From my heart

Thank you.
Our wonderful, caring, friends and family will help my sisters and I get through the sudden, and terrible loss of our mom.
The outpouring of love from everyone for our mom and the three of us is just overwhelming right now.  You all know how much our mom meant to us, and right now, I can't ever imagine getting over this.  I know time will help, but we will always have such a huge hole in our hearts without her.  We have a long road ahead of us, and it going to be tough, but the loving thoughts from everyone help more than you'll ever know.
all my love
kim

BING-BING

You're free to move about the country.

just gotta love southwest air!

How

did a nice liberal democrat end up in such a narrow-minded, rural right wing, can't see the forest for the trees community?  Like religion, I don't hold political views against somebody until they try to push their "fox" agenda off on me.  Short-sighted people.  Jeez.
I love where I live, I chose to live here, but that doesn't mean I agree with the insular ideology that is the norm.

Pine Grove Furnace

Took the beach house to the mountains for the weekend.  V&R came up and spent the day Saturday.  We stuck a roast in the slow cooker and went off hiking.

Love this pic.  V laughing, Butch explaining something, and R trying to figure out what Butch is talking about.

 
This is the Appalachian Trail museum.  They've converted one of the old buildings into a nice little display.  They also have services for those thru hikers that may need a little help.

 This is the sign that indicates the halfway point of the AT.  Custom is that when thru hikers get here they are treated to a "half" gallon of ice cream.

 Which sounded like a really good idea at that point, so while we didn't go for all that ice cream we did treat ourselves to some.

 

 The Iron Masters mansion is being restored and

looks so much better than it did when we were here last.  At that point I thought they were going to let it fall down.  But, thanks to stimulus monies, the museum and this house are being saved.  A side note....see the steep steps leading up to where Butch and R are standing?  The 3rd step from the bottom has 2 risers on it.  We saw 3 people trip up it while we were standing there....and one of them worked there! 

A wild ferocious animal that accosted me on the trail!

 

 This was at the mansion house.  I did go over and think about giving it a swing, but when I saw the shape it was in, there was no way my butt was going to be responsible for pulling down that whole tree.

Pretty autumn pictures that I know are cliche' but I still like them

September Trois

It was a lovely evening at Jimmy's topped off by watching the van towed off and having a cab fare of $45.  Nice.

We didn't have anything planned for Thursday, so it was okay that it would take the garage all day to get it fixed.  We hadn't counted on the fact that they had no body in the garage on Thursday, they were all out on the road, so no van.  We ended up blasting in there at 5pm on Friday.  A $60 buck cab fare that time.....bastard.  That was when they got it done.  I was a nutcase (alright, as usual) cause we had tickets to the murder mystery dinner at the house of blues and had to pick up wine from Carolina vineyards before then.  We made it.  Yeah, i know, it's me, what do you want.... whatever.

we spent a little time at Jake and Elwoods' after dinner.  i got a big ole shot of Jose gold and a beer and a smoke, and damn i was happy.  butch just shakes his head.

 Don't know if you can make them out on these pictures, but the courtyard at the HOB had these huge spiderwebs in them.  The inhabitants could have taken down a bird.  Come to think of it, i didn't see any around...



The bar at the House of Blues



September-Part Deux



Myrtle Beach

I'm here, I've finally got a beer, get that camera out of my face!

We had to get up and do the timeshare high pressure bullshit buy more of what you already don't want sales pressure meeting on Monday morning.  The dude should have taken the hint when he asked how i was doing and my reply was, "you're cutting into my beach time".  We managed to extract ourselves from him after only 45 mins.  We sent up to the suite and were trying to decide what to do first when i kept hearing this beeping outside.  Well, if you ready the earlier post, you know it was a fire alarm going off.  here is the promised photos of all the fire equipment that North Myrtle Beach Fire Dept sends when a 1000 room resort is on fire.

 I'm hoping that they knew there really wasn't a fire, and that this wouldn't be all they would send in the actual event of an emergency!  i mean seriously, there were 3 guys.  what the hell would they have been able to do?

All Clear

I had to laugh later, of all the things we grabbed when we went out of there, the money in the safe, and the car keys were the two things  we didn't remember.  Maybe that had something to do with what happened later in the week.

the Stranded on a Sand Bar at Jimmy's

Ahhhh, what i'd been waiting for!

These photos were all taken before the van decided to stay at the sand bar.  We were much happier then.

Butch on a boat with a hurricane

I told him look scared the earlcaine is coming in, and this is what i got.  our "table" was actually the stern of a boat.  that's why you see the flying bridge and fishing poles in the background.



September-Part 1

We started the annual September tour with a quick little jaunt to Atlanta.....over labor day.  The weather was great and we had a blast with the people camped around us.  Butch just had to take some pics of the weather. 

just a few close friends here

the front of our "beach house" and the guys next door.  it's always a good thing to have neighbors that have a flat screen outside!

great sunset over the track

We got back home in one piece except for my mind that I lost in labor day traffic.  

It was pretty late when we got home and we only had 3 days before we left for Richmond.  So we yanked everything racing out of the motorhome and into the van.  In addition, we were going to the beach directly from the race, and needed to pack everything for that too.  It was a crowded van, but as a (in)famous person once told me...."Babe, this ain't my first rodeo".  We've had quite a bit of practice at creative packing.

Had a blast at richmond with Rich (big dog) and his wife sandy.  you know the race drill, bullshit, beer, and eating too much.

it can happen anywhere!

i'm downloading pictures from this month of non-stop and just had to share this right off.

you know just how fast it can happen too.  "hon, you want me to get you a beer?" and that fast, you come back to this.

AHH, beach in the background, feet propped up, sudoku in lap, yep, it's nap time!

Notice, the pencil never leaves the hand.

WHAT?!  I'm on vacation!

house of blues

after getting the van out of hock last night,we went to the house of blues (Jake and Elwood's joint) for the murder mystery dinner. somehow,I was pulled into the mystery as someone who knew the dead guy-Richard Hertz. I was accused of knowing dick. I told the detective when confronted by him that I'd never played golf with dick and no I'd never played with his balls. butch got a good chuckle when I came back to the detective that it wasn't golf I played with dick.
it was fun and hokey and we enjoyed ourselves. I won a coffee mug for being one of the supersluthes. we figured it out, but it wasn't really that hard to do.
spending our last day out on the beach before getting most everything packed up tonight for an early departure in the am. not looking forward to the 9 hour ride.

HOW MUCH????!!!

well, the bright side is if the fuel pump has to go up, you're at a bar when it does. also, you get lucky and happen into some guys that seem to have a clue and are garanteed for a napa year. michael waltrip will here from me if not.
do you all have any idea what a fuel pump costs? and the gas tank strap that was totally rusted out. $840.and something that was almost as much as the vacation!!
good news-we weren't on a highway somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I'm staying with Jimmy

apparently the van decided it would rather stay with Jimmy than take us home. so we watched it towed away, and spent $42.50 on the cab ride back, butch takes it as it comes, me I'm not so good. we're supposed to get a call today from the garage. can't wait for this bill.

wasting away again

we've come in from the beach a bit early today cause we're heading out to jimmy's for some of his margarita's. even butch the beer drinker partakes. when in margaritaville do what the parrotheads do!
the weather is here-wish you were beautiful!

what's that alarm going off??

so you go out of the room and people are standing there trying to figure out what's going on. then a hotel worker comes out the stairs and starts calling to evacuate the building. so,I calmly get butch from the room (I run in yelling-fire-fire-fire-get your wallet and the cell phones!!!) I grab my purse, camera, and iPod and we head for the stairs.
I know this is terrible, but if I had started to see smoke, that old woman in front of me, holding up everyone as she struggled with the stairs.....she'd have had my footprints up her back. but since there was no visable immediate danger, I was good and didn't pick up that old bitch and carry her butt down. when we got down and out on the street, the first thing I noticed was the resorts workers were already outside and across the street. nice. course if I was one of them and making the kind of money they do-I really don't blame them.
I can't post pictures from here, but I'll follow up with shots of all the equipment the MBFD sent out to respond to a 1000 room resort on fire.
as it was, a sprinkle head was broken,and naturally that sets the alarm off.

Myrtle

posting from the iPod so excuse the mistakes.
we had a great day on saturday at th race with Rich and his wife, sandy. ate a bunch (they brought morels!) drank some beers and watched a pretty boring race. jr was worse than sucky.
got up yesterday and drove down here for the week. the day is just gorgeous. but we've got to go do the sales pitch this morning. catch up later!

Atlanta

Yes, we made it back.  Down was fine.  Charlotte on Thursday night, (no earlcaine) and to Atlanta on Friday morning. 
Home....on Labor day Monday??   The best can be said, is we made it again.  It was totally due to my passenger side braking. 
butch, I'm seeing brake lights up there under that next bridge (1/2 mile away).  HON, they are stopped up there under that next bridge (1/4 mile away). 
BRAKE-BRAKE-BRAKE!!!!!!
(this is where the passenger side braking system works-feet braced up against the dashboard-one of these days, I'm going to end up busting the seat)
A 36' motor home does not stop on a dime.  Hell, it makes the white whale look like it does, and we all know that's a laugh.  There are now foot impressions on the front dashboard.  I finally went and took 1/2 a magic pill Kamie had given me, sat down at the table, ate a faceful of utz's and 1/2 a can of Pepsi, and after that, it wasn't quite so bad.  I think butch was MUCH happier after that too.
Doesn't it always seem like this...we went all the way to Atlanta, and in the coach next to us are 3 guys from Annapolis.  They were just too funny, and practically fed us the entire weekend.  wouldn't take no for an answer.  we brought most of what food we took back home with us.  so, many thanks to Henry, Mike, & Sam!
oh, yeah, there was a race there too!
we're off to Richmond tomorrow night and the Saturday night race there.  when we wake up on Sunday, we're heading to myrtle beach for a week.  i think we get home on like the 19th?  don't have a calender handy and I'm just too damn lazy right now to go look.
three nights is all we've had to unpack the motor home, re-organize everything, and re-pack it plus all the crap for the beach into the van. 
the end of august comes, and the next thing we know, it's October, cause September just blows away!
until we get back....
SEEYA

lol-just gotta love spellcheck-i just can't imagine why it dings on earlcaine and utz's!

Meeting Earl

We're packing up the motorhome for the annual trek to Atlanta and the labor day weekend race.
It now looks like we will be meeting up with the Earlcaine in Charlotte were we stop for the night on Thursday.  Hopefully, it will be far enough inland that we won't be driving a 36' SAIL through an Earlcaine.

It's official

The latest storm is now sponsered by WhateverEarl!

We're just waiting to see where Jim Cantore is going to be.

'Onest 'Osifer-we's in the back seat sangin

You know,
sometimes it just figures.

butch and the critters are still waging war.  dead-eye butch shoots pellets at them, and every now and then, they jump and let him think that he's shot them.  he has nailed a couple of them.  our roster now includes, dead tail, the squirrel who no longer has control over his tail; 3-leg, dead tails brother, who now suffers a limp, several big bunnies that have eaten almost all the sunflower farm that butch planted, and lucky, the little groundhog that butch shot as he was trying to get a drink out of our little birdbath (lucky was drinking, not butch)
so,
i was around front where we have some boxwoods planted and found the skeleton remains of some unfortunate critter that decided to croak in my front flower bed.  gee, thanks
so i got butch out with a shovel to scoop it up (what, you thought i'd be able to do it-HA) and the plan was to take it across the road and give it a pitch.  (oh, stop it's a field, it's not like we didn't like a neighbor)  you know us, we're standing there in the driveway, continuing our debate on what it actually was, i went with rabbit-it had no tail, he was arguing squirrel-cause he just knew he'd hit one good.  when a car blasts in the drive.  we both look up from the shovel debate, and it's a big ole gold car, and the dude driving says "hello folks, just how's it going?"  this was the point that i realized the car was a crown vic, and the driver had a crew cut and state police patch on his shoulder.

oh, shit- i swear we did not kill it, we just found it this way!!!!

i couldn't figure out how they knew so fast.  the baracks is 30 minutes away on a good day, and we had not been having our little debate that long.
we then tried to explain to the nice state police trooper, that we'd found this in our flower bed, and you know how when you're talking to a nice state police trooper that it seems like you begin confessing everything you know?  well, that was the two of us.  butch, of course, had to take the shovel over and just make the nice state police troopers day by showing him our discovery. 
yes, we're goobies.
all the man was doing was turning around in our drive so he could go hide behind the hedge row and pick up some speeders.  i think he was just as surprised by whipping in the drive and having the two of us standing there as we were by him. we told him he could use our drive anytime if it meant he'd stop some of the cars blasting down the pike.
i actually think we may have scared him a little....nah, probably not.

Quess who's coming??

4th of July 2010

Shawnee State Park
Schellsburg, PA

All forecasts predicted it was going to be 100 degrees plus all weekend. All I know is it was HOT HOT HOT.

We took ½ day on Friday and were there and set up by 2:30. Short drive just up hill all the way.

There are 2 geo-caches there on the Lakefront Trail, so we biked down to the lake. When I say down, I mean OMG this is the side of a mountain (yeah, so a little drama here-but, it was a really steep hill). Problem was, even as we were doing the down part, I knew that the up part was going to be a killer. The Lakefront Trail is 3.4 miles long, and obviously circles around the lake and also over a dam.

The first cache took us back a second trail at which point we had to ditch the bikes and hike that trail for a good half mile. After that, there was a good distance of bushwacking involved before finding the cache. You know me and the poison ivy/oak/sumac hysteria, butch just keeps telling me that it’s not poison. I think he knows to lie to me even if I am standing in it.

Of course, after all that tromping, I forgot to take a picture of the cache, so this is the only picture I got of it.  Um , yeah, its thataway!

The second cache was near the beach. To get to it, you had to climb up a path, and then hang off the edge of the cliff (okay, but it was a sheer hill) by hanging onto a tree, and the cache was in a hidey hole at the bottom of the tree. I was tromping through while butch was down below, and once I decided it had to be right around here, he spotted it.

We finished the loop at the beach (that just cracks me up-you're at a lake, there is no beach at a lake-it’s just some sand trucked in and dumped), we hadn’t thought to throw the bathing suits in the bag, but we were content to plop down under a shade tree and relax a while. And the hill that was so great going down....it was killer going up.  There was no way you could ride a bike up it, so we'd push the bikes for a while, rest a while, and keep on going.

The night sky there was really clear and the stars were just amazing. Even saw a couple of shooting stars.

It was so hot that we’d hike around in the morning a bit and just try to stay cool in the afternoon. We left Monday around noon & didn’t have much trouble with the holiday traffic, which was way cool. (even if the day wasn't)

In one basket

dumb shit...
we went to the store the other day and i thought we needed eggs-i was sure we were down to the last couple.  we don't eat them often so it's always a guess when we need them.  did our thing at the market, and got home and unloaded and started putting things away. 
can you kinda guess where this is heading?
butch was carefully taking the 18 eggs out of the carton and putting them in their box that goes into the fridge door.  he was saying that we really hadn't needed any as there were still about 6 or 8 left. 
now are you getting a clue as to where this is heading yet?
yep, you got it.  he pulled the fridge door open and went to put the box into the door and didn't quite clear the door.  i had my back to him and all i heard was pow-pow-pow a whole bunch of times.  i turned around and there was butch looking down at basically 2 dozen eggs smashed all down the inside of the fridge, inside all the door shelves, all under the produce drawers, all under the fridge, all over the floor, and amazingly, not on him.  figures, he never gets dirty like that, i'm the one that would have been wearing most of them-i think he had like one spot on his shoe.
all he kept muttering as we had to completely take apart the fridge to get gallons and gallons of egg cleaned up was..
"every damn one of them, i can't believe i broke every damn one of them!"

June 6th

Saturday night we got packed up and pretty much ready to go.
This is when butch shoved a picnic table in front of me when i was on my bike and i hurt myself.  Okay, so the picnic table was concreted into the ground and butch was all the way at the back of the beast putting his bike on the bike rack, and i had a stupid idea, and then he laughed really long at the outcome of my idea.
(see a couple of posts ago)

Sunday morning we headed out to do the sewer dump thing and get over to the visitor center by 9am.  We were going on a tour of Camp Rapidan. Feel free to look it up for the long story.  The short story is that when they created Shenandoah National Park, President Hoover bought a parcel of land and created what was a presidential retreat.  It was where he could escape the rat race of DC and where he thought he could actually get some work done.  Too bad this was during the depression and all of this was perceived by newspapers and people as not caring about the country.  Well, that and the fact that he thought that government couldn't get the country out of the depression that it would take private industry to make that change.  Sounds a lot like the idiots of today-maybe they should read their history and find out that it wasn't until FDR and his "alphabet soup" of government programs to get change started.  Then of course the war came on and that pulled the country out of the mess Coolidge had gotten us into.  Sorry, history and politics-the two things that get me jumping.

Anyway, we got on a bus that the NPS referred to as the Hoover Mover down to Camp Rapidan.  The ranger that led the tour had a history masters degree and was tremendously knowledgeable up until someone asked him who Hoover's vice president was...he got a bit offended.  it took us 30 minutes to drive 6.4 miles.  The road, she wasn't the best, and was all hairpin turns down the side of the mountain.

There was not much left of the camp as it had later been turned into a boy scout camp and had been abandoned for a good bit.  The cabin that was the Hoovers was named the Brown House tongue in cheek with the other color house they lived.

This is the view from Pres. Hoovers private trout stream up to the back of the Brown House.

This fireplace was built for photo op's.  Notice it is outside, and nothing around it.  They'd put two chairs out by a roaring fire, and let the photogs in for some very controlled pictures.

It was about a 3 hour tour, (no Gilligan) and we headed on home after having some lunch. Always seems to rain on the way home.

June 4-6

Big Meadow Campground

Skyline Drive

Shenandoah National Park

Friday

I took a half a day vacation on Friday, and we got an early start down the road. Butch decided to take a different route than I-81 all the way down the valley, and we hopped over to Fort Royal, and went down 340. This eliminated one set of mountains for us to haul the behemoth up and over. It was a nice ride. Till we got to the Park and started climbing up the mountains. Thankfully, the speed limit on Skyline drive is only 35 mph-there were times, we weren’t doing much more than that.

When we checked into the campground, the ranger had us read and sign a paper that said we would promise to “DO NOT FEED THE WILDLIFE” in addition, any food that we had outside would be tied up in trees. I’m thinking okay, I’ll not feed the deer, but when she said about the food in the tree thing, it hit me. Damn, that means bears.

blink-blink

Yeppers.

Okay.

Seems a momma and 2 cubs had “taken” two fawns earlier in the week.

sigh, that’s a little too close to nature for me to see.

Ranger Hazel then let us know that we really needed to get a move on it, cause they just had a severe thunderstorm alert just go over the air. We busted our butts down to the campsite, and battened down the hatches before all hell broke loose. Somehow, being at an altitude of 3,535 and having huge thunder and lighting boomers at 4,000 was a bit unnerving, since we were the only camper that was sticking out from under the trees, and we were basically sitting in a big metal box. Yeah, it has rubber wheels on the ground, but it also has 4 hydraulic metal jacks on the ground also. But the storm passed and we made it without any strikes which was a-ok by me.

Saturday

We got up in the morning and hopped on the bikes and headed to the visitor center (it was uphill both ways-I swear!) We went through their display and learned a bunch about the history of the park and how they took it from the people who lived on the mountain. They have a ton of programs that you can do while on Skyline drive. At this time, our only modes of transport are the motorhome, and the bikes, so we really don’t stray very far from the campgrounds. And since we’ve gone there and done the drive in the past that was ok.

There is a restaurant at the visitors center so we went ahead and had lunch there before we made the uphill bike ride to camp.

We went out on a Ranger lead hike late in the afternoon. The hike was up the Appalacian Trail and to a point called Black Rock. We hadn’t gone that far when a group coming towards us warned of a bear on the trail ahead.

blink-blink

oh, jeez

It was the momma bear and 2 cubs.

The cubs were up in the rocks and mom was out prowling around for food (thankfully, only grubs).  We had to wait out that bear as she wandered down and across the trail, and back up and into the rocks again. The pictures of her walking across the trail right in front of us didn’t turn out to good, I figure operator (t)error was the culprit. That and I kept hearing the ranger saying “Sir, sir, you really need to step back behind me-sir?” Oh, yeah, I look up and of course, it’s butch she’s trying to get to listen to her. (see, he doesn’t have the selective hearing with just me) The bear finally got far enough away that we could get by and to say we moved quickly, was an understatement.  I know, I know-oh, it was only a little black bear.

Whatever...it was a freakin bear!!

we hiked on up to the outlook which was really cool, and would have been even better if a storm hadn’t been coming in.

  

Can you tell from the hands on the hips the attitude I'm getting?  This is because I've just told him not to get too close to the edge-for about the hundreth time.  This is the indignant-"I am NOT too close to the edge!" look I got for just looking out for his best interest.  Plus, I can't drive that rig on flat ground much less down the side of the mountains.  I needed him not to fall!

 

Part 2 coming soon

drafter-0.....picnic table-1

me...

bike.....

picnic table-concreted into the ground

equals

 

outside of leg

inside of leg

I barked the skin off the front of my shin, where the dreaded table actually hit me, and it didn't even bruise.  Last night butch says OMG look at your leg, and here you go.  It's a pretty amazing combination of blacks and blues today.  Can't wait for the green phases to show up later in the week.  This all happened Saturday night when we were loading the bikes onto the bike rack (we needed an early start Sunday morning).  I thought I'll just ride up around the front of the motorhome while butch is loading his bike and make sure that I'm in a good gear.  Sometimes I just never learn.  After the picnic table jumped in front of me and caused me to crash into it, I yelled for butch to help me.  He came around and looked at me laying across the seat of the picnic table, with the bike laying on top of me and helped me up, once he stopped laughing.  Thank goodness he didn't think to go get the camera.  The two old queens camped across from us sure got a good laugh.