Friends

Not Much Going On

Yes, we had days off, three of them, but we didn’t go anywhere. Well, I didn’t go anywhere. FabGrandpa went to Kanab, to have some more work done on the truck. This time, it got a new starter. And I think this is the last thing we will need to do for a while. At least I hope so.

(Kathy and Zach)

He got up and was ready to go around 5:00 a.m. yesterday. I got up just about the time he left, took a shower, and went back to bed. I finally got up for the day around 9:30, just in time to have a cup of coffee before he came back home.

(Shirley, John, Bob, and Gary)

Later, in the late afternoon, we had a dinner party across the street. Kathy and Ace had been gone to the South Rim for three weeks. I had been watering her plants, and a couple of others had been feeding her Kitty, so to thank us all, they made dinner. MMMM, they had potato salad, baked beans, and pork ribs. All of it was very good, and all gluten free I might add. After we all ate, we went out to the fire ring and just visited around the campfire. What a nice, relaxing, day.

(Gary and Sue)

So, since I will be on the late shift when I go back to work tomorrow, I have been cooking all day so we will be able to eat at a halfway decent hour all the rest of the week. I have baked chicken thighs, country style pork ribs, potato salad, rice, jello salad, pinto bean soup and tuna salad. for tonight, it will be stir fried chicken with garlic, french cut green beans, corn and the last of my sweet red Italian peppers. I’ll serve it with some rice and a pear salad, then we’ll eat the last of that chocolate cake.

(John and Zach)

And while all that cooking was going on, we also defrosted the refrigerator, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed all the carpet and shook all the rugs, and just generally cleaned everything. Yeah, how exciting! But now it is done and next time we have time off, we will go somewhere and I will come back with some fabulous pictures to share. But, for now, just know we are living the good life up here on the Kaibab Plateau.

(Ace and FabGrandpa)

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Kanab, Utah

Karen · 3 Comments

We decided to go to Kanab, Utah on Monday to buy new batteries for our truck. FabGrandpa wanted to have someone check the batteries and the altenator first before w spent the money. When we got to Little’s Diesel and Livestock, we found out we didn’t need a battery at all. The problem we had been having with cranking our truck turned out to be that the glow plugs and the glow plug controller were burnt out.

Since the mechanic couldn’t get to our truck until Tuesday morning, they arranged for us to spend the night in Kanab, rather than have to drive all the way back up to the North Rim and come back in the morning.

We stayed at Aiken’s Lodge, a little motel on the north side of town. The room was small but very clean, and the bed was sooooo comfortable. We checked in before going to Honey’s Jubilee Grocery store, because I wanted to see if they had a bathtub, which they did. I got some Calgon and had a nice soaking bubble bath. Ahhhhhh!

For dinner, we walked over to Houston’s Trails End Restaurant. The ad in the motel information book for Trail’s End said “Where our girls have a gun on their hips and a smile on their lips”. Sure enough, all the waitresses had a holster with a pistol hanging off their belt.

Houston’s is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For dinner on Monday night, FabGrandpa had a country fried streak, mashed potatoes and gravy. I had stir-fried garlic shrimp with vegetables over rice. The stir-fry had broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, snow peas, and zucchini. All very good and so much I couldn’t eat it all. We went back there for breakfast on Tuesday. The biscuits Jim had looked so good, but I didn’t even ask to smell them (ok, I sniff wheat bread. At least I don’t eat it.)

After breakfast, we took the truck over to Little’s. We expected to sit there while they worked on our truck, but they gave us a little Chevy truck to drive and told us to come back around lunch time, so we decided to ‘do Kanab” like tourists.

What, you ask, is there to do in Kanab, Utah? A lot. We went to Denny’s Wigwam, and bought some souvineers. We stopped in at Linda Lea’s Coffee Shop for an expresso and a cappacino. I went into a hair salon and got a hair cut. We went into another store where I bought a new backpack and FabGrandpa got some new boots.

There is a museum here where they have buildings from movie sets of movies that have been filmed here. There was one from “The Outlaw Josey Wales” . One from “Sergeants 3” which starred Frank Sinatra. One from a Kenny Loggins music video that was actually filmed at Lee’s Ferry. It was interesting to look at all the stuff they had there.

Moqui Cave is a natural cave in the side of a mountain north of Kanab. The tour guide there told us that his father bought the property in 1950 and in 1951 he opened a bar and a dance hall in the cave. The temperature inside the cave stays cool, so he had a cool place for a cold drink and socializing, and did a brisk business for such a sparsely populated area. There were exhibits of dinosaur tracks that were found in other places in Utah. And some really neat fluorescent minerals that glowed colorfully in black lights in the display cases.

Another interesting thing we learned is that the T-Shirt shop in Kanab printed the “Kanab Cowboys” T-shirt that was worn in the movie “Napolean Dynamite.” Sweet. They had some in the shop and also had some that said “Vote For Pedro”.

The folks at Little’s had our truck ready when we got back over there. The bill for the repair was $583.93, which was not too bad. All the people who work there are so nice, too. The customer service they provided was just as valuable as their repair work. They made us feel like we were at least one of their best friends, if not a part of their family. If you are ever in this area and need work on your diesel truck, this is the place to go. Before we left, they had given us each a T-shirt, a pen and a coupon good for 10 cents per gallon off diesel fuel at their gas station in town.

Before we went home, we stopped at the Food Town to get a few groceries. This was the first time I had shopped in that store. I was glad I went in there, because even though it is a tiny grocery store in a town with a population of under 5,000 people, they had a very good gluten free section. I got some Glutino bread stick, some Mrs. Leepers hamburger helper, and a gluten free pizza crust mix.

I told FabGrandpa that I could live in that town for sure.

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A Visit With My Friends

Karen · 1 Comment

Phyllis and Wanda are my two best friends in the world. I have known them for more than 16 years, having met them when I worked at BellSouth in Atlanta. We used to go to lunch together every day, sharing our joys and our heartbreaks over some of the best food in the south. We always went to Mary Mac’s Tea Room at least once a week when the weather was nice so we could walk it off coming back up the hill on Ponce De Leon to West Peachtree Street.

I was the first one of us to become a grandmother, so when Michael made his entrance into the world in San Antonio, they made the road trip with me over those 1,000 miles to go hold my grandson for the first time. How could you NOT love friends like that?

Here we are at the Riverwalk in San Antonio in October, 1996.
(Phyllis, Me, Wanda)

When Jim and I sold our house and hit the road, I was worried that I would never see my friends again. I shouldn’t have worried about it though, because these girls have shown up in some interesting places. I don’t see them as often as I would like to, but they are just a phone call or an email away. And we still sort out all the worlds (at least OUR worlds) problems whenever we get together.

Here we are sneaking across the border to Mexico in 2004.
(Wanda, Me, Phyllis)

They came to visit us on Saturday at Uncoi State Park in Helen, Georgia. Not a very long road trip, but they do live a couple hours away. We went to lunch at the lodge, where they have a buffet three times a day. After that, we acted like tourists in Helen, going to Nora Mills, Mark of the Potter, Serendipity Stained Glass, then coming back to walk around town looking in all the shops. Dinner was at the Troll Tavern, right down on the Chattahoochee River. (mmmmm, German bratwurst platter!) All too soon it was time to say goodbye, but not before we made plans to meet again at least one more time before we Jim and I leave here at the end of March.

Here we are after lunch at Unicoi Lodge on Saturday
(Wanda, Me, Phyllis)

Yeah, we did let the guys come with us. Here they are, checking out the trout in the Chattahoochee at Nora Mills.

Rick, Jim, Jeff

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Crazy Dreams

Karen · 4 Comments

I don’t usually write about my dreams because I rarely ever dream, or, if I do, I don’t remember them. But last night I went to bed with a terrible headache, so early after coming in from work that Jim was concerned about me. I didn’t even turn on the computer to read my e-mail. I was that sick. So, with apologies to the real people in my family who are in this story, sorry, it was just a dream.

In the dream I had last night, I was walking down the street I lived on when I was in the eighth grade, with my best friend from eighth grade. The road looked like it did then, and I looked like I did then, but my friend looked like she looks now. As a matter of fact, everything in the dream looked like it did then, except her. This is sort of what I looked like then:

We came to a place in the road where a rose bush had grown over the road, and we had to walk through it to get to where we were going. As we walked through it, the thorns on the rosebush snagged on my clothing. Donna, my friend, was helping me get untangled from the thorns. I reached for one of the canes of the rosebush, and got about 20 thorns stuck in my thumb. I said to her, “I need a tweezer to get these out.”

So, we went to my mother’s house, which looked on the outside like it looked when I was in the eighth grade. Except, that when we walked up on the carport, instead of a regular door like my mother has, there was a sliding glass door there. The whole inside of the house was crammed with furniture, so much that my mother, who looked like she looked when I was in the eighth grade, had to move a little round wooden table so that Donna and I could slip in sideways to get into the house.

Once inside the house, I asked my mother for a tweezer. She said there was one in the bathroom. So, I went into the bathroom. In the bathroom, I noticed that it was pouring down rain outside, and the ceiling of the bathroom was leaking, so much that there was a huge puddle of water on the floor. I also noticed that someone had re-tiled the bathroom with a beautiful tile pattern. I wondered to myself in the dream why someone would re-tile the floor but leave the roof to leak so much. I looked in the medicine cabinet for a tweezer, but there was not one there.

I went back out to the living area, where I noticed that the ceiling was leaking heavily in there, too. I told my mother that there was no tweezer in the bathroom. She then said, “Well, if you had asked me I would have told you there was one on that little table by the door.” The one she moved so we could get in. I walked over there and got the tweezer and picked the thorns out of my thumb.

Then, I asked my mother why she had not had her roof repaired. She said, “I asked Seth to do it, and he said he would, but Dick got mad at me because I asked Seth to do it, so I told Seth not to do it, and Dick never came to do it after that.” (Seth is my son, who was not even thought of when I was in the eighth grade, and Dick is my older brother) And I said, “Well, Seth knows how to do it, and I will call him right now to come over and fix that roof.” End of dream.

So, if anyone has a clue what this all means, please let me know.

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A Crabby Happy Birthday

Karen · 3 Comments

THE BIRTHDAY GIRLS

THE BIRTHDAY DINNER

My birthday was last week. I turned 55. I used to think that anyone who was 55 was over the hill, old as dirt, on their last leg. Well, I have changed my opinion of that now that I am there. I am enjoying my life, more than at any other time I have lived it.

My friend, Lynn, also had a birthday last week. So, Jim and I, our friends Lynn and Charlie, their friends Sandy and Phil, and our new friend Linda all went out to a neat little restaurant in Fairfield, Pennsylvania for dinner in celebration of the event.

Dave and Jane’s Crab Shack is a pleasant little surprise. It is located at 2989 Tract Road in Fairfield. Fairfield is about 10 miles west of Gettysburg, and about 2 miles north of the Maryland state line. It is nowhere near an ocean, or any body of water for that matter. But, they have the best seafood I have eaten in a long time.

As their name implies, they serve steamed crabs by the dozens. Even on a Wednesday night, we had to have reservations to get in the door. I was surprised at just how many people were there because it is out in the country.

They have an ALL YOU CAN EAT menu, as well as regular entrees. The AYCE specials are Steamed Crabs (In Season) for $29.95, Alaskan Crab Clusters for $29.95, Steamed Shrimp for $28.95, and an AYCE Trio for $31.95. If I had been with other people who love to eat steamed crabs as much as I do, I would have opted for the AYCE steamed crabs, but I did not because I would have been the only one, and the rest of the gang would have to have waited for me to finish. (Believe me when I say I can eat some crabs!)

So, instead, I ordered the Seafood Lovers Platter. For $22.95, I had 1 dozen steamed clams, 1 lb. of crab clusters, a half pound of steamed shrimp, a cup of cream of crab soup, and a tossed salad. I thought they would never stop bringing out my food! And talk about delish! It was soooo yummy! I also ordered a basket of 3 steamed crabs. I wound up bringing part of my dinner home with me, and that was after sharing with others at the table.

Jim ordered a Combination Seafood Platter. His included broiled shrimp, a crab cake, a broiled fish filet, broiled scallops, and fried oysters. There was more than he could eat, too, and we brought some of his home. The price for that platter was $18.95.

We really enjoyed our dinner party at Dave and Jane’s Crab Shack. If you are ever in the Gettysburg area, I think it is a “must go” place. To get there, take US 15 south from Gettysburg to Maryland 140 in Emmetsburg, Maryland. Turn west on 140 and drive about all the way through Emmetsburg. On the other side of town, you will see a large billboard on the right, at Tract Road. Turn right onto Tract Road and drive about 2 miles or so. Dave and Jane’s will be on the left. Call ahead to make reservations and to make sure they are open. 717 642-5025. You will be very glad you did. OH, they also sell crabs by the dozen to go. And they have a landlubbers menu, including steaks, chicken, sandwiches, and pizza. Prices start at $3.00 for a burger.

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Ga 400, I-285, and I-85, OH MY!!!

Karen · Leave a Comment

Fabgrandpa had an appointment with his endocrinologist in Decatur yesterday. It is 75 miles from our camp host spot to the doctor’s office, and the Dekalb Farmer’s Market is just a couple miles from the doctor, so we took Gary and Faye with us and set out for our journey. Georgia 400 is a road that is very busy with traffic MOST of the time, but yesterday was a horrible mess. In addition to the normal traffic and construction going on , there was a SUV overturned on the southbound side, which backed up traffic for miles. It took us a half hour to go about 5 miles! OK, so we get through the jam on 400, and get on 285 eastbound, and find the traffic crawling there, too. There had been some kind of bad accident on I-85 north, and the state patrol had closed the ramp from I-285 east to I-85 north. Fabgrandpa‘s appointment was for 1:30 p.m., and we left home at about 11:15 a.m., and we were still late getting there. Does anyone wonder why we like working in Urbanna, Virginia???

Dr. Singh was as pleasant as ever, and seemed happy to see us. He remembered that we were the couple who lives in an RV, and told us about his parents going in their motorhome to Tempe, Arizona to visit the Cubs training camp. He also told us about his children, who are 3 years old and 6 months old. He is just a very personable guy. He gave s a 20% discount on our office visit bill and the bloodwork, so that was a good thing. He also wrote Fabgrandpa‘s prescription for 100 pills instead of 30 AND gave us some coupons from the manufacturer for $10 off a prescription of 100 pills. What a guy! Since he did not have the bloodwork results, he actually gave us 2 prescriptions and told us to wait until he calls us to tell us which one to get filled.

Finally, after many hours of traveling (it seemed), we got to the farmer’s market. They have a cafeteria there, where they cook the items that are for sale that day at the market. Has anyone ever eaten braised fennel? Or goat stew? Well, I passed on the goat stew, but we all tried a fab soup called Corn and Poblano Pepper Soup. Wow!, that stuff was great! Oh, if you ever go there, keep in mind that they sell the food BY THE POUND, so make your selections carefully.

After we ate, I got the ingredients for bruschetta; Mexican Seafood Soup; and Basil Pesto. Fabgrandpa got a bottle of Portugese wine, some beef pastrami from the deli, and some delish Red Raspberry Jam. Oh, and we got some blueberry muffins and some rye bread. I just love that store.

After we got all our shopping done, we drove down Ponce De Leon to Peachtree Street, sort of a little driving tour of downtown Atlanta. We passed by Becky’s condo at 923 Peachtree, and drove all the way down to Phipps Plaza. Got on I-85 north, and you guessed it, sat in traffic, again. We were so glad to get back home to the mountains. I hope we don’t have to go down there again any time soon.

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13.3!

Karen · Leave a Comment

It was only 13.3 degrees on Thursday night, the coldest I have known it to be in Georgia before Christmas. The wind was howling outside, but we were snug and warm in our new trailer. I could notice the difference right away, because whenever the wind would blow when we lived in our Starcraft, it was LOUD and there was usually a breeze or draft going through the trailer. In this one, though, I could barely hear the wind outside, and there was no draft inside.

Before I forget, I have to let everyone know how much help Gary and Faye were to us on the day we moved. After we signed all the paperwork and did the walk-through, they arrived ready to work. Faye and I were in the old trailer, handing stuff out the door to the guys until most of the things that were boxed up were moved. Then I went over to the new one and started putting things away. Faye stayed over in the old one and packed things up to be moved. You know, I thought I had gotten rid of a lot of stuff! But, the truth is, I still have too much. I have been throwing stuff away for three days now, and making a pile for selling on ebay too. I was truly embarrased at how much was packed away in that little starcraft! It only took half the day to get things signed and moved.

After we got back to Unicoi, I spent the rest of the day trying to find things. At about 6 pm, Gary knocked on the door with a pan of burritos. They were absolutely delish, so good that Fabgrandpa said he was going to ask Gary to marry him!!

Ok, the top pic is a closeup of one of the window treatments in the kitchen. The next one is the bedroom, or at least part of it. That is me with the camera, and Fabgrandpa in the mirror.

Next is the sofa in the living area, I hope you can see the window treatments and the cabinets over the sofa. Jayco calls this color scheme “Spring Willow”, which sounds like it should be green, but is more brown and beige, very little green in it. The next pic is a closeup of the sofa fabric, so that you can see more of the colors. If you click on the pictures they will enlarge so you can see them better.

Yesterday we went down to Gainesville to
Target so we could get some throw rugs. The rugs I got are mostly orange, brown and beige, with a little bit of dark green in them. They all look pretty good in this new place.

We also went to Lenscrafters and got new glasses. Well, we ordered them, they will be in next week. I will post of pic of me in new glasses when I get them. It is still cold, with a forecast of high teens for tonight, and relative humidity of 15-20%! BRRRR. I want to go to Mexico!!!

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Get a cup of coffe and a donut, this could take a while…

Karen · Leave a Comment

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This past week has been really busy for us. It started with Thankgiving. I cooked Thanksgiving Dinner for Fabgrandpa’s family. Well, most of it. I made Sunday Best Roaster chickens, dressing, gravy, butter peas, creamed corn and sweet potato casserole using Linda’s recipe. It was all good, and the other family women brought things too. Let’s just say it was “challenging” to pull this thing off.

Then, on Friday, we worked again for a half day. On Sunday, we went for a long drive around the mountains with Gary and Faye. They had never been to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia, so we drove up there. We were all excited about being able to take the shuttle to the top and being able to see 4 or 5 states from up there, but, no, the place was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday so we did not get to do it. But, the drive was nice and had a nice long afternoon to visit with our friends.

On Monday, we went down to Gainesville to file an unemployment claim. They said we would hear something from them in 14 business days, but to go ahead and file for the week until we heard from them one way or the other.

We worked a half day again in the morning on Tueday, then we decided we needed to go to the grocery store. We did that and spent a ton of $$, but now we have everything we need to eat like pigs for at least three weeks, maybe four. On the way home from the grocery store, Fabgrandpa’s mother called to tell us that his Dad was admitted to the hospital. They were at the doctor’s office and they sent him to the hospital in an ambulance. One of their friends took Nana to the hospital since she does not drive, so we headed down there to see what we could do for her and to wait with her until she was ready to go home. She decided to stay, so we went home.

On Wednesday morning, she called us and told us they had not found out what was wrong with Poppa yet, and would be doing more tests, so there was no need for us to come to the hospital, so we went ahead with our plans to go to Douglasville.

We went to Becky’s shop to get haircuts, which we both desperately needed. After the haircuts, I went to my mother’s and Fabgrandpa and Becky went to the mall to hang out and go to a movie.

I had a very good visit with my Mom. She was nice and sweet and we had a nice conversation. She gave me a ham sandwich and one of Linda’s mince meat cookie bars and didn’t say anything about me being fat or anything. She gave me some home made pound cake with chocolate fudge frosting and some apple butter to take home with me. It was a very nice afternoon. Dick and Donna came by and I got to finally meet her. She is very nice and I am glad he has found someone to love and to make him happy. He deserves that in his life. When I got ready to leave to go and meet Emily and Spencer, Mama hugged me tight. It felt good.

I met Emily and Spencer at a place called Monkey Joe’s. It is an indoor playground-party place. It is full of things to jump on, slide on, run around on, crawl through, etc… for kids. Spencer was running at top speed, like a short cute little bullet. He is very fast and seemed to never run out of energy. I felt a little bad for Emily, because every few minutes she had to run like a mad woman to catch Spencer jut before he snatched an ice cream or candy bar from the counter and ran away with it. I brought him two little turtles (toys) and a glow in the dark t-shirt from Unicoi State Park. He took an instant attachment to the turtles. He named them Ned and Ted.

From there, we went to Fabgrandpa’s favorite barbecue restaurant, Hudson’s Hickory House, for dinner. There was me and Fabgrandpa, Becky, Emily, Tommy, and Spencer. It was nice to sit down as a family together and eat dinner. (It was also nice to have my favorite bbq ribs! Yum!)

We left Douglasville about 6:30 pm and drove to Gainesville. We stopped at the hospital to pick Nana up and take her home. She announced that she was going to stay another night, and Poppa said if she did then he was going to sign himself out of the hospital. He said it very loudly and with a lot of expletive deleteds. She got
her feelings hurt, but I do understand that he did not want any company. He was still in pain, and they had filled him up with laxatives in preparation for a barium enema on Thursday, so he was not in the mood for company from anyone. We took her home and stayed with her a while, and finally got home around 11pm.

Thursday, we worked a half day again, then went to Nana’s house and stayed with her until Mike got there to spend the night with her. He is taking her to a doctor appointment today, then down to the hopsital in Gainesville to visit Poppa for a few minutes, before he brings home. He is supposed to call us if he decided not to spend the night again so one of us can go over there.

So, that has been our week, very hectic and busy, some fun, some not,
but life is like that. I hope all of you are doing well, and having
some fun along the way. I am waiting to hear from you all.

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