A sailboat day at the lake

Nov 17, 2018, Lake Tomahawk,  Black Mountain NC

Wonderful remote controlled sailboats were doing their thing on the lake a few weeks ago.

I wonder if we'll have any more warm sunny days before spring.  Probably.

Mountain snow

There is snow still falling on the high peaks!

It's not above freezing, but the sun is warm on my face, while some wind is very chilly.

The clouds are hard to tell from the land up there.  I'm glad I'm down by Lake Tomahawk.

Calm

Quote for today:

I imagine that one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

JAMES BALDWIN

Ah, the journey home is so sweet!

 After many hours of windy driving, sometimes with sleet or snow flakes, finally I saw some blue ahead, was it sky or mountains? I left early to avoid some bad weather (I think it was named Bruce up north.)

I'd driven this journey in more level mountains of Kentucky rather than West Virginia and Virginia.   Tennessee and North Carolina have mountains to say welcome home...after driving through them from Knoxville to Asheville!

And sunshine with some leaves still showing color!

Two tunnels, and then a few more miles and I was home again.  The only problem from being away for a week was that the electricity must have been off for a while because...the fish all died.  Thank heavens it's on now, and now I'm putting on the rubber gloves and sloshing out some really yucky stuff.

Travel notes

 A smog stayed along the highway until I got almost to Cincinnati, this was in Oragania, OH apparently.

About to cross the Little Miami River (so says the sign)

One of my favorite restaurants, but there's not one near me at home, so I stopped here for a favorite meal.  However, when using the rest room, I saw no toilet paper or towels had been installed, and I told myself, this is not a good sign.  I had to wait a long time to give my order, and the clerk shared that she is due to give birth in 4 days.  She said the restaurant is having some problems.  But the food was good.  How often do we think of what is going on in the lives of those who work to prepare our meals.

Yes, gas was amazingly low everywhere except North Carolina...where it's around $2.72 a gallon.  Forty three cents a gallon for traveling 500 miles makes a difference! Enough to buy several hamburgers.

PS, Black Mountain Ingles Gas is now wonderful 2.69 on Nov. 27!

On the road again

 As I churn away the miles, thinking of all the millions of others who are zooming back to their daily lives after the holiday.  I am mainly trying to stay away from bad weather, and settle into my own life again shortly.

Puppets by Jerry Pope

The Swannanoa Valley History Museum has a stored display of these puppets, which were used several years ago in a puppet show.

The original figures made by Wade Martin were the inspiration for Jerry Pope's artistry.

Jerry and his lovely creative wife, Rebecca Williams.

Almost there...

Travels, which I did early in the holiday week.  I was hoping to avoid some of the traffic which would be shuttling all of us from one place to another to be together with friends and family for Thanksgiving.

 Then there was this big blue bridge, and another river to cross!

Coming into Ohio State.

I loved seeing West Virginia...and then crossing the bridge over the Ohio River.  I never turned on the radio, or even listened to the CD's of a book a friend gave me to keep myself entertained.

The route that was recommended (via the Map app on my phone) didn't even follow an interstate into Ohio...and Hwy 33 wasn't too crowded so it was pretty easy to follow, even when it was 2 lanes at times.  Since I may have been the slowest car on the road, a lot of times I felt bad that I was only going 5 miles over the posted speed limit.

And  then...

 I was so grateful that my phone app was telling me where to turn once I got onto the interstate highways around Columbus.  I'd have been in a real panic if I'd tried to keep going without that assistance.

And then I was happy in my son's home with his family, and we celebrated what we're grateful for.

The fun of getting there

While on the road for 2 days, I was able to prop iPhone on the steering wheel, and sometimes actually get interesting photos.  I have done some cropping to remove the ever present dashboard at the bottom of the shots.

I began in North Carolina, then a bit of Tennessee, then Virginia, then West Virginia and finally Ohio.

 Most of my miles were in the mountains.

 A very big mountain ridge in front of me, I wondered how the road would get around it!

 Virginia had a tunnel through the mountain!  What a surprise!

There was another tunnel further on down the road as well.

I spent one night in West Virginia, because it's mostly mountains and was about to rain, and I'd been at it for 6 hours (stopping hourly to walk around or eat something.) The next morning the weather was still dropping rain, and there was talk of snow...but I never saw any.  And by the second hour on the road, the rain stopped.

 Most of the highways through mountains followed little rivers which had carved out these valleys over millennia.  It was like following the water either uphill or downhill, around many of the higher parts of the mountains where nobody lived except eagles.

 Coming close to Charleston, West Virginia there was suddenly a broad river!  It's the Kanawha!

 The WV capitol dome is visible from the interstate!

Did I make it to my family?  Let's talk tomorrow!

Do you remember the autumn of 2018?

If you blinked, you missed it!

 I went in search of leaves that were not green or brown.

 Flat Creek was moving pretty fast, but the weather in mid-November had been warm and wet, all through October too.

 Warm and wet makes for good mushrooms however.

I don't ever pick wild ones, though a friend does know which ones are edible.  But she wasn't with me.

I'll gladly remember these few beautiful colored leaves.