Go to hail...

Miki and I moved into our house about 21 years ago.  Most of you have seen that we have attempted to make it our own, by making over each room, one at a time to some degree. About 12 years ago we decided that our roof needed new shingles and we would tackle it ourselves too.  One hot summer day, we started prying up the old and preparing the roof for a facelift.  We got what we thought were decent shingles that would last, so we would only need to re-roof one more time for our lifetime or as long as we would be in this house.  About a week after we began pulling up the shingles, we nailed the last one in place.  Well, the shingles we picked out that I thought would last 25 or so years, and they may have, but they began streaking, curling, and had other signs of aging.   Of course at that time, I said that would be the last time I do that.  I'll do almost anything once, well... maybe not even almost, but a lot of things, and this was one that I felt I could pay good money to have someone else ruin their knees instead.


Last fall, during our newly retired state of travel frenzy, we were out of town when our neighborhood got a visit from a hail storm.  Unbeknownst to us, when we came home to roost, our neighbors were all getting new roofs.  We inquired, so as not to be left out, and discovered their roofs had gone to hail.  Long story shorter, we were approved for a new roof last December, but the waiting list was long, due to winter and others who had gone to hail before us.  


On Tuesday morning, it was our turn for our roof to get its dermabrasion treatment and I must say it looks years younger.  It started without warning though,  as a car door slammed at 5:30 am Tuesday morning in front of our house.  Maybe I should say Monday night, because in my book, it ain't morning yet.  I jumped out of bed, as I do when unusual sounds awake me, due to being a light sleeper.  Imagine my surprise when I saw a young Hispanic man standing with his head in the trunk of his car, digging around for something in front of our house.  I have been know to have a stereotypical thought now and then, so I threw on some clothes and went to investigate.  We have a psuedomulticultural diverse neighborhood...sort of, so I wasn't at a 9-1-1 call level yet.  By the time I was down stairs, a truck bearing the roofing company's name was backing into the driveway.  My threat level diminished and returned to exhaustion and the crew got crackin' on the roof.


What took Miki and I about a week to do, these guys knocked out in one day, not even a long day.  The results were very favorable to us.  Below are some before "Wallie was really awake" pictures and some "now I can think relatively clearly and am fully dressed" pictures.

We got a new roof and I didn't have to abuse my knees to get it.  The insurance company was very generous and we got some kick ass quality shingles that will hopefully out last our time at this address.  And the moral to this story is (actually two), as all my stories have morals (you just have to hunt for them), ... leave town often and when you really don't want to work hard towards a goal and you don't care about the self satisfaction being the inner peace that is the real reward of the job you didn't do with your own two hands... eventually you will go to hail.  You too may find hail is not the bad place you learned about sitting in the back pew on Sunday.  Hail can be a good thing, in fact, I welcome hail into my life.  To hail with you!

Carpe Peach

When we returned home in the wee early morning hours of Saturday, the 25th of June, we carried with us a basket of peaches from a red and white striped fruit stand tent, we found along side Hwy 74, between our RV park and Uncle Bill's Flea Market.  By the time we had purchased said basket of fruit, we had logged 1,455 miles on our blogified journey.  These peaches were the first South Carolina peaches we had knowingly tasted, when we stopped at a farmer's market  during a day trip to Cashiers, NC.  They were a testament to big things come in small packages.  They were not large peaches, but had big sweetness and melted in your mouth.  We knew then we would bring some home with us.  During the last leg of our trip home from North Carolina, we logged another 848 miles with peaches in tow.


To reconnect with family upon our return, we invited them over for peach pie and homemade vanilla ice cream the following day, Sunday evening.  Beginning Sunday morning, Miki began peeling, slicing, measuring, mixing, kneading, and baking.  Hours later, 6 masterpieces sat cooling as if posing for a Betty Crocker centerfold.

From simple beginnings...

with a little help from a friend...

they peek out from within...

and transformed to confection perfection!

These pies were over 2300 miles in the making and as expensive as that might seem, they were worth every inch.  As the subtitle of my blog refers to sharing a peek into our window of experiences as we merge into this change in our lives after teaching, I hope you enjoy this "slice of our pie."


Oh... my apologies to those of you having to only read about the taste of South Carolina peaches, but if you ever are in the presence of a South Carolina peach, Carpe diem...or maybe...Carpe peach!

Home again home again, jiggety jig.

I know if you have become a follower of this mess (Krissy) or voyeur of sorts over the last few weeks (you know who you are), you probably also enjoy Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, because the level of intellect to enjoy both is about the same.  I am not here to judge you, even though you have shown some questionable decision making skills by following our journeys.  With that said, thank you for your interest.  This has given me some direction, of which I have had little for the last year.  Miki and I have been retired out of work on the loose now for one year and we are still adjusting...its a good thing.
Like the nursery rhyme "To Market,"  we have left and come home again a few times since being on the loose and once again we are home again.  We left North Carolina, where we have made some really nice, interesting friends, and 15 hours later we are back in Blue Springs.  Now it is those 15 hours that will consume part of this episode, but we will begin with our preparation to leave.
We spent our last evening with our friends and canoe instructors, Bunny and Janet, at a friend of theirs (and now ours) house, Lynn.  This is where the importance of whom you make acquaintances with becomes important (a life lesson I should have impressed upon my students more).  This was our third dinner we were invited to at someone's home (or in one case a pontoon boat) we didn't know because of whom we new.  Lynn and her husband, Miller, are both Professors of Sociology at Duke University.  They fell in love with NOC (the Nantahala Outdoor Center, for those of you joining late) back in the 80's and have worked for them on and off when not researching and teaching.  You never know who lives in those smoky mountains.
After a late night, we awoke to rain...again.  But before long it stopped and we began shutting down the "dog house" preparing to hit the road.

Our utility umbilical cords that make trailer life easy.

Rivaling NASA's Johnson Space Center, our control
panel houses the knobs and valves that make it all happen.

More life lines including 50 amp power cord, water filter
and hose connection, and cable hookup for their satellite tv.
Camping can be so primitive at times.

The logistics specialist is raising the landing gear so we can dock
the living quarters with the transport vehicle and jettison from this position...
sorry, I went to Space Camp once.

Google says it is about a 13+ hour drive home.  Do you drive part way or go all the way?  Well, against Miki's better judgement, ultimately we go all the way.  Stopping as often as we do to feed the beast (the truck), a Toyota Prius it is not, the dogs (and Miki) get walked and peed  at a rate that makes a long road trip possible.  Most of us have logged long periods of time in a vehicle and generally as the hours begin to stack up, the uglier side of the human psyche rears it's head.  They are not pretty, but the following pictures are witness to this less than attractive side of our travels.

Here, Miki reads about the adventures of two guys and the
Appalachian Trail...not so odd, but she is doing this in her underwear.

To the untrained eye, this may look like an email session, but upon
closer investigation, this is Miki doing an email session on Wallie's
phone...SHE IS USING TECHNOLOGY!  She's come a long way baby.

Letting the cat, Mulligan, drive...not the best decision
I've made, but I was able to rest my eyes for a few
minutes at a time. 

A little rest (thanks Mulligan) and some loud music can carry you
past the "sleepy" portion of the drive. 

Miki, and her 3 margaritas with dinner, starts the self-portrait
phase of the trip.  I'll spare you the shots of her foot, the hair
in my ear, and the pores on my nose (the macro setting can be a bit much)
...your welcome!

Here, Mulligan is crashing after a binge on Classic Lays potato chips.
He was so mellow the rest of the way home.

We arrived in St. Louis around 8:30 to a beautiful sunset and thought what's another 4 hours with my betrothed and pets in tow...let's keep going.  

I challenged Miki, having slept off her Margaritas, to see if she could
take a picture of the St. Louis Arch, while crossing the Mississippi
River bridge, and get a light pole smack dab in the middle of the photo.
Shazam, she is a photographic sevant.

I've tried to leave out the ugliest events from this sojourn to the east coast, but if I can't keep it real, what kind of blogginist am I?  Looking back on the last 4 weeks, I "screwed the pooch" (it's okay, I looked it up before using it appropriately) on a few decisions, like driving 15 hours straight, on some crappy roads while smelling the occasional dog fart (that is where Miki said it came from), but overall we saw some incredible sights, visited with some great people, and realized being retired is a learning process.  I will continue adding to this compendium of useless drivel as the spirit moves me, so you are invited to check back if you wish, but I have come to realize I write to entertain the love of my life, my Miki.

To Market

(adapted by moi)

To travel, to travel, this country's so big.
Home again, home again, jiggety jig.
To travel, to travel, with wife, cat, and dog,
Home again, home again, jiggety jog.
To travel, to travel, to relax and have fun,
Home again, home again, travel is done.

Me Time...

After some of the recent  physical traumas, it was time for some Me Time.  Miki has some Me Time each morning with her yoga, qi gong, or just being away from me for a bit.  I would show some pictures of this, but she is usually in her underwear and nixed that idea.  The dogs get some Me Time each day with their walks.  These walks as you have seen usually involve some water time too.  After setting their inner fish loose, there is usually a good roll involved and a brushing.

Tooga is demonstrating his expertise in the land roll.

Tuck demonstrating his patience with a good brushing.

For Mulligan, Me Time is pretty much 24/7.  Wandering from couch, to chair, to bed, and an occasional pee and drink break.  But we have caught him a couple of times watching some pay per view on TV that is just inappropriate.  We have had to block him from those channels.

Depressed kitty from loss of channel control.

For me, my Me Time comes in the form of doing chores and maintenance.  I needed some time to me, because on our dog walk two days ago, my feet started to feel a raw spot from rubbing on the straps of my sandals.  Same spot on both feet.  so, I figured since we were on a asphalt trail, I could just take my sandals off and barefoot it the rest of the way, so as to not aggravate the discomfort.  Most of the walk was shaded, but a few stretches were in the sun and the pavement was pretty hot.  Your mind is already going there isn't it.  As it turns out, I was burning the bottom of my feet, so I ended up with the equivalent of the beginning of some small blisters.

Here, I joyfully vacuum as a kind of meditation to
relieve the stress to my feet.  I sense laughter out there!
Where's the love and support I should be feeling?

A little time at the spa for some hair care.

For Miki and me, there is always Me Time on the river.  We hit the Tuckasegee again yesterday with Bunny and Janet.  Janet is one of our paddling instructors.  Her two kids joined us for the trip.

Janet and her daughter paddle a canoe, while Bunny is in a "duckie"
and Janet's son is kayaking.

On quite a few nights, we have been invited to Janet's home for dinner, games, and visiting.  The picture shows one such night and includes her husband John.

We've experienced rain almost everyday since we have arrived and they have needed it.  The Smoky Mountains have lived up to their name.

As we wind down our visit to western North Carolina, we will miss the friends we have made and family here and look forward to our friends and family back home.

Water, Walking, and Whoa!

Whoa!:

Lets start with Whoa!  It could have been wow, or whew, or whaaaa!....(all said with great emotion behind them).  This was our reaction when we came home last night and opened the door to an incredible sense of urgency in the form of an odor that I am guessing only dog owners can appreciate, or anyone dealing with uncontrolled urges of diarrhea.  Am I making myself clear?  Tooga, as seen below recooping, had evidently seen "The Exorcist" at some point in his little life, because what Linda Blair did with vomit in that movie, Tooga did with... well.....I'll say no more.  

Mulligan attending to his sick brother.

The velocity and force behind (no pun intended) the previously unmentioned, could only be appreciated by rocket engineers from NASA.  Miki (bless her little poop covered heart) spent the next two hours cleaning up while I emptied the trailer of anything with shades of brown on it.  Around midnight we rolled into bed and slept with one nostril open, hoping there was nothing left to be added to this experience.  This morning, Miki took the brown laden items to the laundry here at the RV park and set us back on track to enjoy the rest of the day.  The woman has some serious intestinal fortitude.


The bad news is...is that we might never be able to sell this trailer.  The good news is...is that Tooga has turned the corner on his bowel misadventures and his recovery seems solid (pun intended).


Walking:
Each day we concern ourselves with walking or exercising the dogs in some way.  One place we found that has worked out, but is a bit of a drive, is the "put in" on the Nanatahala River.  There is a trailhead at the staging area for the raft companies where they begin their float trips down the Nany.  It is about one mile, one way and is paved.  The only problem for me, is that like all trails out here, paved or not, poison ivy seems to grow like grass here.  They do a good job of staying on the trail and they are rewarded afterwards with a cool dip in the river.

Here, Miki is leading the dogs across the river at the trailhead.

Adventures, here we come...

The reward!

I mentioned the staging area for the rafting companies above, here are three different areas where rafts are prepared for the days rafters.

There are kids inflating and stacking rafts and inflatable kayaks, known as "duckies," almost as fast as the buses unload the $$$ tourists.

The Water:

A significant part of our whitewater clinics we took over the years concerned safety on and in the water.  Each raft guide and many private boaters carry a "throw bag" with them which contains a length of rope to be thrown to aid someone in the event that they have fallen out of their boat.  The point on the river that this occurs most frequently is the last rapid (a class 3 rapid) known as "the falls."  It is a little dicey and most paddle through unscathed.  But if you are one of the lucky few, the surprise you find yourself in when it happens to you (like it has to me) is the helplessness you feel from the power of the water...not to mention the temperature will take you breath away to add insult to injury.  So, the rafting guides will usually have a guide that has already run the falls, set up with their throw bag just in case the other boats in their group require their assistance.  Sometimes there are many people with throw bags at the ready and sometimes there are none.  It is fun and challenging to help out as needed and each time we visit the river, I like to spend some time throwing my throw bag.  Today I had some extra help.

The "falls" is just out of sight to the left.
Tuck and Tooga appear to be at the ready too.

Dang, nobody flipped!  Back to waiting for the unfortunate.

I leave you with a little cartoon.  Last night it would have not been so funny, but time (and Febreze) heals all stench.

What a day!

I started Father's Day 2011 by going to church.  Now when you are off the floor from guffawing and you have wiped the tears of laughter from your eyes, focus your attention back to your computer screen...I will continue...still waiting... come on, get it together...okay.


I previously mentioned one of our past canoe instructors was about to move into his own church as their full time pastor.  Well he was speaking at a very small service, held by the Nantahala River this morning and we wanted to support and check him out.  (Really, I went to church.)  As expected he did a fine job and we wished him well in this next chapter in his life as he steps away from NOC.  What was interesting to me is that it was held in a bar and grill, open air type place called the Pourover Pub.  A pourover is a large rock in the river that is above the surface of the water, but because of the flow of the water, the water pours over it, sometimes making it hard to see and you usually want to avoid it.  I persevered through it and like I mentioned, wished him well. (This counts as church...really!)

Following my yearly church appearance, we headed upstream to try fishing for awhile.  What makes this noteworthy is that the Nany is a river that is in a sense turned "on" and "off" each day.  This river is used to produce electricity, but the power company has an agreement to let a certain amount of water out each day for recreational purposes...rafting.  It also continues to let some water out at all times for the river to maintain the life in it, but it is minimal.  My goal was to fish the river before it would rise for the day.  Well as luck would have it or in this case, the power company would have it, I had just started when the sound of the river changed.  I looked down at my feet and saw the water rising, which means that the rafts would soon be on their way.  So, fishing was short lived today.

Shortly after this photo was taken, the water would
rise a couple of feet to cover where I was standing.

We left the river and headed up to Bunny's cabin only to find her in her garden toiling away, putting some tomato plants in the ground.  It was agreed that we would meet back up to paddle the Nany later in the afternoon.  

As we headed back to the trailer to see what the animals were up to (cards, pool party, drunken rowdiness...you never know, they have surprised us before), we decided to quench a curiosity we'd had since arriving at out RV park that is sandwiched between two flea markets (a few miles a part), one of which is about the length of 2 football fields.  What a gold mine!

We never saw "Uncle Bill," but his flea market is second to none!

I am at one end of the "market" and you can see Miki (center)
rushing in to see what we can take back to fill the trailer with.
Now this is shopping!

With elbows being thrown, tripping at every corner, even bra
snapping by the most vicious.  This was serious business.

Who would miss perusing the geographical hair clip center of America?

I scored these for Christmas presents!

To top it off, there was flea market food.  Breakfast for $1.49,
a hotdog for just $1...once this gets out, they'll need to hire more help...
for sure.

We escaped Uncle Bill's clutches with a few dollars to get home on and off to the bat trailer to prepare for our river trip.

After a scattered thunderstorm postponed our launch for an hour, we finally got on the water and paddled in our inflatable kayak, the 8 miles from the put in down to NOC.  The water added to the river each day comes from the bottom of a dam, so it is very cold.  We wear waterproof tops and bottoms to protect us from the shock of the cold water as we get splashed in the rapids.

Having worked up an appetite, Bunny took us to diner at Relia's Garden.  This is a restaurant on site at NOC and was named for one of the co-founders of NOC (She too was on the pontoon picnic, Payson Kennedy's wife).  There is a garden outside the restaurant that does grow many herbs and flowers used by the chef.  When we attended our canoe clinics here, we ate our meals at Relia's unless we were out on the river.

Here are the happy paddlers seated on the deck at Relia's Garden.

Due to either hypothermia setting in from our recent run down the river or the giddy-ness of filling our empty stomachs, dinner got out of hand when time to order.  It started with a smoked trout spread on small slices of French bread along with collard greens and corn cakes...remember, we are in the south.  After our salads were inhaled, salmon, pork chops, and shrimp found their way to our table.  Not to be gastrointestinally satisfied at this point, the dessert tray appeared with three options of which we got one of each...chocolate silk pie, banana pudding, and peach creme brulee...all of which were unfreakingbelievable!  Having picked each dessert container clean, like vultures on roadkill, we requested a stomach pump and wheel barrow to get us to our cars.

All that was left of the dessert feeding frenzy, a happy plate and...
oops we missed a drop of banana pudding.  Excuse me, I'll be right back.

How can it get any better?  After reeling from such an exciting day, we may not get up tomorrow, and this may be my last blog...