Cold … in Vina

First the storm … which came through the Montgomery area on the 30th.

When we first heard the forecast for the storm, we considered leaving the FamCamp at Maxwell AFB a day early. However, the size of the front and the fact it was coming in from the west made any move we might make moot. So we prepared our “go-bag,” moved our departure day chores up to the 29th, and hunkered down to ride out the storm.

The only thing worth mentioning on the day leading up to the storm is the lunch we snuck in at the Texas Roadhouse when we went to pick up a y-valve (hose splitter) from Home Depot. No photos, but I can tell you that the food was very good. I’m not a ribs person, but Mui declared the falling-off-the-bone sample the chef brought to our table to be the best he’s eaten to date.

[collage from screenshots taken from the website]

The day of the storm dawned early with our weather radio going off around 5:30a to alert us to a tornado watch that later in the morning was upped to a tornado warning. Ready to evacuate from the famcamp to one of the designated areas on base, we went about our day. In the end, the storm was a non-event — for us. We got non-stop drenching rain that was so heavy at times that the rat-a-tat-tat on the roof drowned out the sound of the TV. We had some wind gusts during the day, but nothing of real concern. The worst of the wind gusts came after the strong wind advisory was lifted at 6:00p. They were few and far between, but when it blew, we felt like we were aboard a ship rocking and rolling on stormy seas. By bedtime, all was calm.

On the last day of January, we woke up to sunshine and cold temperatures (36F [2C]). We took our time getting ready to depart. Shortly after 10:00a, we were pulling up to the ITT Office to top off our propane. We didn’t need much (only 4 gallons [15 liters], as it turns out), but we wanted to leave with a full tank and the $3.59/gallon was a good price to take advantage of.

With only 4 gallons (15 liters) to purchase, the propane top-off is a quick affair.

By 10:30a, we were on I-65, heading north. The drive was uneventful. We made one stop near Birmingham to top off our diesel at Flying J ($3.81 with our RV Plus card) and grab a bite of lunch parked amongst the semis. Then another 100 miles (120 km) put us at Custom RV on the outskirts of Red Bay.

The coach next to us is unoccupied, so we have the place to ourselves.

It was 3:30p, and the place was locked down tight. A call to Brannon Hutcheson confirmed that we should back up to one of the bays and avail ourselves of the electricity and water hookups for our overnight stay. We took him up on the electricity. Since overnight temps were forecasted to dip into the low 20F range [minus 4-5C], we decided to use our onboard water rather than risk a hose connection. We had a comfy night, with the rear propane furnace kicking in occasionally to keep us — and the wet bay — warm.

Our spot allows us to take advantage of the warming rays of the afternoon sun.

Back to today …

We were up early this morning for our 7:00a appointment. After breakfast, we prepared the coach for its next move — a short u-turn into the service bay where Brannon quickly got to work on the list of things we wanted him to do for us. I’ll cover all that in a separate post for our “Mods” page.

While Mui and Brannon went about business, I made use of the comfortable lounge. With no internet connection to speak of (at least not via Verizon), I spent the day reading a book about the travails of a couple who travel north to the Greenland/Baffin Island area to over-winter. Brrrr …. now what they experienced is cold!!!

I’ve made myself right at home in the lounge.

Just a few of the artifacts in the glass-top coffee table.
I meant to ask Brannon about them, but forgot to do so — next time.

Mui fixed lunch in the Phaeton and we dined in the lounge.

We’ll be spending one more night in the parking lot at Custom RV before moving the short distance to “Camp Tiffin” for some things we want to have looked at/fixed at the service center near the hospital plant where our Phaeton was born. Our stay here is an indefinite one. We’re hoping for a speedy discharge, but came prepared for a long stay — our next campground reservation is not until mid-March. We’ll leave whenever the work is done.

(Brannon is working on getting a website up. In the interim, you can reach him at 256-668-0973. Even though I have yet to show you what he did for us, we join other Tiffinites in recommending him highly.)

Finding their groove

A dog team finds its rhythm after blasting out of the starting gate at the first-ever Gichigami Express Sled Dog Race in Grand Portage, MN on January 6, .


This is my favorite shot from this morning. I gotplenty of cool shots of the dogs lunging forward at the starting line, but this one I think tells more of a story. The starting line is chaos; with dogs barking, mushers and handlers scrambling to keep things in order, and spectators everywhere. A couple hundred yards down the trail the chaos of the starting line is nowhere to be found. All you hear is the rhythm of the dogs breathing and the sound of the sled as it glides by on the surface of the snow. It is a wonderful thing to witness!

Let Sleeping Mammals Lie...

Welcoming Summer

Summer is officially here! We celebrated its arrival by having vanilla ice cream with red sugar sprinkles topped by a sparkler. The kids loved it!
It's a small way to honor the change of seasons. Much more appropriate than running naked through the field like I threatened to do in the past. Just kidding, my children. I'd never do that. Really...probably not.

The Jaunt to Jerusalem

A simply stunning weekend was had in Mt Jerusalem National Park, immediately to the North of Mullumbimby. And yet there is still much to explore in this region. I didn't find the cave paintings that I had been told were in the area, but there may be another lead on those in the Koonyum Ranges. Something to explore for another day perhaps.

The ride to the campsite was relatively uneventful to start with. I got the usual late start that seems to be a common theme in weekend tours, and took the now usual route south via Urliup. When I crested that range I could see that there was rain sweeping across the Tweed Valley from the South. I had no idea that it was going to stay with me for the rest of the morning. The rain started soon after I passed through Murwillumbah and simply did not stop, at all.

The climb up the range toward the campsite was treacherous, partially because of the condition of the road, but mostly because of at least two complete idiots careering out of control in the opposite direction. I have no idea how (if) they survived, and I can only hope that they don't take any innocent people with them when their time inevitably comes. For my part, I continued across the top of the range, before the descent to the campground that I am now christening Leech City, in honour of the creatures who were encouraged by the continuing rain.

I actually considered going home and abandoning the whole idea at one stage, but I decided to stick it out, on the basis that a leech-infested rainforest campsite in the wet is still a million times better than another weekend of suburbia. I crawled into the tent, had lunch and slept for an hour, by which time the rain had stopped, and the sun had made a rare appearance. It was time to explore the area immediately surrounding the campsite. I had my own swimming hole and waterfall.



Later in the day I decided to undertake the climb up to Hell's Hole. I had seen this last September of course, but I wanted to see how it looked after the rain we've had recently. The climb to get there is still as hard as it was back then, although that particular dirt road didn't suffer too badly in the rain it seemed. The track off the road to the falls was extremely muddy, and I hid the bike half way down and walked the remainder of the distance, while picking off some more leeches. Whatever I had to do, it was worth the effort.





Hell's Hole is a chain of swimming holes linked by little watefalls, culminating in one BIG waterfall at the bottom end. I'm still trying to find a way to access the BIG waterfall. Perhaps I'll consider a return visit in April. By the time I finished here, it was getting late, so I headed back to my campsite (which was virtually all downhill from here) and retired for the evening. I managed to filter some water from the creek to keep me going, and now it was time to rest after what had been a memorable day.
* * * * * * * * *

I really seemed to be plagued by laziness the next morning for some irrational reason. I did head for the top of South Chowan Road (some of which was unrideable on this bike) and did get a magical ride through the rainforest, as well as some lovely views through the trees at the top of a ridge. The problem is that I didn't bother to come up with any particular plan of attack, and ended up heading down a side road that led nowhere, before deciding to head back to the campsite and make preparations for the ride home.

On a drier day I'll return and explore the South Chowan Fire Trail, albeit I think I can guess where it might go. I returned to Uki for lunch, and commenced what turned into a surprisingly easy ride home. Even the climb over Tomewin didn't trouble me at all. Maybe all the blood lost to the leeches lightened the load a little! I simply mopped up the remaining kilometres, and pondered what I can take from this trip (apart from probably a few too many pictures).

The Mt Jerusalem National Park has emerged as the great unknown among all the places I now regularly visit. A google search on it turns up surprisingly little, and much of that content is either incomplete or just inaccurate. Consequently, I have no idea what to expect in some of the other areas of the Park. I have a feeling I'll need to set aside some other weekends to explore those fully.

Empingham - Tickencote - Gt Casterton - Pickworth - Clipsham

Led by me, with Barry and Gordon. Fine with a chilly wind. Muddy underfoot in places. Just over 11 miles in all, including the ritual progress along the avenue.

This covers most of the same ground as the walk on 31 August .


We left one car at the Yew Tree Avenue, and drove to Empingham to the start of the walk. We parked on the road near the church, and then walked along the main street east through the village. Just after the last buildings and Mill Lane we took a footpath to the right, leading uphill through Chapel Spinney.

The path came out of the trees into and continued along the top edge of several fields. Empingham was now a cluster of houses and the church behind us. We passed a spinney on the right, and continued to follow the path. According to the map there should be a turn to the right downhill across a field, but we didn't see it, and in any case avoided the sticky mud by carrying on to the farm track, where we turned right and walked down a short distance to pick up the path. It crossed the fieldto the next yellow post just before a farm house.

The path emerged on to a small road, and then across a couple of fields, going roughly north east, before swinging round more to the east behind Tickencote Hall, with the mill pond visible through the trees.

We crossed another road and entered the ram's field.





Today he wasn't asleep, but posed no problem. Of course, I talked to him nicely.



We called in to St Peter's Church to admire the chancel arch and vaulting, before making our way through the village and along the road past the OK Diner and to Great Casterton.


We took Pickworth Road, past the school and up hill out of Great Casterton. After about a mile along this quiet road we tirned left along a muddy track between two hedges - just opposite Mounts Lodge Farm. We walked alongside a very big field, and then turned right along another track with hedges on each side. The footpath sign post was on the ground here. We had a break, slightly sheltered from the wind.
From here the path continues north towards Pickworth, passing some woodland and the site of Woodhead Castle (invisible from where we were). With one short diversion to the right we kept on walking.

At Pickworth we turned left, leaving the church on our right, and passing the archway - now behind a gate, and John Clare's lime-kiln, which is also clearly on private land, and fenced off.

Pickworth Church

We went past the first signed path to the right, and took the second one, where the road bends left. The wide track turns into a path after half a mile or so and turns right across a field to Little Sutie, a section of woodland joined to Pickworth Great Wood. We walked thorugh the tress and then followed the edge of the woodland as far as the path across Clipsham Quarry. Up the other side and following Rutland Round signs, the path eventually took us down hill across a slippery wooden bridge and uphill again into Clipsham. From here we walked along the Castle Bytham road and back to the yew trees.

What the storm hath wrought

We could have used all this rain last spring or summer, but it's still welcome.

Even if last week's storms are going to cause a little extra work. I wish I'd put something in there for scale - this tree was huge. I had to hop up on it to get over.

This ex-Sycamore was definitely dead already.

I think the fish and ducks and flittery little birds would like this a lot, but hubby thinks it needs removing.

Collateral damage... I wish it hadn't taken two live trees with it.

It's amazing how fiercely the Sycamore balls still cling, this time of year.

Except for this one.

Flocks of Cedar Waxwings celebrated the rain. (Click to enlarge.)

Weirdness

This is an old baptismal font at Jamestown, Virginia.
Today in Sunday School, a friend of mine was talking, so I could stare at him without being rude.   As I continued looking at him, he ceased looking like himself and became like a stranger.  I've known this person for almost thirty years.  It made me feel like I didn't know him at all.  Isn't that weird?
Have you ever had this to happen?  It's not the first time it's happened to me.

I Made It!

The engagement party went off without a hitch on Friday night.  We had a cookout at a local state park.  Here's the cake I made for them; camo and girly pink.  It was a cute idea, but my execution left a lot to be desired.  Cake decorating is not on my list of talents!  Oh well, everyone thought it was cute anyway.
We had a crowd for Easter dinner.  Lots of good food and fellowship.  The kiddos had a great time hunting the eggs.  I had a great time hiding them.  I kept finding myself smiling and remembering the past when all the cousins would gather at Grandma Collins' house to hunt eggs.  I was telling my mama what a good time I had hiding the eggs and remembering all the hunts we had at Grandma's house.  Mama said that she just loved hiding the eggs too.  There were probably a hundred or more since there were so many cousins hunting them.
So hopefully this week will be a little slower and calmer; at least until Friday.  The whole weekend will be spent in celebrating our church's 25th anniversary.  There'll be lots of friends back to help celebrate, so it'll be good to renew relationships.  Summer, please come quickly!  I'm ready for a laid-back state of mind.  All these schedules are makin' me crazy!