived during the late 50's and early 60's to reconnect with a family that we are still friends with!  What great fellowship we had with them!  Donna, my sister who lives in Cody, Wy. flew to Texas last Friday for a visit, and since she was born in ElCampo (just down the road from Louise), it was the perfect time to make this trip to visit with our long-time friends.  They fed us and made us feel so welcome!  What a great time we had!  It's hard to believe 50 years have past since we lived there!

My friend, Carolyn and me.

The Townsend "children" , all grown up!

My Mom w/me & my siblings w/ the Townsend siblings

I really enjoyed my weekend with family and friends.  I feel so lucky and truly blessed to have such a wonderful family and friends! 

Tom is wondering when he will be able to get the garden planted!  He has tilled the ground a few times already, however it is still too wet to even attempt to plant anything!  Today is the first day of Spring!  I love Springtime, when everything starts to turn green, and flowers are popping out all around.  Now, it reminds me of all the beautiful flowers that I stopped to take photos of along the A.T. as I was hiking last year.

From Florida to Georgia!

The Inn on Cabbage Key is famous for the many thousands of dollar bills that in the beginning  fisherman, and nowadays tourists have signed and taped up on every available square inch of walls and ceilings in the dining room!  There are layered so thickly now, that many of them fall to the floor each year and the owner of the Inn gathers several thousand dollar bills off the floor each year and donates them to a charity.

After spending time on Cabbage Key, enjoying lunch and a nature walk there, our Tour Boat took us the long way back to Captiva Island, docking momentarily on Useppa Island to pick up tourists who had opted for the Useppa Island excursion instead of the Cabbage Key excursion.  We were blessed with glorious sunshine and mild temperatures throughout our time in Florida!

By late afternoon on Wednesday, we decided to head north to Big Canoe, Georgia to spend a couple of days visiting with Tim & Kathy Humphries, Tom's brother and his wife.  We drove as far as Alachua, Fl. that evening, which is just north of Gainesville.  (I am so disappointed that I totally forgot that Double Check, a hiker friend, lives in Gainesville, and I missed the opportunity to maybe spend time with him and his wife!)  I have now compiled a list of all the hikers that I spent any time with on the A.T. and where they live!

On Thursday morning, we headed north again, and arrived in Marietta, Ga. in time to have lunch with Tim at the very popular Marietta Diner.  It was so good to see him again!  We last saw him on the day we climbed Mt.Katahdin in Maine on the final day of my hike.  Following lunch, we headed on up into the mountains to Big Canoe where Tim & Kathy live in a beautiful home that sits literally on the side of a mountain!  I love going to visit them there, however I don't think I could ever be comfortable living in the mountains!  I'm such a Texas gal at heart and love the flatter terrain of home!

Tim & Kathy always make us feel so at home and comfortable in their home!  That's why we love going to see them!  We actually are planning another trip out there in May.  Tom & Tim want to climb Catawba Mtn. and up to McAfee Knob, the most photographed place on the entire A.T.!  I would also like to provide some Trail Majic to Thru-Hikers while we are out there in Virginia.

On Saturday, Tim, Tom, & I enjoyed a short hike along Blackwell Creek, which is near their home.

   

On Saturday evening we were invited for dinner at Jeff and Elizabeth's home, and visit with them and their two pretty daughters, Emma and Grace.  They are such smart girls and very entertaining to us "older" folks!  It's always a joy to see them!  (Jeff is Tim & Kathy's son.)

We woke up early on Sunday morning for the long drive back to Texas.  Tom and I take turns driving and usually stop every 1 or 2 hours to get out and stretch, walk around, and refresh ourselves a bit.  We were back to our "home sweet home" by early evening. (about a 12-14 hr. drive)  The end of another great "road trip" vacation with my Sweetie!