Retirement Travel and a Weird Mix of Other Stuff
Make sure your speakers are on. Those who know her will realize she was a bit overcome and at a loss for words. 🙂
I hope you enjoy it.
That husband of mine has been working on a very special gift for his Mom. A clock. But not just any clock. A grandfather clock with a very interesting back-story.
That talented Hubby of mine built this clock completely from scratch, using black walnut harvested by his grandfather.
I’ll tell you more about the process and share some other pics, and a video of the presentation, in a later post.
This clock began as a black walnut tree in the mid-1800s in Clearfield, Pennsylvania. The tree was harvested in the 1930s by Clair Hallock, who then had the wood milled and stored for a future project. Initially kept in Clearfield, he eventually moved the lumber to his then-home in Baltimore, Maryland. Clair, having decided that the wood was suitable for a clock case, purchased a clock movement from Keininger (one of Germany’s renowned clock makers) during an early 1970s vacation in Germany. The movement was stored along with the wood. Periodically, Clair talked about the clock and how he’d never found a plan that he liked. In time, he returned to his hometown of Clearfield for retirement. He passed away in 2008, never having realized his goal of completing the clock. The lumber and movement were passed on to Clair’s daughter Jeanne, who selected the plan that I used, along with Clair’s materials, to build this grandfather clock. I present Grandfather’s clock to my mother Jeanne, with much love and respect, Mike Kirkpatrick – May 2014.
Today was truly a Mother’s Day to remember.
Oddly enough, Mike had already planned on driving out there on Saturday with his truck to retrieve our loveseat, which we gave to his Mom. He said he could wrestle it into the truck himself. But since I was going to be there for a bit, he timed his arrival so that I could help him get it into the truck. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
When I first learned of Fuzzy’s (aka Rachael) visit, I figured I’d just ride out for the day. But then I realized that would have made for a LONG day. So I decided to have a little adventure and ride out on Friday night.
If you’re not a regular here, you may not know that we had a pipe freeze at the WV Place over the Winter. It made a mess, which we cleaned up. But the repair work couldn’t begin until after the place was thoroughly dried out. (The building of our WV Place is chronicled here, if you’re interested.)
Part of the clean-up process involved moving a bunch of stuff from the master bedroom, kitchen, and living room to the back bedrooms to get it out of the way of the workmen.
This is what the bedrooms looked like when I arrived.
I knew that’s how we’d left them, but I’m a low-maintenance kinda girl and didn’t mind.
I just had to move some stuff out of the way and all was good.
While I waited for Rachael to call, I moseyed around the place and took some pictures.
As I was getting ready for bed on Friday night, I noticed this…
That’s my very first quilt. A hand-tied lap throw.
All was fine on Friday evening.Sorry if you were expecting a horror story.
Saturday morning, Hubby arrived at about 7:30 with breakfast. He said he’d seen Rachel and Kenny on the way past there motel, but hadn’t stopped. I told him he should have.
“They don’t know me,” he said.
“They do,” I assured him. “They see my blog, just like we see Fuzzy’s.”
So, on the way home, he actually stopped to say hello. That’s how Hubby got to meet them, too. Even if he didn’t get to ride with us.
Here’s the final shot I’d like to share.
That’s my favorite herd of Oreo cows. I wonder if that farmer knows his cows are “famous”?
Not sure what all we’re doing this weekend, Hopefully something fun.
Have a good weekend, folks!
I’ve been friends with Rachael (aka Fuzzy) for quite a few years. We met through her blog, Fuzzygalore.com – A Girlie Motorcycle Blog, and have been following each other ever since.
We have a lot in common. First and foremost, we’re girls who love to ride motorcycles. We’re also Moms, wives, photographers, fans of roadside oddities, etc. Getting to know Rachael on-line over the years, I always felt like we were kindred spirits.
Saying she’s famous would probably embarrass Rachel, so I’ll just call her well-known throughout the moto-blogging community. She’s got quite a following. So I was always afraid she’d think I was some weirdo Internet follower/stalker. LOL.
We’d tried meeting in person several times over the years, but for various reasons those plans had been thwarted. So, when I got an e-mail from Rachael saying her and her husband, Kenny, who I also felt like I sort of “knew” through her blog, were going to be in Romney, the town near our WV Place, I knew I had to jump at the chance.
I didn’t want to jump too quickly, though. Dare I hope that it would really happen? I had an unpredictable work project that could have made it difficult. And the weather this past week was horrendous, what with the monsoon rains we experienced. So I tried not to get too excited. I figured if I made definite plans, Fate may intervene. It always seems like the more I look forward to something, the better the chance that it won’t come to pass. Know what I mean?
That’s why few folks aside from Rachel, Kenny, Mike, and me knew of my plans.
As luck would have it, Fate was on our side this time. My work project was completed as scheduled, which meant I was able to take Friday afternoon off and head out to West Virginia. I was REALLY looking forward to it.
Friday was a fabulous day for a ride. The ideal scenario was for me to get to WV in time for dinner with Rachael and her crew. Then ride with them on Saturday.
Here are some sights from my Friday ride.
The Apple House, in nearby Linden, Virginia, is supposed to have good food — especially doughnuts. I stopped there to grab lunch, and dessert, but it was pretty busy and I didn’t feel like waiting. I’ll get back there one day. If for no other reason than to buy one of their t-shirts.
Since I had some spare time, I decided I should stop at Dinosaur Land, a nearby-ish roadside attraction I’d never seen. In fact, I hadn’t even KNOWN about the place before one of Rachael’s road trips through the area.
There are various ways to get to the WV Place from our home in Virginia. But I was hoping that the Redbuds were still in bloom along US-50, west of Capon Bridge. I wasn’t disappointed.
I made it to the WV Place pretty much without incident. And I was happy to see the WV Place still standing. The inside is still a mess, but there’s no sign of mold anywhere — yay!!! — there’s still a decent amount of propane in the tanks, and there was some hard apple cider in the fridge.
I putzed around there a bit, then headed into town after connecting with Rachael.
I was so happy to finally meet Rachel and Kenny, that I didn’t think to take pictures. Can you believe it!?! The three of us did have dinner together. And we made plans to meet up the next morning. I was anxious to get back to the WV Place before dark. Two miles of gravel road, lined by cliffs in some spots, through woods heavily populated with deer, is not a place I want to be after dark with no streetlights and weak motorcycle headlights.
Rachel and Kenny trusted me enough to lead them on a ride. How about that? The challenge was to plan a route with good roads and some fun/quirky stuff I knew Rachael HAD to see. It took some thinking, but I think I came up with a pretty good ride.
We planned to meet at the entrance to my community. When they arrived, I was tickled to see they’d brought a friend along. Mark, from Boston. I never got his last name. Sorry, Mark!
Our first stop was the Oldtown Low Water Bridge, one of the few remaining privately owned toll bridges in the country. It’s such an odd, quirky little bridge, I knew they’d love it.
Oldtown is actually in Maryland. I forgot to mention that to my riding buddies yesterday.
From there, we doubled back about 15 miles so we could hit one of Mike’s favorite roads, CR-3, also known as Springfield Pike, Slanesville Pike, AND Springfield-Millesons Mill Road. Route finding in West Virginia is a challenge. We did a quick detour on WV-29 so Rachael could capture a shot of this Mail Pouch barn to add to her collection. I’d forgotten to tell her it was coming up, so she was tickled.
From there we headed back to what looks on the map like a continuation of the road we’d been on, but is actually a different road with multiple names, of course, depending on what map you use and/or where you enter the road. It’s know as Cold Stream Road, CR- 45/20, Springfield Grade Road, AND CR-15. Really.
After stopping for gas, we continued southward on CR-14/Cacapon River Road (also Capon River Road) toward Wardensville. We stopped for lunch at the Star Mercantile (see my previous post if you want to read more about the restaurant).
After lunch, I took them on Old US-55, not an easy road to follows as it wends its way around New 55, which is a great motorcycle road, even if there are almost always bits of gravel to dodge. Oddly, New 55 is now 48/55, but all of the signs pointing to the highway say “to 55”, which is what makes the old road so hard to follow.
Once we reached the end, we turned around and jumped onto New 55 so we could stop at a scenic overlook.
Then we headed to North River Road to visit my favorite herd of Oreo cows.
The locals sure got a chuckle out of seeing four motorcycles parked along this country road while four riders look at this herd of cows. They had to be thinking, “What? You’ve never seen cows before?” They probably just take their Oreo cows for granted.
Then it was off to Grassy Lick Road. I’d told Rachel about that road repeatedly. Of course, I’ve mentioned it in my blog before, too. She’d tried, unsuccessfully, to find it on Friday.
So, when we finally did get to the south end of the road, there was a guy in a pick-up in front of us toting his large pig in a trailer. What an odd sight.
I’m sure my followers were wondering why, shortly after the pig guy turned off, I led them off of Grassy Lick Road. Until Rachel saw this little barn, which I’d also forgot to mention we’d be stopping to see.
FINALLY, it was the time to run Grassy Lick. It’s smooth, fast, full of alternating twisties, and a couple of nice sweepers.
They loved it, just as much as we do. Which is good, considering all of my hype. LOL.
My favorite pic from the day was captured by Kenny (I think). Or Mark. Unbeknownst to me, he’d captured me following Rachel across my favorite bridge. How cool is that? Thanks to whoever shot this one. 🙂
Rachel and Kenny are just as awesome in person as I thought they’d be. Mark was a great riding companion, too.
Hopefully, we’ll get to ride together again one day. Maybe next time, we’ll be able to plan far enough ahead so Mike can join us.
He did get to meet them briefly, but that’s another story…
Thanks again, Fuzzmops, for the excellent riding day.
The weather was nice, though. In my mind, it was a perfect Spring weekend. Temps in the mid-60s. Sunny. Relatively cloudless.
It would have been a nice riding weekend. But I had a bunch of yard work to get done. And since the weather was perfect for working in the yard, that’s what I did.
I spent Saturday morning procuring plants. Saturday afternoon and Sunday were dedicated to weeding, digging, and planting.
Trust me when I tell you I was dead on my feet by Sunday night. I’m just not as fit as I used to be. All of that bending, stooping, digging, crawling around and such really took its toll. My brain was mush by Sunday evening. I was still quite sore yesterday, too.
The good news is, the flower beds are just about ready for mulching. The even better news is that we hired a nice young man to do the mulching for us.
Last year, Hubby and I spread 65, 2 cubic foot bags of shredded hardwood mulch around. It took a whole weekend to prep the beds (clean-out, weeding, and planting). It wiped us out. Since we both have other stuff going on (personal household projects), we decided to hire someone to help this year. I’ll post pics once the mulch has been installed.
Even though I’m whining about the after-effects, I enjoyed being outside. So did the girls.
I’m not sure if it’s true of all dog breeds, but these Brittanys LOVE to be with their people. They were never far from my side. In the images above, left to right, you can see Meg snoozing in the warm sun, K hunting bees, and Belle watching me work. That was on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, while I was weeding, Belle and K were watching me very closely. I had to back up several steps to capture this next shot.
Meg napped off and on most of the day. Sometimes inside, but mostly outdoors with me.
These dogs always make me smile. (If you want to learn more about this breed, here’s a short Brittany video you can watch.)
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I wish I could remember what this shrub/bush is called. It has very dark-red leaves and, in Spring, is covered with the most beautiful little flowers.
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That was my “holiday” weekend. I must admit, I did enjoy having the day off on Friday. Relaxation would have been nice, but I figured it would be better to get the bulk of the yard work done so that when riding weather finally settles in, I’ll have time to enjoy it.
Oh, the places we will go…
It’s mid-April and gardening season is upon us. Riding season, too. Sort of. Our strange weather continues. Although Hubby and I did get out for a ride last Sunday (April 13), temps dropped back into Winter range. It’s warming up slowly, but yesterday, a holiday for my employer, it was still in the mid- to upper-40s in the morning, so I didn’t ride. Instead I ran errands.
I did multi-task a little bit.
You know that smart phone I mentioned? I have a cool app — Passport to Your National Parks phone App — that let’s me make a checklist of national parks I have visited.
For those not familiar with the parks passport, it’s actually a passport-like booklet that…
…makes it easy to learn about and explore all of our national park sites. The Passport® to Your National Parks includes maps that are color-coded for specific regions in the country, pre-visit information, illustrations and photographs. It also includes a free map and guide to the national park system.
Spaces in each region are designated for you to collect rubber stamp cancellations at each national park site you visit. The cancellations, similar to those received in an international passport, record the name of the park and the date you visited.
It may sound a bit geeky, but it’s a great way to keep track of not just the parks you’ve visited, but when you have visited them.
Anyway… the other day, after creating my list of parks, I realized I’d only visited three of the 16 parks listed in Virginia.
And the closest national park — the Manassas National Battlefield Park — is one I had NOT been to. It’s 16.24 miles from where I sit. How bad is that? I’ve driven through it many times, since one of the major routes to DC and points north cuts through the park, but had never stopped.
I had to go to Manassas yesterday anyway, so I decided to stop at the park. I didn’t want to spend much time there, I just wanted to, 1, be able to say I’d been there and, 2, grab some info to plan a future visit.
I did walk around a bit after my stop at the Visitor’s Center. It was a bit cloudy and cool, and I had things to do, so I didn’t linger.
The view is nice and, I thought, impressive. Looks like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, right? It isn’t. It’s right on the edge of Northern Virginia, one of the most densely populated regions in the US.
If you click on that image of The Stone House, you’ll get a bit of history.
Passports are typically sold at park bookstores. You can buy them on-line, too.
Now that I’ve been to Manassas NBP, I can say I have visited 66 US National Parks. But there are many more to see…
I’d been meaning to visit Coscto for weeks. It’s not close (about 20 miles away) and is usually very crowded. I try to time my visits for off-peak hours, but never seem to succeed. I didn’t take any pictures, though.
No pics there, either. I must be losing my edge. LOL. I did buy a few perennials, though. Most importantly, I got the info I needed to schedule a delivery of mulch. I even ran into a friend who might be willing to install it for me. Oh, happy day!
Now I just have to get everything planted so it’s in the ground before the mulch arrives.
I’m glad Spring is here. It’s so nice seeing colors again. Here are a few pics I captured this past week.
While we’re on the subject of pictures, this shot from a friend’s blog post made me chuckle aloud with delight…
Bob lives in British Columbia, outside of Vancouver. This shot is from a camping weekend of his last September.
That’s it for today. I have GOT to get busy. I need to visit the Farmers’ Market and a nursery center or three. And then I have to start digging. And weeding. Sigh…