{sigh!}

sunshine; nice cool breezes; birds singing; boats on the lake; families laughing and enjoying time together

{sigh!}


Yes, we are once again camping!  For the next little while we are stationed at a campground in the beautiful mountains of northern Georgia, and this time Mama is with us for a few days.  She is looking forward to much time sitting on the banks of the lake fishing for 'the big one'!

Mama

Why now?  Why this week?  Well, there are several answers to that, but the biggie is easy.  One year ago today, my sweet Daddy was struggling to take his last breath, and about 9:00 pm one year ago, he went home to be in heaven.  No more suffering, no more struggling, no more worries - just well deserved rest and peace!

Hubby - doing what he does best!

We decided this would be a good time to get Mama out of the house and let her fish and enjoy some time away.  So here we are!  And we are very fortunate that a cool front came through last night, so there was rain on the roof while we slept, and about mid-morning the sun burned away the fog and it is a beautiful day!

The girls, enjoying the sunshine!

We are so relaxed this morning it isn't even funny, and that is a wonderful thing!  It's been a busy last few weeks, and hubby's job more stressful than usual, so it is a good time for a break.

My Craft 'Stuff'!

I brought more craft stuff than usual because we are only a couple of hours from home, and we brought both vehicles.  Hubby pulled the camper here and I went by and picked up Mama and all her stuff and we came right behind him.  I even brought my sewing machine, and I may pull it out in a little while - I'm in a sewing mood!

Breakfast Station

We set up a table just next to the camper and that's where the coffee pot stays, along with the toaster oven and such.  It sure takes a lot of morning activity out of the camper and into the more open spaces.

Our canoe 'Red' is sitting by, waiting for her first cruise of this trip.

We look forward to several outings in our canoe called, for obvious reasons, Red.  There is an island around the bend that we want to check out, but we'll probably do that early in the morning before boat traffic gets too heavy.  It's so nice to be out on the water, with nothing but the sound of the water lapping on the side of the canoe, and paddles dipping into the water.  (Another {sigh} here, please!)

Our home away from home!

The View

So here we are, chillin' and relaxing and enjoying some time away from the normal - whatever that is!  And the underlying theme for me is 'joy'!  Yes, today is not a day to be mourning or grieving!  Daddy lived an amazing life, and he fought to live to the very end.  But the last few years were horrible for him!  Pain, weakness, declining health that he didn't understand and inability to do the things he loved was not living!  And now he is in heaven, and he is happy and whole and walking upright (something he hadn't done in a long time) and living like never before.  In fact, he's doing MUCH better than we are here on earth!  So this is a day for rejoicing, and remembering the good memories and how much we loved him and he loved us.

And what better way to do that than be out in the open outdoors that he loved, and enjoying being together.  He's here, too.  I truly believe that he is watching from above and knows we are doing well.  He is probably sitting around chewing the fat with his trucking buddies, or maybe walking the streets of gold with HIS daddy!  And it's all good!  I'll see him again some day, and then we'll never be apart again.  What a blessed promise!

Have a wonderful week, friends!  Becky

Water . . .

After the last three to four dry, drought-ridden years, I'm really glad to see the rain . . . really I am ! But there comes a point when you begin to form mold in weird places from all the moisture, and it just gets yucky!

As most of you have probably been seeing in the media, many parts of northern Georgia have been flooded from all the rain - some areas had fifteen plus inches of rain within a 36 hour period. Almost a dozen people lost their lives. Hundreds lost their homes, and that doesn't even count the people whose homes survived, but are coated with muck and mud and will take much, much work to repair. They are calling this the '500 year flood', and believe me, I hope it's at least another 500 years before the area sees this kind of devastation again.

Luckily, we live in the 'foothills' of the Blue Ridge mountains, and most everything flows downhill from here, so we didn't have any problems at all. Just the wet, humid, all-pervading moisture from lots and lots of rain. Did I tell you my beloved Lake Lanier is almost (-3 feet) back to full pool??? At it's lowest point it was over 17 feet below full pool, so this rain has been a Godsend.

Anyway, we've had a few rain-free days, but they have been cloudy and muggy for the most part. I did get the camper straight, our bed made, and most everything packed in it and ready for our trip - tomorrow. Or at least that was the plan!

Did I tell you there is rain in the forecast? Yep, one to three inches tomorrow and tomorrow night with thunderstorms throughout the afternoon and evening. I know. I went HERE and did the hour by hour forecast for the next couple of days. Rain, and lots of it!

Have you ever tried to put a pop-up camper (aka tent trailer, folding trailer, etc.) up in torrential rains? I have, and trust me, it's NO FUN!!! Especially when you have two little doxies whining and barking their heads off wanting you to let them out of the truck. And let's not mention the fact I've still got some cough and mild sniffles from my case of the crud.

So, given all the info we have at our disposal concerning the rain, and given the fact that hubby really, really, really wants to watch the Georgia game (GO DAWGS!) from the comfort of his own recliner tomorrow night, we will be postponing our trip by one day. Sunday the forecast is for mostly sunny. And given the choice, spending a rainy, stormy night at home in my bed instead of in a soggy camper is a no brainer! We'll still have 7 nights up there in the mountains, cool, fall-ish, wonderful nights where rain is (so far) not a part of the forecast. Hallelujah!

Have a great weekend, folks! Becky

Our Vacation - Day Three at A43

It's been another beautiful day. The weather is perfect, and the breeze off the lake cools us down wonderfully! We stayed here most of the day, but got out and rode around for a little while before stopping for dinner. That's what this post is about. Dinner!


We went to Smoke Rings BBQ in Hiawassee, Georgia. It was really good. Here's a picture of their menu . . .





We ate out on their deck, and here's the view - isn't it lovely!




That's Lake Chatuge beyond the next door building, and below are the mountains to the east of the lake . . .

I ordered the BBQ Chef Salad, and a baked potato on the side.

The potato above was totally unnecessary.

The description of the salad said mixed greens, hard boiled eggs, bacon, cheese, onions, croutons, tomatoes, cucumbers and samplings of our sliced smoked pork, beef brisket and turkey. Small samplings, hmmmmm. I was not expecting the three 4 ounce servings of meat on that monster of a salad!

It was delicious. The leftovers will be delicious for lunch tomorrow!

So that was our third day here at the lake. More of the same tomorrow. Blessings, friends! Becky

Day Two at A43

On our second day of vacation we . . .

ate breakfast . . .

paddled in the canoe . . .

played dominoes . . .

ate lunch . . .

played skip-bo . . .

ate snacks . . .

played dominoes again . . .

went out to dinner . . .

played Triple Yahtzee . . .

ate watermelon . . .

took showers . . .

crashed in the camper!!!

Oh, and we watched the wildlife, too! There were crazy people on jet skis, wave runners, boogie boards and skis out on the water, and on land there were birds, squirrels, geese and a pair of groundhogs. Fun!

(See that canoe? That's 'Red' our mid-life crisis little red convertible!)

Muskrat Love - scratch that, Ground Hog Love!!!

We're going out riding and exploring tomorrow - maybe I'll have more pictures next time! Blessings friends! Becky

A43 - The First 24 Hours

In a word - wonderful! That's the best way to describe the first twenty four hours here at A43, the temporary home base of Camellia Cottage, Too. Right now, as I write this around 6:40 pm on Monday evening, this is my view . . .



and I'm sitting here enjoying the low 80's temps with a nice breeze right outside this . . .


in a lawn chair, with my feet propped up on the bench (left hand side) of the picnic table, here . . .



Today we . . .

paddled in the canoe . . .

had a nice lunch . . .

read and relaxed here in the campground, played a crazy game of double 15 dominoes . . .

watched the lake some more . . .

had a brief thunder storm and light rain shower, then watched the skies clear and bring back the sunshine . . .

had DQ for dinner . . .

and now we're still sitting here, enjoying the nice breezes and cool temps and watching the lake. I'm so glad it's not going anywhere, and neither are we, at least not until Sunday! And tonight - ahhhhh this is perfect sleeping weather!

Have a blessed day, Becky

This and That and the Other Thing

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! It was such lovely weather here the last few days. It's getting hotter, and forecasts say we'll get to around 90 today! But the humidity is bearable, and out here on my back deck, with the umbrella blocking the sun as it goes down in the west, and the fan and mosquito coil keeping the bugs at bay, it's really very nice.

Saturday afternoon and evening were very nice. I just kind of played around in the kitchen, sat out here on the deck and read a bit, and then made our dinner. The London Broil was very good! I was afraid I would burn it before the center got done enough (a little pink in the center) but it ended up really nice. A while after dinner we cut another watermelon for dessert. This time of the year we almost live on watermelon and peaches - we love them both . . . a lot!

Oh, and before I forget, I wanted to share a picture of 'my girls' with you from last Thursday. On Monday - Memorial Day - we noticed Bailey was limping a bit, and when I got to investigating, I found one of her back claws had curved under and was biting into her foot. So, I took her to the vet, and they clipped and filed and clipped and filed some more, and got it short so it wasn't going into her foot any more.

The vet (Dr. Sue) wants me to bring her back in a few weeks so she can work on it some more, and hopefully keep it from curling back up like that again. Anyway, it was bleeding a bit, so they put some gauze on it and wrapped that in that stretchy, stick to itself gauzy stuff in a brilliant neon pink. Dr. Sue said I could take it off in a while, but most likely Bailey would take it off before I would have a chance. But not my little Bailey Sue! Dainty little diva that she is, didn't even attempt to take it off. As a treat, I put both Bailey and Bessie in one of the rockers on the front porch with new rawhide bones and let them sit out there with me for a while, and of course I had to take pictures!

Yesterday (Sunday) we packed up a picnic and hit the road! We wanted to ride up into North Carolina and check out the campground we had planned on spending out week's vacation at beginning 6/13. Trailer Life Directory had given it pretty good ratings, but we were going riding anyway, and decided to go see how it stacked up.

It didn't! It was awful! The campsites were right on top of each other, there was absolutely zero private space or even a place for a canopy and picnic table, nowhere to really walk the dogs, and worst of all, even though I'd told her the size of our camper, the campsite was barely long enough for it, with no space for our truck. In a word, it was a dump!

(Note: I won't tell the name on here, but if you are planning a camping trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western half of NC, e-mail me and I'll tell you the name in private.)

So, we headed out to look for another place to camp - in less than two weeks - in June. We rode and rode and rode! We got on the Blue Ridge Parkway and thought maybe one of the campgrounds right on the parkway would work, but none of the ones we saw had water and electric service, and I can live without all the other frills, but I want my water and electric right at my camper! We ended up going east of Asheville to Mount Mitchell's pinnacle. Mount Mitchell is the highest peak in the eastern United States at just over 6,600 feet. The views from up there were amazing!

On the way to Mount Mitchell, I kept asking hubby if he was sure he wanted to go that far, because it was a really long way. And he kept saying sure, let's go. So we went. We were away from home approximately 13 hours 15 minutes. We drove 475 miles. We got home a little after ten pm, and I for one was exhausted! And in that whole trip, I took 9 pictures! Because we didn't stop anywhere much where I could take pictures.

But the day was a lot of fun, and relaxing for the most part. It's amazing how comfortable it is to be with one you love, and talking when you want to, but being quiet when you don't have anything to say, and just enjoying being together.

This morning we had a Doctor's appointment for my dad, so before I left I looked up on the hill on the 'front 40' and saw this lovely sight . . .

I'm just loving these heavenly blue morning glories!!!

And when I got home this afternoon I got online and found us another place to camp. It's much closer to home, which isn't a bad thing considering the state of mind my dad was in today, and we go a week later than we had planned, but that's just because I'd rather wait a week than share the campground with a Goldwing motorcycle rally - yikes! But it's on a pretty lake where we can take the canoe and paddle to our hearts content, and there's lots to do in the area surrounding it. And a special treat is that they have free WiFi, so I'll be able to take y'all along on the trip to Hiawassee, Georgia!

And that's my few things I wanted to share today. Blessings friends, Becky

Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jog!

We are back home from our camping trip to Lake Richard B. Russell State Park! It was a great week in many respects. The weather was gorgeous, and that's always a great start for any vacation. We also spent much time just doing nothing, which was so good! We both read a lot, played dominoes and skip-bo, and just sat beneath the trees and watched the birds and squirrels and the glints of sunlight reflecting off the waves on the lake down below.

The squirrel to the left, well, I nicknamed it Murch because a book I was reading had a character of that name. It and it's buddies were bold little rats! They would come right up to the picnic table and take food off of it - with us sitting there! One time I caught one on top of the cooler where we kept our 'outside' drinks. Don't know what he thought he was going to do, because there was no way it was going to get into that cooler alone!

When we got there on Saturday around lunch time, there were few campsites to choose from, so we took the one we thought was best of what was left, and ended up it was a great site. It wasn't waterfront, but it was surrounded by trees, and fairly private. We put up the canopy on the camper and had a nice big 'yard'.

Saturday afternoon was my time for 'nesting', or making things nice. Getting everything organized, hanging the welcome sign and the windsock, which was strategically placed on one of the tie lines for the canopy so we wouldn't hang ourselves on it! Also putting out the tablecloths, making the bed, just making things nice for our week.

Of course while I was doing that, hubby was in his favorite place, the reclining lawn chair! He spent a lot of time in that chair this week, and I'm GLAD! He works long hard hours, and has a long commute to and from work, and this trip was all about letting him recharge, refuel and relax!

Here's a nicer pic of our camper and our 'home away from home' for the week.

We (all 4 of us!) sleep on the end in the foreground, and I sleep right at the window, with my head in the lefthand corner. I have put a memory foam topper on the hard camper mattress, and we have an old down comforter and a fleece blanket, and carry our pillows from home, so we have a nice cozy bed. I love to lay there at night with the canvas window down and look out at the stars and watch the trees blowing in the breeze and listen to the silence until I fall asleep. What a life!

The "girls", Bailey, seen here, and Bessie, seen here, just love camping. My theory is that they love the fact the four of us are together almost 24/7 and they get a lot of attention. But, they could understand what a vacation is all about, I guess.

We went canoeing a time or two, but didn't really have much heart for it after we saw the lake. As you may know, we in northern Georgia are in the midst of a horrible drought, and it's in it's third year. We live not too far from Lake Lanier, and it's down like 17 to 18 feet below full pool. Our lovely lake looks so sad! But when we were at Lake Russell about 6 months ago, it wasn't down a bit, and we had a wonderful time canoeing up into the cove that went by the campground. There was a stream coming into the lake there, and beavers had built a dam so there was a nice place to paddle and look for wildlife. We could get right up to the dams and even had beavers come up to check us out right beside the canoe.

This trip was a different story. We couldn't get NEAR the beaver dams because they were in dry land! There was just the slightest trickle of a stream, and all the coves we loved to explore were dried up. In the picture below, you can see the trickling stream, and all that sand where water used to be. If you'll look on the horizon, on the lowest point of the treeline, well that's still not as far up as we used to paddle. We would go way up past that point, curving and turning following the stream up into a marshy area where we would pull up to sandy areas and look at raccoon, deer and wild pig prints in the sand. It was so depressing to find it in such a state this trip!

If you'll look in the water here ^^^, you can tell it's very shallow - only a few inches deep, and we got stuck a couple of times and had to push our way out into deeper water. Our canoe only draws a few inches of water, so will take shallow water easily, but not this shallow.

This is one of the coves we used to love to explore. See those trees way in the back that are beginning to turn color? Well, we could paddle right up to those trees just a few months ago!

Another former cove - way back to where the trees are, that was all water, and we paddled up in there and looked for whatever we could find. We often used our paddles to scoop up lost fishing line, hooks and floats so we could get them out of the water where they wouldn't entrap animals.

Another view of how badly the lake levels have dropped. Where that green grass grows now, not so long ago it was all under water.

Ditto - all the way to the tree line and beyond used to be part of the lake where we paddled our little red canoe.

This whole area used to be under water and full of birds and small animals, but was a watering ground for larger animals like deer and wild hogs.

Okay! Enough depressing pictures. Here are a few pics of the canoe - and us!

Hubby >>>Me >>>

So, in twenty five words or less, "what I did on my vacation": eat, sleep, read, play, paddle, walk, bike, trikke, rest, relax, chill . . . . hmmmmm, that's about it! Pretty cool, huh? Everybody have a great weekend! Blessings friends, Becky