Miscellaneous Stuff

Well, we're wrapping up October and we've been pretty busy.

For Paw Paw's birthday we went to Neil and Pam's.  They got some golf practice in.

We got to go to a few of Chase's baseball games.  He was playing catcher in this game.

I've been helping Katie paint - this is the dining room in the new house.

Livie is helping Paw Paw install the new dishwasher.  She's holding the flashlight.

And now we have Halloween.   Live and Taylor are modeling their costumes.  Livie is Batgirl and Taylor is shadow.  Ella is going as a nerdy Minnie Mouse (complete with a tie and nerd glasses), but she didn't try her costume on for me.

And yesterday, Taylor had surgery to repair his broken nose.   Poor muffin will have to wear the splint through the weekend.  I hope his shadow costume won't hurt over his face!!  By the time we left yesterday, he felt so much better that he wanted to go outside and play!

Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we met Katie and Mike and the kids at Jaemor Farms.  We walked through the pumpkin patch, bought some fresh produce, and then came back to Leisure Acres for supper and s'mores.

Katie made a yummy pot of chili, and Ella made a birthday cake for Paw Paw.  We had such fun!

It got pretty cold in the evening, so we had a big fire.  And, Happy Birthday Paw Paw!!!

Taylor can't smile because he broke his nose on Friday and it hurts ;-(

The sun's going down and it's getting COLD!

Happy Birthday Paw Paw!

The Great Smokey Mountains

This week Mike and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather, and we took a little camping trip to the Smokey Mountains.   We camped in Townsend, TN - a great campground there.
The whole area was PACKED!  Evidently it was fall break for all of the schools in Tennessee.  The traffic was unbelievable!

We rode over from Cleveland, GA through Cherokee, North Carolina and through the park.  The colors were stunning, and it was a really fun ride; lots of twists.

On Wednesday, we thought we'd take a "quick run" through Cade's Cove (a one way 11 mile loop). HA!  It was stop and go, and at that rate would have taken 4 or 5 hours.   After about 30 minutes of that, there was a sign that said "cutoff to exit - 2 miles".  We took it!   WOW!!!! It turned into a dirt road, and we had to ford a stream - and we're not on the dirt bikes, baby!  Very exciting - luckily the road was in good shape and it was dry.

From there, we headed over to Gatlinburg via Pigeon Forge; again the traffic was unbelievable.  It doesn't look anything like the last time we were there (we took Katie skiing at Ober Gatlinburg when she was 8, so it's been a while).

We had a little racoon problem on Tuesday night.  The little turd actually got into the cooler and took the grapes.  We ended up having the strap the cooler closed with the tie downs.  I hope he got sick on them - he got the whole bunch!!!

On Thursday we rode over to Oak Ridge.   Mike lived there in the early 60's when he worked for IBM right out of college.   He had top secret clearance, and worked at Y-12, the atom smasher.  The NSA now has labs here, so there is lots of security.  He wanted to try and see where he worked, so we rode right up to the security gate.  Of course they wouldn't let us in, but they did want to know who we were.  They took our pictures, took copies of our driver licenses, and pictures of the tags on our bikes.  WE ARE NO LONGER OFF THE GRID!!  Rats.

Then yesterday we had a great ride home.  We took 411 to GA 52 out of Chatsworth - wow what a ride.   Beautiful scenery and lots of twistys.  Loved it.

We're exhausted, but had a great time.   Enjoy the pictures:

Parked at the top at one of the pull-outs

These pictures don't really show the stunning colors

Pancakes and sausage!

The traffic in Gatlinburg was unbelievable!

Hart Ranch

It's been a while since I posted, and we wrapped up our stay at Hart Ranch on Oct 1st when we headed out for Georgia.

Sally and I had a fun road trip to Devil's Tower, and of course I had to get a shot of her with the Sundance Kid in Sundance, WY. 

You can barely see the kid - the sun wasn't in the right spot!

We also took our last Black Hills ride and stopped by the Full Throttle Saloon just to see for ourselves.   Yikes!!  That keg is where the fire started - it crimped a wire.  Good thing this didn't happen during Sturgis Bike Week.

And, we ordered a brick for the Hart Ranch Heritage Walkway - I love this!!!