July/Aug Happenings

July 4th

We had a great time with Jenny at SML. We wandered around the Lake with Captain Bender, had happy hours in coves, and ate great meals! We don’t miss the lake since we got rid of our boats…but it is only because we can still be on the water with Jenny!

We needed a new state park pass for this year, so one day we went to SML state park to get one and went for a beautiful short hike! Thanks Jenny for your hospitality!

C & O Canal Trip

Gretchen and I thought it would be neat to make a YouTube video letting people know they can ride from Washington DC to Pittsburg. So we planned a trip to video portions of the C & O Canal Trail and to see Sally in Frederick.we spent 3 day filming segments near Washington, Harper’s Ferry, Williamsport and Cumberland. 

This is where the trail ends in Cumberland and where the Great Allegheny Passage begins which leads you to Pittsburg.  We try to video that trail in the fall!

Sally came to Frederick on our last night to eat dinner and spend the evening with us at the B&B we rented.  We had a delightful time, BUT not one of us thought to take a photograph!  So below is my not to swell ad-lib documentation! 😎😎😎

Olmes visit SML

The last week in July, the Olmes clan came to visit Jenny at SML.  It was a fun time riding around the lake in Jenny’s new toy, My Favorite Dam Boat, swimming in coves and enjoying great meals! It was great seeing Priscilla, Phil, Stephanie, Natalie and Luke; it has been a while! Thanks so much for you hospitality Jenny, we love it when you get us all together.

Alexanders visit SML

The next week Jenny called to see if we wanted to come and spend the weekend before we all left on our fall trips. Katie was also talking about coming to VA and it was easy to convince her to come to SML!

We had a great time wandering around the lake, stopping in coves and hanging out on the dock. Unfortunately, Katie did not feel well at all.  She had some sort of virus that settled in lymph nodes in her neck. The swelling was so bad she couldn’t swallow hardly at on on Sunday! She recovered after a doctor’s visit!

Jenny mastered pumping at the dock.  

She is really becoming a very talented Captain!

They really are growing up!

NC Bound

Thursday, June 15

Today we went to Apex (NC) to drop our camper to be fixed.  To our surprise, the south end of the American Tobacco Trail was five miles from the dealer.  So we decided to film that trail as well!

Plus, we got to eat dinner in Durham with Katie and Nick and spend the night with them! Doesn’t get any better then that!

Thursday June 22

Katie started a great tradition several years ago by giving us tickets to a DPAC show! So today we headed to NC to see SIX with Katie and Nick. We met them for dinner before the show.  It was a great show, quite different from others we have seen.  The music was powerful with a strong beat throughout as the six wives of Henry VIII sang their life stories.  It was the only time we’ve seen the entire audience stand and clap for an entire song as the show came to an end.  Thanks Katie, it was a great experience!

Friday

Kelley and Maggie came today as they are going on a cruise tomorrow with Katie, Henry and Audrey.  It’s the first time we have all been together since the pandemic!  We had a fun evening together and then they were all off early Saturday on their way to Norfolk to catch the ship!

Greenbrier Trail

Thursday June 8th

We drove to Marlinton (WV) today to film a video of the Greenbrier Tail for our YouTube page.  We have lots of memories of the area, camping at Watoga State Park with the girls, hiking, riding horses, seeing bears, elk, and mountain lions….plus riding the trail with the Double Nickels!

We rode from Seebert to Cass over our three day stay. The trail is as beautiful and well maintained just like we found it in previous years. We stayed at the Locust Hill Inn along with six other people from Lynchburg who were also riding the trail! We got to Cass in the morning when they were starting the locomotive.  It puts out a lot of smoke at first and then diminishes to what you see in the picture below. You can see why cities were really smoggy during the steam engine era!

We worked on the video and we’re able to post it by the middle of the next week, so we are back on track! One note…we really miss our camper.  Three days of eating at restaurants really messes with our bodies.  We love going in our camper so we can maintain our normal dietary habits!

National Parks 2023

Thursday April 13th

Our westward journey began with three days of driving from Myrtle Beach to Asheville to Paducah to Kansas City.  Today we visited the Powell Gardens; a wonderful botanical garden on the eastern outskirts of the city….and it was the last day of the annual Orchid Delirium! There were over 2000 unique orchids from over 50 genera across the globe!

Lady Slipper Boutique 

There is a beautiful chapel on grounds designed by E. Fay Jones, one of the best known disciples of Frank Lloyd Wright who carried on Wright’s Prairie Style.

Marjorie Powell Allen Chapel

The chapel has 2550 square feet of glass allowing it to

blend with the surrounding prairie!

Monday April 17th

Driving west through Dodge City to Albuquerque, we encountered two things worth mentioning.  The first was a wind farm that stretched for over 10 miles with fifteen wind mills on each side of the road the entire way! The second was the largest cattle feed lot we have ever seen. It was over a mile long with overfilled pens stretching a quarter mile deep along the road. The smell was obnoxious. We had to ride with the windows down for miles to get rid of the smell in the truck…..plus suck on a Ludens cough drop to clear our senses! 

Wednesday, we drove to White Sands NP, the largest gypsum dune field (275 square miles) in the world.  The only way to get a sense of the landscape would be to fly over it!  We were both intrigued with how the dunes form! Snow melt contains dissolved gypsum and it is deposited at the base of the mountains. As the water evaporates, gypsum crystals are formed. The winds coming off the mountains, break off flakes which tumble along mile after mile getting smaller and smaller until they are the size of white sand that forms the dunes!

Jeff, we did locate the largest pistachio in the world!!

Thursday, April 20th

Today we drove from Albuquerque to Flagstaff.  Upon arriving at the campground, our camper slide would not extend!  We called an RV Tech to come out and look at it. He did all of the normal steps to get it moving but could not and indicated the slide mechanism needed to be replaced.  There is no repair shop closer than Salt Lake City that can do this type of repair and it takes weeks to get the parts and do the work.  After considering all options, we decided turning around and going home was the most reasonable. So, Friday morning we canceled all reservations and plotted the trip home.  

In the afternoon, we walked around historic Flagstaff. We planned to go to Sedona while we were here. So since we had some time, we decided to drive to Sedona and check it out before touring the area on Saturday.  We drove through Oak Creek Canyon and looked forward to seeing Slide Rock which we slid on in 1972!  The road in front of it has changed a lot, but we recognized it!  Sedona was nothing like we thought it would be.  The four lane highway going through it was packed with cars…and it was like driving in New York City.  We didn’t experience any energy vortexes, we were just drained of all our energy!  Tomorrow we will not return, we’ll find another destination!

Today we went to Walnut Canyon National Monument! We hiked the Rim Trail and then the Island Trail that goes down down down to the 1000 year old cliff dwellings where the Sinagua (Spanish for without water) lived.  Can you imagine living in an area where streams are dry and rain seldom falls for most of the year? They stored water from snow melts and spring rains in large clay pots foe use in the dry season!

Look closely for the dwelling just below the rim.

The Island Trail is beautiful and descends 185 feet using 273 steps!

You hike next to the dwellings!

Sunday April 23rd

Today we drove to Las Vegas NM and spent the night before heading to Goodland KS.  Our rerouting provided a special opportunity in Goodland Jeff…to see the world’s largest easel (80’ tall, 32’x24’ representation of one of Van Gogh’s paintings, weighs 45,000 lbs and supports are sunk 35’ into the ground)!

We arrived in Topeka KS last night and today was a layover day! First we went to the Old Prairie Town and Botanical Garden at the Ward-Mead Park which is owned and operated by the Topeka Recreation Department.

We toured the Capital area on foot and ate a barbecue lunch at an open air stage with a gospel band playing. Matt Olmes would love their sound!

Our final stop was the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University.  One of the exhibits was unique. Rachel Epp Buller had an exhibit of ten photos of trees taken on walks along the Saskatchewan River with a poem over laid on each. The images and text reflected her belief that walking invites you to slow down, ground yourself in the here and now, and listen. She suggests that mindful movement could help, healing of our bodies, minds and relationships.

Washburn University had sculptures all over the campus!

Jeff, world’s largest Wren!

Tomorrow we head home via Granville IL and Huntington WV. We should get home on Saturday (4/29) if nothing else goes wrong on this trip! 😎😎😎😎😎

Audrey’s and Henry’s Spring Break

Monday, 3/20

Audrey is on spring break so we are going to Hillsborough to pick her up for a week in the Burg!  Since today is the only chance we’ll have to go to one of Henry’s track meets, we are going to his meet in Pittsboro.

As you can see she is really excited about attending the track meet.  Only kidding, the sun was in her eyes!  After the meet, we stopped for a sub and headed home!

Tuesday

It was a beautiful day for us to hike up to the top of Apple Orchard Mountain on the Blue Ridge Parkway, elevation 4225 feet above sea level. We watched the planes home in on the radar tower and enjoyed the great view to the west….all the way to West Virginia!

Audrey got to hike through Guillotine Rock on the Appalachian Trail in the section Grandma and Granda used to help maintain before we got old!

Wednesday

We went out to the lake to see Aunt Jenny and met her at Homestead Dairy for lunch.  Audrey, obviously got into their ice cream; it is very, very good!

After lunch, we stopped at the Booker T. Washington National Monument. We watched the video of his life and went through the exhibits. Audrey was fascinated with the fan mechanism the slaves used to keep the flies away from the food during their master’s family dinners!  It’s hard to imagine the drive a boy born into slavery needs to possess to gain an education and then go on to found a college and become a famous American!

The rain subsided enough so we could walk around the grounds a bit where Audrey found a friend!  It was a fun day!

Thursday

Grandma and Grandpa had dentist appointment today so we had to stay in Lynchburg.  Audrey made the icing for chocolate cupcakes Grandma  had made and iced them!  The cupcakes were so, so good!

Friday

We drove to Charlottesville to go to The Looking Glass, an immersive mixed media art exhibit.  It was disappointing! The idea was great but the artists just didn’t have the resources to put their idea into practice at a professional level! 

Saturday/Sunday

Henry and Katie came to Lynchburg last night!  Today we went to Randolph College to see a modern Native American Indian art exhibit.  It is a very surprising exhibit if one is familiar with traditional Indian art!  

On Sunday Katie took Audrey back home and Henry stayed with us.  We had a wonderful week with Audrey!

Monday

Today we got our biking gear together and packed our bags to travel to Raleigh tomorrow to ride the Neuse River trail. We did go to Randolph College so Henry could run around the track!

Tuesday

We drove to the town of Wake Forest to begin riding the Trail at the Falls Lake Dam and rode south. We had to stop a few miles short of Anderson Point Park because the trail is closed this year due to a sewer construction project. We rode 23 miles today!

We stayed in a really nice Airbnb in Smithfield near the south end of the trail. Henry had a TV in his room!

Wednesday

We rode the south end of the trail today. We tried to start on the Clayton River Walk but construction made that impossible so we headed to the south end of the Neuse River Trail. We rode to Anderson Point Park and back, a total of 25 miles! Henry said he loved riding the trail because of the natural surroundings and all of the unique bridges!  Riding 48 miles in two days is not easy for a new rider but Henry did great!  We didn’t ask him how his butt felt!!

Thursday

We drove to Mebane and dropped Henry off at his Dad’s house.  We loved spending time with you this week Henry and we loved biking with you.  Thanks for the drawings you gave me Henry…especially since they have UVA colors!

Maggie’s Spring Break

Sunday, April 9

We traveled to Murrells Inlet for Maggie’s spring break and since it is Easter Sunday, we got to celebrate the day with dinner at the Hills! It was great being with you!

Monday

This morning we went to Georgetown. We walked on the boardwalk and had lunch at Groucho’s Deli, a super lunch spot.  We then headed out in the countryside to get strawberries at the farm Maggie and Kelley go each year to pick. Luckily for the old folks, it is too early in the season to pick but we could buy a gallon of berries!

Tuesday

Huntington State Park was our destination today.  We hiked the trails looking for gators and birds, and we checked out the beach!

Wednesday

Brookgreen Gardens was our destination today.  The spring flowers were in bloom and as we walked around, we thought about how we see something new each time we come!  

For the first time, we ate lunch in the Austin’s Harvest Restaurant! It was very good and we decided to make eating there an annual event!

Ladies of the Labyrinth 

Tomorrow we head out west so Kelley and Maggie came to the campground to eat dinner with us! We used our mini Solo stove for the first time and it is great for making S'mores!   It was great spending time with you guys this week. Thanks so much for your hospitality! Maggie, Grandma and Grandpa can’t wait until spring break (2024)!!! Love you all so much!💓💓💓