Traveling and Visiting part 2

 Good Morning. 

I hope you all have had a nice week. My garden is so happy and is producing so much, I am in the kitchen storing food like a squirrel. I feel like a squirrel most of the time anyway. It was a lovely week. I will begin where I left off. 

We left the Ron Coleman mine and continued our travels. That is the one thing that happens, there are so many things I would love to stop and go see but all I can think of is getting to our kids house and we end up pinning our ears back and just driving hours to make it there. 

I always take a picture of the road when we get here. It just shocks me as we look down and all of the trees! Living in the desert and in California, trees are almost worshiped. It just amazes me that out here trees just grow and grow. It must be the rain. Look how they grow right up to the road. I was also shocked at the way the tree companies trim trees. My gosh, those huge blades on booms just cutting off limbs. I had to say but this time, I felt like Miss EPA. I have never in my life even thought I had allowed Commie California to infiltrate my thoughts, but seeing tanker trunks going down the road spraying weed killer just made me crazy. But enough of that. 

When we get here, I always have butterflies. There are so many huge rivers and driving over bridges with big rivers underneath, just kind of makes me queasy. Out here we don't have water like that very often. This year being an exception. Our water goes to agriculture and Los Angeles. Always fights about water going on. So seeing things like this and the Mississippi at the same time is just crazy to me. 

I tried to keep a diary of our trip but it gets kind of sketchy here because I am ready to get to North Carolina. 

We spent so much time just hanging out and talking and visiting and just loving being with these lovely people. Its been two years since we have been here to see them. I love this picture because in my old pictures I have picture of our kids doing the same thing with their Dad hanging over the back of the couch watching him show them something. Now our grand children. Of course, Miss Buggy, is the topping on the cake. She would run down to the trailer and come in and visit with us, if we were late getting to the house in the morning. It was a wonderful week and of course like everything we have to go home. 
 

I caught this picture one afternoon. I loved seeing our oldest son and his Dad outside just talking. I spent the sweetest time with Megan, and I was so thankful for this time to spend with them. Always I think the very hardest thing in my life is saying good-bye. Knowing it might be awhile before we can see them again. 

So we left, I smiled in the picture, but I had such a lump in my throat, I couldn't have talked.

We said good-bye and I think I cried to Asheville. We wanted to go to Kentucky on the way home but there was bad weather coming so we ended up driving all the way to Lebanon, Tennessee. We got to see quite a thunder and lighting storm and sideways rain. We know that on our way now, weather would be the thing we were racing, 

 

One of the things I really enjoyed was staying in campsites. I really had fun seeing the different places and how different places can be. We stayed in a campsite that was in the back of a mans pasture. That was really interesting. I wouldn't go outside though, I could tell by looking at it there was ticks. The next morning we had to stop at the grocery store and when we came out to the car, there were ticks all over my car. I hate ticks!!

 

We went to a place called The Fire and Ice Museum. Cool place. Its in New Mexico and its kind of off the beaten track. But worth the drive. 

Caves everywhere. So much Volcanic rock. Standing in front of that cave. The air coming out felt like a deep freeze. We walked down to the big cave and the ice there never melts and its such a contrast all of the volcanic rock with all of the cold and ice. The interesting thing was this is owned by a family. Its been in their family for generations. But for some reason the government is buying up all of the land. the man whose family owned the museum, showed us a map and they are this little bit but now most of the land owners are who if we were following the Constitution, should never own land. But on our way out, we saw that there was lots and lots of mining. So gee, I wonder what that is about. 

We took this road after we left the mine. On the map it said, it was the fastest way to Arizona. We would miss all kinds of traffic. So we took that road, it took us through the Indian Reservations. Which was really interesting. They had these huge clay ovens. They are outside and they would have three in their yards. But I didn't get any pictures. So as we took this lonely road that we never saw anybody on the road, then out in the middle of no where this just appeared. Its called Morrow Rock and its huge. We really need to take that road again and go explore. 

Pretty much that is it. I should have taken better notes, but we had been gone a month and we were so ready to be home. We just drove and drove and spent the night and got up as early as we could. Its nice to be at home, but I am still trying to remember what I did before I left and what a routine I had. I was getting ready for the trip and I was making and sewing and things like that for both families and packing things to take to them. 

I ordered wool and dye so I am hoping to do that next week so I can make rugs again. I hope you have enjoyed this. I did find something in my pictures, that on our way there was this train hauling tanks. Miles and miles of tanks. Way out in the desert. It gave me such a sick feeling to wonder what and where are all of those tanks going? So much goes on out in the desert that no one ever hears about. By the time I grabbed my phone all I got was that bit of tank.

 

I hope you have a lovely day,

~Kim~

"July is a blind date with Summer."

---Hal Borland.