Home again!

Arrived here a out 1 PM Monday! Glad to be home, but it was a great trip. We left Don and Diane's about 8:30 Sunday morning. We got through Nashville before people were out and about. No bad driving at all. We stopped at exit 2 in Kentucky and bought the last 'reasonable' gasoline of the trip. We had stopped once before for breakfast at a MickeyD's, but there was no parking place there. We got a Delicious McD breakfast at exit 2 as well. Lunch was in IN just North of Henrysville where the tornado hit. We drove into Henryville a little. What a Mess! We ate lunch sitting on the tailgate of Blue Babe; pizza, pop and an apple fritter! How is that for living high on the hog? We stopped in Anderson IN for the night. Lori drove about 2 hours in IN. I was pleased. I took over again before we got to I69. We (I?) decided in honor of our last winding down of our vacation to have one more 'fancy' meal. We stopped at a Montana Mikes Steakhouse. The burger was great, the salad not bad, and the onion rings were phenomal! But I got the worst case of indigestion ever! Spent the night not sleeping...it took 6 tums and a cup of hot tea to get right again, and to sleep. We left about 8:30 again Monday morning. We took advantage of the Free breakfast at the motel. We did stop and get some protein at a McD when we needed fuel. As usual, fuling up in North IN means freezing! But! I was freezing in a short sleeve T shirt, not in a winter coat! The home place looked great. The redbud,quince, and forsythia are all blooming! Just beautiful! To make homecoming even more special, Andrew was here waiting for us! Ginger was ecstatic! Even kitso seemed glad to see us! Andrew was sorting our mail for us while he waited. Some of it is of course, his. I messed up just a little...or perhaps a little more than that. I turned the water back on, but I forgot to hook the hoses back up to the washing machine! To make matters even more desperate, Andrew and Lori had left to walk to the Spring... And the Door was locked! I could not get in to shut the water off! We only have an outside entrance to our basement. I had to run back down there to shut off the water! Needless to say, the was a lot of water on our floor! Andrew pitched right in and we mopped swept, and finally squeegeed the water all out. We do have a very clean kitchen floor! Monday started at 5AM for Lori. I was able to sleep awhile longer... There was no food in the house, so we had still another MickeyD breakfast! It was good to see the old gang this morning. We had a good visit and did some catching up. My bass was finished so we picked that up. We had a letter from the IRS about Meredith's income tax so we took that to Walker's who did the tax for us. Ran to Ace, and to Save-A-Lot... I guess we are back in the swing of things...we will get everything that didn't get done because we were in Florida done in the next couple of days. I raked the yard this afternoon. Lori did some trimming. I cut down a box elder tree that was leaning on our East Barn. Now...we will go to the Nashville Strings tonight. It is Good to be Home!

Mule Day, Columbia, TN (by Lori...)

Been there, done that...and bought the T shirt....that would be Mule Day in Columbia, TN. Actually, Billy has the T shirt, but we agreed it was worth doing. More people than mules, but basically No golf carts....that, is certainly a good thing. If there was a parade today, we missed it, though we were arrived by 11AM. The parking for the event totally filled the lawns of both the elementary school and the high school....a good thing we'd done our daily two miles of walking! And this was a good day for wearing my Sharon straw hat.   We saw mule pulling...that was impressive, those animals moved several thousands of lbs. Dead weight, no wheels. Shared a catfish sandwich for lunch, and watched the storm clouds building. Only 20% chance of rain, that's what Diane said....so we ignored the lightning, etc. explored, found some amplified gospel singing...good harmonies, too loud. And I heard one lonely fiddler while we watched mules working.    Then...on the front of a shed porch, there it was. Banjo & bass, guitars, three lady harmony singers....perfect! Played a waltz for us to dance to, with crocs, on grass...but we did. Convicts brought us some bales of hay to sit on...this was getting Good! They even sang 4 of the songs we often do...that was Neat.     That's about the time the Deluge happened...but we weren't leaving unless the music stopped, nope! Then they invited us to crowd up on the porch with them...and watched it Hail for a half hour. Big bouncey hail, about covered the ground, then More rain. May be why we missed the parade? I stood on the porch, while Billy was inside talking to the musicians. Soooo....we got invited to go get guitar & fiddle....and play along! Got sort of soaked while walking that 2 miles again....but, worth doing! See us smile. Found out that we knew some musical friends in common....a guy named Terry whom we saw at jams in Florida. This group was from Alabama....Billy got one of their cards...so perhaps a future time. Not coming to any summertime things in the South. Nope.     Kind of tired now....guess we'll hitch up the camper in the morning. Shouldn't take long....Diane is outside, taking sunset pictures....she had a good day, with her girls....hardly noticed the stormy weather. We rather did! Oh well...ttyl....Lori

Way behind Again!

So now I'll play catch up...Tuesday we did the visiting thing with Don and Diane. Diane had errands to run, she took her friend Jan to the Doctor and such. She was home earlier than we expected. That was good. Lori and I walked around the big field. We went back to the river (possibly the Harpeth) to check on the Bluebells. We found them just where they were last year. Again they are beautiful. We took pictures, as usual. Unusually, Lori took pictures of me in the Bluebells. She also deleted the pictures I took of her. I don't know why. Diane is doing her very best cooking for us! That is Special. She baked the apple pie Jan had made for us (Jonathan Apples from Cotants in MI). Excellent! Wednesday we did some more hanging around the place with the Woerners. Lori and I drove to Eagleville. Lori wanted to walk where there was no hills and smooth ground. We covered a couple of miles. Ordinarily, when in Eagleville we eat at La Fiesta a very good Mexican Restaurant. We discovered the Eagleville Cafe in our walk so tried that. We had catfish fillets dinner with 3 sides. Meat and 3 is a staple in Southern Restaurants. We had a broccoli rice casserole, French fries, and baked apples with our catfish. We did split the dinner. Even then, we are definitely eating Well this trip! Probably too well! Well, not even probably. We played music after Lori's Essential Nap. We decided on the songs to do at Leipers Fork on Thursday. We are working on 'Last Cheaters Waltz' as an instrumentalalso. Lori is getting it down. We listened to that song a dozen times Tuesday night, by various groups and musicians. More walking Thursday, but no driving to where we would walk, just around the field here. Diane has seen 'her' Albino Deer a couple of times lately, but the only wildlife we had any contact with was Wild Turkey. We did not see any on Thursday but we heard them every circuit of the field. We did see a couple on our walk Tuesday. Then with directions from both Don and Diane we headed on our own to Lieper's Fork to Pucketts Grocery for their open mic night. We arrived just before 6 (starting time) and were act 17. We sat outside. Inside was crowded full, and we could hear the music just fine out there. Before long Lori unpacked her fiddle to play along. Of course that meant getting Bernice out of her case also. Soon we were playing music outside...jammin for whoever wanted to listen. On fellow came over and videoed us doing Storms Never Last. Pretty cool! We were well received. We learned some things. I need to learn how to adjust the sound on Bernice whe she is amped. I did not like the sound we had. Lori sounded real good. She always does! I just ignored the unusual sound of my guitar and sang. Another thing...perhaps 'the wreck of old 97' is not a good choice at open mic nights. We found our way home without a hitch arriving about 10 CDST...11 in our old world, where our bodies have remained. So exhausted, to bed...

On the Road Again!

Happy Birthday Andrew! 26 on the 26th. Lori called him and wished him Happy Birthday yesterday. Her thought was that it would be more of a surprise a day early. They had a good conversation. GRRR! Once again our McMuffin Sandwiches were translated in to Biscuits. If you want to make me all pissed off all day just screw up my breakfast! In order to make a better beginning to the day, I went next door and bought a cappuccino! That was a help. Notice the spelling of Biscuits...still I feel that Bisquits should be the proper way.The editor on this program likes either way. There was not too much dew last night, but still we needed to wait a spell for the canvas to dry. We packed up and left about 11:30. We hopped on I59, took it to 65 and followed that to 840 in TN. Lori drove for nearly two hours, so I got a rest... We arrived here just fine. It is great to see Don and Diane again. There is always a lot happening here! Somehow Lori and I seem to be about tired out, so to bed early (CDST). Even though we have been on Central time most of the time here in the South, our bodies still are on Eastern time, it seems.

Slowed down Sunday

Another 'Lyle' breakfast...but this McDonalds is not at all like the MickeyD's back in Hastings. I have ordered Sausage McMuffins twice and got Sausage Bisquits instead. Probably the buttons are close together on the screen...or the cashier is just not paying attention. Personally, I think the problem is the latter. We decided to walk around more in the State Park. We walked up to the Pioneer Frarm Village. The only place happening was the blacksmith shop. There was a young fellow there banging away on a piece of iron under the watchful eyes of the 'Master' blacksmith. I remember doing that while my Dad taught me some of the tenents of working metal. Then we hunted until we found the Grist Mill. Lori finds Grist to be a difficult word to pronounce. She is getting educated on it though. I found the Grist Mill much more interesting than anything else in the park. Most likely because I have used Grist mills before, while I have never made iron ore into pig iron. I would not want to actuallyo. That ranks right up there with being a coal miner to me! Then we returned to camp. Our last quarter of a Subway sandwich was waiting. After Lori's essential nap, we got out our fiddle and guitar and made music. The campground is getting more and more deserted. A young fellow came over, a mandolin player who Did Not bring his mandolin, and listened for a spell. He played us a song he had written,of the Christian Variety. He has a good voice, and the song was pretty good as well. He sang harmony on 'Peace in the Valley' with me. Too soon,he had to go to supper. We played for about 2 hours, working on our new songs. They are coming along. MickeyD screwed up again on our supper...No Southwest Salad. We had to make do with a Bacon Chicken Ranch salad instead. The more I try to use that store the less I like it! Well, tomorrow's breakfast will be the last we will see of that! Monday we will head to TN and Don and Diane.... BTW, Lori says Bisquits should be Biscuits....I however, am not so sure! She laughed until tears flowed....oh, well!

Satisfying Satuday

We did some more exploring Sat morning. We checked out the Ironworks Museum. It is Serious about the ancient Furnaces hereabouts. ( Stole that word from Diane!). Lori found it interesting, I was mostly not. I see faster than most people, so the tour was Way Too Slow! I cam see that they are proud of the industry...and a historical Civil War Battle was Fought here, 18 days before Lee surrendered! Which would be a Total waste of Lives and Resourses, We had been invited to a jam starting at 10, so we got Fiddle and Guitar and headed to the 'instrument makers' craft cabin. We were welcomed warmly. There were 8 musicians counting us. I know because Lori counted them up. We played music until about One, then took a lunch break about a half hour. We then played until nearly 4. I was impressed by the Psaltries Dave made. They really get the sound out! We added our music to theirs, so we all played 'new' songs. We had a wonderful time! We attended the Tannehill Oprey after another fantastic McDonalds Salad. They had two bands. The first featured a 94 year old singer-guitar player, and a teen aged fiddle player. Both were real good! Lori loved Brandon's Double Stops. The music they performed was Old Country, and really really slow! The second band, in which Brandon played electric guitar ( very well, very loudly, played newer country music, and more lively, were also very good. We stayed until after 9:30. There was no mention of Open Mic. We have new neighbors in a tent in the lot next to ours, young people, both girls and boys. There were so many campfires that the air looked foggy. It made my eyes burn as well. Still no Internet at the campground! So all our on line time is thbks to MickeyD!

A Fine Friday!

Friday! Sleeping last night was easier than the night before.  Lori did awaken plenty early anyway.  She had been thinking all night about a 'Lyle' Breakfast, a sausage Mcmuffin, no egg.  By 730 MI time, we were on our way to McDonalds for that breakfast. We decided that it had been long enough without making music.  We gathered up our instruments and headed for a pavilion, called 'shed' here in AL.  We made it before the sky opened up and the rain poured down!  We were dry and happy there.  We played music for an hour or more.  We practiced several new to us songs.   Then we packed up and headed sort of back to camp.  There were little houses there, crafters places.  One of the crafters was there getting ready for tomorrow.  He builds mountain dulcimers and psaltries.  We struck up a conversation with the woman of the duo.  She invited us to the jam tomorrow beginning at 10 AM.  Lori's 'trolling' for music paid off!   We had lunch and I decided that an ice cream Snickers would make a great dessert.  We headed to the store to get one.  We were near the forge site.  We thought that would be a worthy thing to see.  It is up the hill a little.  We found out that the 'hill' is the Southern most part of the Appalachian Mountains.  It is not high really here. The Forge is interesting, but it looks like a Lot of Work!  There was a trail leading away from it to...who knows where.  We decided to follow it.  As usual, we were following the trail in reverse.  By the time we had made it back to camp we had walked about three miles.  My hip was Sure that was Plenty Far Enough!  Lori was feeling the effects of such a walk as well. Our rug had dried considerably by the time we arrived back at camp.  Weut it back in place.  Lori went in to take a nap.  I just sat in my 'easy' chair and rested...well, I did wake up a time or two, so perhaps I slept as well.  I mostly just rested there what was left of the afternoon. MickeyD's for supper again tonight...Southwest Salad is our present favorite supper.  We decided that it made sense to park the truck outside of the campground.  Many new campers have arrived for the weekend and there is much congestion!   Lori says she caught me 'tree staring'. I don't believe that could be true.  We did however sit outside and watch the sky get dark and the stars come out!  It is 8:30 here, 9:30 MI time...Lori is in bed!  I can almost guarantee an early start tomorrow!