Tuesday

Wow, winter has arrived here in the mountains of N.C. Temp's were in the 30's this morning and didn't get much out of the 40's all day and I just checked on the porch and its already back into the 30's and its just 8 PM. At least it was a sunshine day with bright blue skies. After our quiet times and a lite breakfast I headed outside. Boy was it nippy with me wearing a undershirt, long sleeve shirt and a heavy sweater with a ball cap on my head. I moved the seedlings out of the basement into the bright sunshine and uncovered a couple herbs I want to dig up and bring back to Florida with me next Monday so I can replant into my winter garden.

I headed down into the back area and took the leaf blower and piled up a great pile of leaves to be run over with the lawn mower and spread on the lower garden. I worked at this until Nancy finally emerged from the warm cabin so we could hike to the top. It was still just at 42 degrees and she was dressed for sub-zero temps but the sun was so delightful that it really made for a pleasant walk. Its just a great time to be outside with no bugs and no sweat. I'm sure the deer just love this time of the year as the deer flies, horse flies, gnats and mosquitoes are just not to be found however I did see a couple of large blue blow flies while raking leaves. We didn't see anyone on our hike and it was fun to walk down through the woods off of the normal trail. You can see so much into the woods now that all the leaves from the trees and bushes are gone and it gives you a vision of the steepness of the hills. We are about 3500 feet in elevation at the cabin.

Well after a lunch of frozen pizza baked in the oven we just chilled until it was time to head out to pick Joe and Helen up for a little get away. We headed out to the Piney Creek area where so many of the large homes built for a Cuban clientele from Miami, Florida have been foreclosed on. It is really a beautiful area but because of the gated community we were unable to get into the sub-division and we could only view the houses from a distance. The area in just south of the Virginia line with some beautiful green fields and panoramic views of the mountains. We headed back into town and checked out several roads we weren't familiar with before heading back into the town of Sparta.

We stopped at a new restaurant in town connected to the bowling alley called the River Rock Grille. It's very yuppie for this town much like a typical sports pub and grille. The food was very good and just a little pricey but nothing like most of the other eateries in town. We had a very friendly and informative server and we were pleasantly surprised with our first visit. It has mainly sandwiches and salads they also serve wine and beer and have homemade desserts as well. The owner came by our table and inquired about the meal. Helen and I had the lunch special steak and salad with a great tasting dressing on the side, caramelized onions, mushrooms and Feta cheese. Nancy had the marinated grilled chicken breasts on a bun along with fries and Joe had the BLT on Texas toast with fries. It was a generous portion and quite tasty. We will go back next year if this small town will support them and they are still in business.

After eating we headed back to Joe's place to pick the last of the green peppers and tomato's from the plants which had been killed by the heavy frost. I will have a few green tomato's to take with me on Monday. We then dropped Helen off and headed for home. The temp's were dropping fast and I expect tonight will kill any living plant that's still living in my herb garden, so I took a couple 5 gal. buckets and covered the thyme and parsley as I plan on taking them back to Florida with me. Well the cabin was snug and warm and with the temps dropping quickly so we decided to stay in instead of taking another hike just before sunset.

Well its watch the election results tonight and hopefully America will wake up to what our government is trying to do to us. Lets take back the Congress and once more get this nation back to work, restore our country to the faith based nation we once were and to lower the debt for our kids and grand kids and most important to install term limits.

Enclosed are a couple pictures we took of an old farm house that was once so majestic and is now being restored, notice the thousands of pumpkins left in the fields. We saw lots of old buildings loaded with burley tobacco being cured. Nancy also wanted a new profile picture but didn't choose this one which I liked. LATER