Texas at last!

     First - the answer to yesterday's trivia was b.  "Wash out" refers to washing out the interior of one of those big trailers on an 18 wheeler.
   The top row of photos is a promo for my birth state of Arkansas.  They have an absolutely beautiful state park system.  We stayed last night in the lodge run by the park service at DeGray Lake.  Terrific accommodations! A place for you to consider Joe, or any of you for that matter, if you're heading west.  The 18 hole golf course looked great and the fishing is reported to be the best.  They even serve beer in the restaurant. And the waitress had an answer to "why that pyramid in Memphis?".  They're putting in Bass Pro Shop... They also have bald eagles that nest there.  John is standing by a life size replica of one of their nests. Suppose if you offered them enough they might even let you spend the night in it.
   On to Texas, hands firmly on the wheel as we made it through Dallas/Fort Worth.  Tillie would not have been happy. Stopped for lunch at the haunted Weatherford Downtown Cafe (center photo). Notice the ghost in the bottom left hand photo? OK - you're right.  That's me.  Not all photos come out perfect.  Am sure you can pick out the photo of John with Peter Pan (Weatherford is the birthplace of Mary Martin).  The bottom center photo is their courthouse.
   Heading off to the heart of Texas... Mother had homemade noodles waiting for John and homemade soup for me. And my sister Becky is putting us up in her spare bedroom.  The life of luxury for a couple of days until we start our first week of camping.  You don't suppose those three beauties in the bottom right hand corner are related, do you?

Meandering...

Today was sunny - yeah!  It was 70 - yeah! And the scenery was much more interesting - yeah! We're through Kentucky & Tennessee, home of many horses, many bourbon distilleries (that's Kentucky), many whiskey distilleries (that's Tennessee), country music, dinosaurs in Kentucky P2 followed by what were either dinosaur barricades or road construction in P3.  Cousin John & Judy will probably recognize the Corvette Museum in P4.  We noted it looked like mostly "wanna be" Corvette owners in the parking lot.  I picked out Only, TN to have lunch in but P6 was just about all there was to Only so we had lunch instead just down the road under the buffalo at Loretta Lynn's Kitchen - turnip greens, white beans, grits, fried chicken, her own pork - smoked.  It turns out she's still alive and lives just down the road from Only.  Hers is another April birthday, 4/14/32.  P5 - the pyramid in Memphis (why?). Finally we were over the Mississipppi and into Arkansas to find daffodils in bloom.
Trivia question - What does the sign in the last photo mean?  a) be careful entering because the entrance is washed out on the left. b) a truck driver's answer to detailing. c) a quick fix when your home hair coloring project went amiss.  You'll have to wait until tomorrow for the answer...

Off again...

A bit later than in the year this time out, but we're again on our way to Texas to visit family & work on a Habitat project.  So we don't miss too much spring in NY, we've decided to take the shortest route rather than meander.  P1 - John's stockpiling his "driving" energy. (Am not sure what Bertha the cat is stockpiling but she's very dedicated.)  P2 - Leaving our house this morning. Goodbye snow!  However, the sun was out and the redwing blackbirds were singing away.  The robins at the bottom of the hill, where there are bare patches of ground, are biding their time before visiting us. P3 - NY. P4 - Pennsylvania. P5 - Ohio. P6 - N. Kingsville, Ohio (where my mother grew up). P7 - Kentucky.  Let's see... that's 5 photos of boring highway = dull, dull, dull, dull, dull! Unfortunately, I was too slow to get a photo of the only interesting billboard we saw but it was huge.  Oh yes, all it said was "HELL IS REAL".  You don't suppose they'd just driven over from NY, do you?

Wrapping it up... finally...

P1 - Yes, that's Gus.  He's already wrapped it up for the day and it is only ten in the morning.  Some snowy days are more trying than others.
P2 - The finishing touches on the bedroom.  Captain's bed with storage underneath (now if we can only remember which storage cubby we put stuff in).  The headboard is part of Debby's picket fence she took down this summer.  I had originally thought porch posts again but the picket fence turned out to be a better idea.  John is still adjusting to the idea that the color I chose for it is a lot pinker than it looked like in the store.  Although you can't see it in the photo, the chairs face the wood burning stove.
P3- Curtains finally up in the new room and odds & ends strewn about just like someone is enjoying living there (which we are!).
Stay tuned - another trip to Texas & a new Habitat project starts in April.

After an interlude...

We're pleased to report that our renovations made having and enjoying the company of 40 on Thanksgiving Eve and 22 on Thanksgiving a piece of turkey.  Of course not quite everything is finished but we're getting there.
P1 - Debby & John hung the curtain rod from Debby's previous home.  It's nice to have friends who had big windows and never throw anything away.  P2 - look closely to see "the rod".  The proper curtains, or should I say "window treatments", are still under discussion.  P3 - Our new solar panel is now installed but not yet operational.  A bit more electrical work needs to take place before it begins generating electricity.  P4 - Debby, queen of decorating, screwing the Thanksgiving turkey into its lofty perch.  Some folks have mistletoe.  We had turkey toes. P5 - Mr. Turkey flew back to the attic and has now been replaced with Gabriel.  P6 - Closet in the raw.  P7 - Making progress on the closet.  One day soon it may actually hold something other than tools.  P8 - The rest of the bedroom is a wreck but Bertha remains unperturbed.

More odds & ends

P1-5  Last post left you/us with a pole in the ground.  Since then the digger came to bury the conduit for the electrical cable from that pole to the barn.  Although the digger tried to cover it up neatly, the ground was very wet and there's going to be A LOT of yard work to be done in the spring.

Meanwhile life/work goes on inside.  P6 - more work on the closet.  P7 - the top step of the stairs got glued and screwed into place.  That odd board on the top step held it tight while the glue set.

P8 - They came to do a home energy test on the house complete with a blower door test - that's the red contraption.  P9 is the meter that shows where we're lacking insulation (and where the mice tunnels are).  Guess what?  The part of the house we did NOT work on, needs work.  Where will it all end?

What now?

After rushing around hosting B&B guests, then rushing around preparing for Sandy who spared us, I thought I was only going to be able to report that Bertha snoozed through the week P1.

But then... it seems a little rain is no reason to stop the guy who came to install the gutters P2 & P3.  It's not something I would choose to do on a rainy day but I guess it's one way of knowing right away if they're working.

Then today P3, P4, P5, the photo-voltaic installation crew came to install the pole that will hold the panels to generate part of our electricity.  A BIG hole, a BIG pile of muddy dirt (they too do not let a little rain stop them), a BIG sonotube (a big cardboard tube like the one in a roll of toilet paper except that this one is blue, 10 feet tall and 30 inches in diameter) into which a BIG, tall 20 foot steel pole is placed and a BIG truckload of concrete is added.  The dirt is pushed back in the hole around the sonotube to hold it and the pole in place.  You might also note the yard, or what was the yard, in the last photo.  If you think it looks bad now, just wait with us until next week when they come to dig the trench to run the electric cable to the barn...