Tuesday

What a difference 24 hours makes in the weather. Monday afternoon was cold, wet and a just plain day to stay in the warm cabin. This morning we awakened to partly cloudy skies which eventually turned sky blue with bright sunshine. Temp's moved up to the high 60's and by early afternoon we had 70 on the back porch. I just checked outside and its still in the low 60's at 8 PM with clear skies; but all of that is forecasted to change by morning. I even cut the heater off when we left the cabin this morning for a fun day on the parkway.

After our quiet times and a lite breakfast we got ready to head out to see the colors south of us and at a higher elevation on the parkway at Doughton Park. We made several stops enroute there and met 2 other couples from Florida who were also checking out the colors. We were a little disappointed in that lots of the trees were without leaves due to the windy weather that came through last week and yesterday. There are a few oaks that haven't turned yet but the majority of maples have loss most of their leaves out on our mountain as well as the populars and gum trees. I think its peak where we are, however with this next front coming through tomorrow I think we have seen the last of the vibrant colors for this year here on the mountain.

We stopped off at the Bluffs Restaurant on the parkway and had a lite lunch. The place was packed with tourists checking out the colors and most were in agreement this is probably the peak for leaf colors this week. After lunch we headed over to visit with Helen and leave off some books for her and Joe to read. I brought several library books from home of some of our favorite authors. We constantly shared and traded books all summer. After leaving Helen's we came back over to pick up Cora Sue as her brother own's several pumpkin fields in the area. We managed to rescue about a dozen pumpkins from being plowed under as the field had been picked over. There were several hundred just lying there waiting to be adopted.

We came back and got our mountain hike in to the top and what a gorgeous day for a hike. Once again we could see downtown Winston-Salem. It actually was a little warm on the west side of the mountain as the afternoon sun made us sweat. We unloaded the pumpkins and began to place them around on the porches and yard. We carried 3 down to the circle drive to build our pumpkin man. Well, while I went to get a stake to hold the 3 in place 2 of them rolled down the driveway and into the brier patch at the foot of the drive. Nancy was able to recover one but the other one is safely tucked away out of reach in the brier's at Jodi's and Gerald's.

Well Nancy fried up a couple of pork tenderloin chops for supper and we finished the salad from last night as well as the leftover Mexican rice we brought from home. Tomorrow is supposed to be a lousy weather day so we will spend the day around the cabin. Enclosed are a few pics from today for those of you who aren't on Face Book. LATER.