Trout Lily
John at Low Gap
Cosby Creek
Yesterday mid-afternoon, I left Knoxville amidst the rainfall that has plagued our area since Friday night. Somewhere around the Sevierville exit, a slushy snow mixed in with the rain and around Bristol, VA the rain turned entirely to snow. No problem with driving until just outside Mt. Airy, where I drove into an incredible snow, ice, fog and high wind storm. A slow, very careful drive down the mountain brought me safely into an foggy, rainy Surry County where snow flakes were non-existent.
Coming down the mountain on I-77, about 20 miles outside of Mt. Airy...fog, high winds and blowing snow.
Heavy rain has turned this downspout into a waterfall and my wildflower garden into a rice paddy. Another project added to the list. Guess we are fairing better with the weather than other parts of the country.
Over the holiday weekend, I received an email that indicated that I needed to make a trip to Bentonville to do maybe 1-2 hours of work. Having recently spent more nights out of town than in, I decided to fly in and out the same day if such flights made sense. A quick Google search turned up the possibility of a 16 hour door to door trip. On the surface, this looked pretty good so I booked it!
Tuesday, travel day, came quickly. I was out of the house by 7:00 AM with wheels up around 8:20 AM. Several hours of flight time and a layover in Atlanta passed quickly, lost to the pages of a really good book, "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But a good book, smooth flight and early arrival provided no compensation for the cold rain that greeted me on the ground.
My rental turned out to be a Mustang pony. With it's cheesy interior and low to the ground front seats, I don't understand the fascination with this car. The back spoiler almost sent me back to the Hertz counter but my other choice was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo and, well....
After a few errands and lunch, it was time to head to my meeting. By this time, a gusty wind had kicked in and the rain was relentless. I cruised the parking lot looking for an open space and was quick to react to the backup lights on a car near the front door. I turned on my blinker and circled close. The parked car began to pull out about the same time I spotted a car pulling in another entrance to the lot. The driver, a New York garmento type, quickly gunned his car, put on his blinker and pulled in the spot before I could get around the car pulling out. A few choice words muttered in the solitude of my pony and I am back on the road heading to a parking lot several blocks away, glad I had stopped to buy yet another umbrella that I will forget on the next trip.
The meeting was quick but not quick enough to get me to the airport to standby for the 4:20 PM flight. I caught the last flight out to Atlanta, the 6:05 PM. I was tired and ready to get home. The return flights were a little rougher and my mind kept drifting away from reading. Finally, on the short Atlanta to Knoxville leg, I surrendered to a short nap.
I pulled into the driveway about 11:45 PM, 16 hours and 45 minutes door to door. At the end of the day crawling into my own bed was worth the effort.
Our family Easter celebration has come and gone. Things started a little rough this morning when I discovered the fan on the heat pump was not working, but a nice fire in the fireplace and sweaters all around kept everyone reasonably warm.
Mother and Daddy were here, John, Leslie, Carol and her friend Barbara, who is visiting from Sarasota, Florida. Food was a potluck affair with everyone contributing something. We had lots to eat and lots of leftovers for everyone to take home. Somehow, in all of the activity, I forgot to take photos. Oh well, good company and lots of conversation makes for a very fine day!
After a very hectic week, we took advantage of the long holiday weekend for an overnight in the Smokies backcountry. Unlike many backpackers, we did not get an early start, instead, we pulled up stakes in Knoxville around 10:30 AM and drove about 45 minutes to our trailhead in the back of the Abrams Creek Campground. The hike to Campsite 17 was short and easy. A quick search netted a fairly level site and we proceded to set up our tent, organize our stuff and eat lunch. We both would have enjoyed lounging around camp and reading but neither of us packed books and it was only 2:00 PM so we had no option but to tighten up our boot laces and head to Abrams Falls.
The 6.0 mile roundtrip hike was pretty easy without packs. We had not been on this piece of trail since the first summer we were dating (some seven years ago) and were pleased to see several much needed improvements. We reached Abrams Falls in a little over an hour and spent about 15 minutes watching the crowd then we headed back to camp.
To our surprise, only one other group set up camp in the large site, three young guys who introduced themselves as Andy, Andy and Andrew. (This, of course, brought to mind the Darrell brothers routine on The Bob Newhart Show). Our tents were on opposite sides of the campsite, far enough apart that we could not hear their voices but around 10:00 PM, we were a little spooked to see their headlamps shining through our tent walls. Based on the intensity of the lights, the guys had to be in close proximity to us. We never did figure out what they were doing through we suspect they were scouting for more firewood.
A view from Little Bottoms Trail
John enjoying the sun and the falls
Me at Abrams Falls
Although not one of the better wildflower trails in the Smokies, we saw enough flowers to make us feel like spring!
A view from the tent :-)
It is dusk here in my adopted town of Mt. Airy. I am looking out of the window (from my third floor hotel room) at a series of old roofs and church steeples. I arrived yesterday after a pleasant mid-morning drive and knocked out a good six hours of work before checking in the hotel. Today was a series of meetings and projects and after 10 very busy hours, I was glad to get outside and enjoy the waning sunshine.
Did I mention dinner at my favorite Mt. Airy restaurant? Food at the Thailand Cafe was just perfect, as usual, and I am even getting to know the owners, Belle and Spanky. This means I am eating there way too often, but in a town of maybe eight pretty good restaurants, the choices are limited. Besides, the food at this little cafe, nestled in the corner of an aging strip mall, stands up with any of the meals I remember from my travels to Thailand, especially the Tom Yum soup!
In mid-February, after several false stops, my old desktop finally shut down for good. While pleased with the excuse to buy a newer, faster computer, I stalled around a bit, vacillating between another desktop and a laptop. Meanwhile, I stayed connected to the web with a slick, pint-sized Dell Latitude. The little Latitude (my work laptop) is small enough and light enough to toss in my daypack, but in dim light, the print on the little 12.5" screen is almost unreadable and when operating on battery power, the screen itself becomes dim quickly. I have spent enough time with the Latitude to appreciate the convenience but I wanted something a little more substantial for home use.
A couple of weeks of computer research and I decided on a Dell Inspirion with a 15.5" screen. With the decision to go laptop, going wireless was a given. A couple more weeks go by for ordering and delivery and finally the Dell computer set-up expert arrived to set up the computer, download my files and hook up the wireless (okay, okay, I could have done this myself). Long story short, 2-1/2 hours later, Mr. Dell could not get the Inspirion to go wireless although the Latitude works just fine with the new secured system. So $$ and hours later, I still have to download my files and add software AND, deal with Dell again about the missing whatever to liberate the Inspirion from a wired connection. All it takes is time!
The big, bright Inspiron is on the right, the little Latitude on the left and the very out of date desktop screen in the back.
Very cool quartz looking clock on the main screen. I haven't had time to get into Windows Vista yet so I really don't know the what and why for the whale's tail.
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