What a Year It Was!!!!

How did the year 2019 end for us?  Pretty much a blur, involving every realm of emotion it seems. 

So to go back in history, we did end up leaving our spot at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Reserve due to an evacuation from Hurricane Dorian on September 3.  We traveled on a route that took us south and inland through South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia, then Louisiana and home to our hometown of Sweeny on September 6. Whew!  We were able to mooch dock at Ron’s brother Don’s house.  Funny thing is with all of the RV parks in the area (and I mean there are a LOT), we were unable to find a spot for a few days here and there.  (And I’ll come back to this subject shortly.)

In the meantime, we enjoyed family time which included birthday dinners for my daughter Amy and also her husband James.  Ron went to fish camp with his brother.  Believe it or not, I got a call from my old job wanting to know if I’d like to come out for about a month to help with a PC rollout. And get this – they needed me to drive the contractors around to all of those hidden locations in the refinery and I wouldn’t even have to lift a finger to help them, and it paid pretty darn good. So I said yes, I believe I could be an Uber driver for a month.  

Spent a weekend with granddaughter Lucy at Splashway for Halloween.

Ron's catch from fish camp.

Took grandson Aiden to Sweeny's homecoming football game.

Aiden hunting with his bow and arrow.

Aiden and Lucy walking his heifers getting them ready for the county fair.

In the meantime, being a nostalgic person, I decided to drive by the house I grew up and low and behold, there was a For Sale sign in the yard.  My dad built this house in 1950, sold it to Coach Dupler in 1977 after my mother died, where this family lived in it for the next 44 years.  Well, I talked Ron into going and looking at it.  Long story short:  What a great opportunity, what a great vision we had for fixing it up, and also what a great place to park the motorhome. It’s nice and small, nice small yard – something that will be much easier to lock the door and travel away from than our little farm was. Here's a before shot of what the house looks like.

The house, before we got started on it.

And here’s an after shot after we have poured more concrete, tore off the old siding and replaced it with smart board and painted it. It took 6 weeks to decide on a color. Whew!  I think it’s looking good. Still need to add shutters and a new front door. And landscape!

The house with new siding, enclosed garage, more concrete, new paint. The carport is getting turned into a She Shed in the back yard.

We weren’t looking to buy property. However, we were looking at hanging around Sweeny a lot more. Ron’s mom turned 91 and was requiring more help and we were definitely wanting to be near her. Our kiddos and grandkids are close by, as well as family and friends.  I noticed at my mother-in-law’s house that something was wrong.  You see she has an awesome green thumb and every fall she had several Christmas cactuses that flourished and bloomed.  When we got there, one plant had nearly died while the other looked sad and forlorn. A week after we celebrated mom’s 91^st birthday, we came the next morning to find that she had passed away peacefully in her sleep.  I now have her Christmas cactus and will do my best to cheer it up!

Celebrating mom's 91st birthday at K-2 Restaurant in Bay City

The boys and their mom at her birthday lunch.

She gave me one last cooking lesson and that was how to make strudel.

Maybe they weren't the prettiest, but they were the most delicious!

Some of the grandkids on Thanksgiving day

Grandma, Matthew and Liz at Thanksgiving

So things have been extremely busy.  Ron is happy with doing all the remodeling work on the old house. We’ve had a lot of emotional moments these past few months.  We were able to enjoy our grandson show his heifers at the county fair. We’ve been on a few close by camping trips, competed in the Flatonia Cziliespiel, and gone dancing at a very old recently opened historic dance hall – the Hye Hall near Stonewall, Texas.  We enjoyed a wonderful family Thanksgiving, not knowing at the time it would be our last one with our Mom.  And Christmas and New Years has come and gone. We celebrated at Matagorda on the beach. And we’re starting the new year out at Coleto Creek Reservoir, one of our favorite spots to camp when the girls were young, and we’ll end this little road trip at Brazos Bend State Park visiting with our dear old friends who we have volunteered with in past years. Here are a few more pictures to help illustrate what we've been doing these past few months.

Aiden is proud of his heifers. He placed second with Liberty.

And first with Faith

What a handsome young man!

Ron engineering how to remove the unattractive carport to the back yard and making it into a She Shed.

My new She Shed!  And by the way, where you see all this dirt back here - it was covered with vines and all kinds of stuff.

 

Adding the smart board siding

Moving back my piano!  It takes up the whole dining room!

Ron and daughter Liz dancing at a wedding

Me and my girls!

Living room with a Christmas tree and sheet rock gone, looking through the enclosed garage into a future utility room.

Always time for an ugly Christmas sweater party!

And an invitation to the Brazos Bend State Park Christmas party!

Aiden helping us paint in the house.

Lucy helping me cook Christmas Eve dinner

Maggie enjoying her Shiner beer!

Christmas morning!

These kiddos have our heart!

Happy New Years Eve sunset at Matagorda

And to answer the question that is burning in your mind:  Does buying a house mean you’re not going to travel? Absolutely not.  It’s just a place to park and it will make a wonderful home when down the road we realize we need to slow down and put roots down again.  Not sure where our travel plans will take us in 2020. I know in February we’re headed to Big Bend National Park, but we’re going to take a road trip and visit some Texas state parks on the way. We also plan to take the grandkids on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, Utah and Colorado. And who knows – if there’s a super bloom happening in the deserts out west, we might just get in our bus and travel on out to see!

The Land of Blue Smoke

There is no substitute for hearing a rippling stream in the mountains, watching a sunset, the music of the winds, the grandeur of tall green trees, the beauty of a wildflower and the smell of a deep forest.  It was time for us to take a break and head to the mountains for a few days.  Great Smoky Mountains National Park, here we come! It was going to be a long road trip (about 8 hours one way), but we were also going to use this as a pre-anniversary celebration (our 40^th!) that is September 15.  We rented a cabin outside of Bryson City, and it was located up a narrow, winding, gravel road.  And it was very nice!  Great views of the mountains!

 

The view from our front porch on the cabin!

Check how our view changed when the "blue smoke" rolled in!

We have visited Smoky Mountain National Park before, but not on the North Carolina side.  It’s just beautiful!  The Road to Nowhere made for a good, long hike which we really needed after sitting in the jeep the day before.  This is a scenic mountain highway that takes you six miles into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and ends at the mouth of a tunnel, from the edge of Bryson City.  On the map this road is called Lakeview Drive, but to the locals it is The Road to Nowhere – A Broken Promise.  You see, in the 1930s and 1940s many people in Swain County gave up the majority of its private land to the US government for the creation of Fontana Lake and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Hundreds of families lost their homes but also the roads leading to those communities. The government promised to create a new road. It was to have stretched 30 miles along the north shore of Fontana Lake, providing access to old family cemeteries.  But the road fell victim to an environmental issue and construction was stopped at the tunnel. 

Fontana Lake in the distance

The tunnel, which unfortunately has a lot of graffitti

The captain is always waiting on me.

The Mountain Farm Museum, located at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center

The Oconaluftee River, and a tree that someone felt the need to leave their mark on.

The chickens liked roosting in the kitchen!

I did read that in 2010, Swain County agreed to a $52 million settlement, paid over time, from the US government in lieu of completing the road. And on weekends throughout the summer, the Park Service still ferries groups of Swain County residents across Fontana Lake to visit their old family cemeteries for Decoration Days and family reunions.

I always think of the Smokies as being a great place to come and experience how our ancestors lived, with log cabins in many of the areas.  But there is also a lot of Oconaluftee Cherokee Indian culture to explore as well. It’s a very diverse area! We also hiked up to Clingman’s Dome (pretty challenging) and I was a little disappointed that cloud cover moved in right as we neared the top. Oh well……

The next day we decided to go see the waterfalls!  Again, it’s a short drive from Bryson City to Deep Creek.  Did you know that North Carolina encompasses more than half of the Smoky Mountains National Park?  There are 3 waterfalls to go see here and are accessible from a loop trail.  If you ever wonder how small this world is with all the humanity in it, let me share an example.  Back in 2016 we volunteered with a seasonal ranger named Rhonda.  I believe it was last year she got hired on as a permanent.  Well, guess who we happened to meet on the trail?!  She was taking a group of 8^th grade students on a hike, studying about water sources.  What are the odds?

Pondering the waterfall.

Me and Ranger Rhonda! Wow!

All in the day of the job of being a National Park Ranger!

What do you know about the Blue Ridge Parkway?  Well we must say it's a beautiful drive, although we only did a small portion of it.  It's a historic road that traverses through Virginia and North Carolina, with many pull outs to look at the scenery.  Construction began in 1935 at Cumberland Knob.  It is 469 miles long - and no, we didn't travel that far!  It will need to be done in segments. And by the way, some of the tunnels are only 12' high, so don't bring a big rig!

Always important to remember the Native Americans.

Lot of beauty!

As I end my souvenirs from this blog entry, I must say that we do have our eyes on Hurricane Dorian. With that path inching to start climbing up the east coast, we may just be making an early exit to our volunteer jobs here.  We’re in very low country in Hyde County. Our scheduled leave date was September 15.  Stay tuned!