The Trail - Part Two

 

 

Lord have mercy on my soul.

There is something I will never be able to understand.

How you guys with small children can have a cohesive, lovely blog.

I'm up here with an empty nest - and I still can't find the time to blog.

If I wore a hat, it would be off to you.

Seems like lately I'm lucky I have on clothes and a brassiere, let alone a hat.

I've been suffering from some pretty severe headaches - bad enough to make me feel like I'm having an out of the body experience at times.

I'm assuming they are hormonal, and it's not an impending aneurysm.

 

near the cabin in TN - photo by my friend Kim - (I still feel like life may be incomplete without a canine companion)

It's noon thirty in the afternoon and I haven't brushed my teeth yet.  I have a front yard full of freshly cut greens so that I can do my containers and decorate in the house - and those greens happen to be laying next to the corn shocks, pumpkins and mummified mums.  My bed isn't made yet, and I haven't yet a clue what I'm doing for Christmas gifts.  I just looked at my calendar for next week and I don't have a free day after today until Dec. 16th.

I really need to talk to the person responsible for my schedule.

 

Another thing that I know - menopause and Christmas decorating doesn't go well together.  I've been indulging in a bit of dairy again - thinking that maybe my body can tolerate it - and don't ya know I'm gassy as the day is long, and the hot flashes started right up again.

You don't want to have a hot flash when you are precariously balanced up on a counter stool trying to put Christmas lights up in the kitchen. 

 

 I do declare that yesterday I would have shot and killed Bing Crosby if I heard him sing 'where the tree tops glisten' one more time.

I began to resent how he treated Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas and decided he was much too old for her anyway.

Christmas was almost done and cancelled up in here due to raging menopausal hormones.

For the love of God.

Maybe no one will admit acting a fool like this - but I have a feeling I'm not alone.

 

near the cabin in TN - fabulous photo by my friend Kim

All is right as rain today as my hormonal roller coaster comes screeching to a halt along with my obsessive Chobani yogurt ingestion.

 

This IS a blog post about the Appalachian Trail - you'll see.

 

Aaron when he was 3 or 4 - help me - where did the time go?

But first - I can't even begin to say thanks to all of you that have ordered Caper Bags! 

The Selfish Punk is going to Vegas baby!  Not only is he going, but we've sold enough to help his roommate go as well - he was short a few bags.

Aaron has been asked to be a model for the 'curl segment' of the deal - and well - I'm not sure the BoyChild's head will fit in this old farmhouse when next he visits.

He's doing great and sounds so happy.

Thank you.  I'm humbled by your kindness!

(Hedy King - I have tried to email you a couple of times, but it keeps bouncing back....)

 

OK, where the heck did I leave off at the trail?

I believe I was pantless and we'd just arrived in Tennessee.

 

 

The funny thing about this trip - I was 'so along for the ride' which seems indicative of my life in general - a bit clueless, but happy nonetheless -

I wasn't even sure where we were going - friends would say - 'oh, where are you going?' and I'd reply 'North Carolina I think - but they keep talking about Tennessee' - so as you see, I wasn't sure where we were going.  I knew it was a cabin in the South.

Good enough. 

I'm in.

 

 

Let me tell you a little more about the trip down there - as I said, my friend Melissa is a Road Warrior extraordinaire. 

One of my fondest memories was driving through Kentucky - and I told her that we must decorate the cabin for fall - so if she saw a farm stand selling mums and pumpkins to pull over...she was more than happy to oblige.

 

I really wanted to take photographs of the place we stopped, but I didn't,  so let me paint a picture with words.

 

We pulled up to this shack type structure - and when we disembarked the vehicle - there was this loud booming sound coming from the aforementioned shack. - It was kind of hellfire and brimstone preaching that I haven't heard since I was last in these parts.  I fully expected a man full of the Spirit to come out of the shack with poisonous snakes.

 

The proprietor of said shack was a woman of short stature - stereotypically missing a few teeth, and smoking cigarettes.  There was a cobbled up cardboard sign that read, and I quote:

 

 'Ice cold Mountain Dew - 60 cents a can'

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

 

I really wanted to take a picture of that lady and that sign, but felt that it would have been in some way demeaning to her - so I didn't.

 

 

We got a mum and a few gourds, and we were off again.

I couldn't bear the thought of being in a cabin in the woods without a pumpkin and some fall decor - it could downright spoil the trip.

 

 

 

Melissa and I were first to arrive at the cabin - it wasn't luxury accommodations - but it was fabulous - very homey.  We poked around in every room - this cabin could sleep about 15, had a full kitchen, a couple of bathrooms, and a large living room with a big fireplace, wood burning stove and plenty of cozy places to hunker down for the night.

 

 

It was at this moment that I realized that for some reason I hadn't packed enough clothes, pants mainly - luckily they had a washer and dryer in the cabin, and I'm used to wearing the same clothes for days since I'm a seasoned hobo camper - but there is a very exciting twist to my pantless story which I will tell you about when next I write.

 

I'd go back to this cabin in a heartbeat. 

It's come to my attention that the month of October is not nearly long enough.

Oh that October would last about three months - surely that much time is needed to do everything that one would like to do with October.

 

one of my favorite activities - wandering woods and picking things

I brought this home and it dried nicely - it's in a basket now - such a sweet memory

 

The photos I've shared today are some photos from around the cabin - one of the most awesome features about this cabin is that you could actually walk to a portion of the Appalachian Trail from the cabin.

 

I'll end this blog today with some photos of that leg of the trip - up next - Aaron smashes his leg at gymnastics whilst I'm 700 miles away - and we go ziplining.

 

fresh cut up fruit with a dollop of Greek yogurt and raw almonds

the infamous CoopKeeper turkey sausage - did you know it's going in Dr. Mark Hyman's new cookbook?  They sent me some release form to sign - so I guess it is - I submitted it - I have to put a link to the recipe in my sidebar - I get a ton of requests for this recipe!

we found an old abandoned log cabin - I was in heaven!

I wanted to fix this place up and live in it - I do hope to live in a one room log cabin one day

the whole time I was taking pictures, I was mentally decorating the place :-)

we found an old cemetery out in the middle of no where

I found some turkey feathers on the trail.  I think they suit me, don't you?