Friday Morning

Well it definitely was duck weather most of the morning on Thursday and we haven't received any of the tropical storm effects yet. I think the rain gauge on top of the mountain was nearly 3 inches according to Jetta. There were moments when we saw the sun in the late afternoon enough so we took our first hike of this year to the top. The visibility was maybe a couple ridges over but the fog and low clouds kept any long distance views to a minimum. We visited with Joe and Jetta and that's about the only folks we saw. We did notice a new mailbox at one of the what use to be vacant cabins and saw a couple vehicles there, everything else looked quiet and lonely. The grass had really grown up around a few places and we noticed where some of the trails were washed by all the heavy rain. Despite the wet weather the temps stayed around 60 for most of the day.

I rolled out early around 6 despite the rain falling on the tin roof as I wanted to do lots of inside jobs plus my internal clock had me wide awake. After my posting and quiet moments to give thanks and reflect and just gaze out into the back woods that we were actually here after 7 months of dreaming of this beautiful ambiance, we started the day. Nancy made a couple fried eggs along with some kielbasa and of course I had to have a couple home grown 'maters with mine. I headed down to the basement to get the vacuum and started on the upstairs. The place really looked good with only a few dead flys in the window sills. I somehow thought I burned the vacuum up when an internal breaker popped shutting me down until it cooled off. The bag full sensor must not be working so once I cleaned the bag and the machine cooled down it started back up; but I had already ordered another one on-line so now we have a spare , Oh well.

We had a lite lunch after the hardy breakfast then decided since it had stopped raining for the moment to venture out into the flower beds where we pulled weeds and grass. It's funny this grass will only grow in flower beds and not where I want it to. I picked up more limbs and sticks from the back yard as I still need to mow it as soon as it dries up. The sun actually broke through for seconds at a time and we took off for our first hike. It was after 5 before we got back to the cabin and so we had to get ready for our get together with the Dalton Gang and friends at Nickolas Restaurant in High Meadows. It was Kallie's 17 birthday so we met with her family and friends. We had lots of laughs, lots of hugs and some good eatin' as well, plus her boyfriend drove up from Raleigh to surprise her. Juan is from Columbia, South American and both of them met in the gifted math and science program at Duke University. He seems to be a really nice lad and we indoctrinated him into red neck, country boy humor. He laughed with us as well as probably at us. It was a fun evening.

Afterwards we stopped by and visited with our "mountain mom" Helen for a couple hours. It was good to see her again after 7 months and she looked great and going strong for her many years. We shared hugs, laughs and stories for nearly 2 hours when I started getting sleepy so we headed for the cabin in once again the rain. It rained gently most all night long and is raining as I make this post. I guess we will go to the big city of Galax, Va. for Nancy's list and some seedling for my garden. I'm only a couple weeks later than most garden planted up here and that shouldn't make a difference, LATER....Here are a few photos Nancy took on our hike!!