Hello Monday (Home Again)

I am so glad to be home after a week in Northern California. I got home late Friday night. Again another long day of travel. I left Redding California at 6:00 AM and then had a long layover in San Francisco. I like the San Francisco airport there is a lot to see and do there. However I barely made my flight leaving Chicago, O’Hare with just minutes to spare.

It was so good to be home and snuggle the babies. I think they were all glad to see me too.

I love the week I spend with other cave people. These are people who own or manage show caves across the US. We get to visit other caves and learn about their area. We also share ideas and experiences that are working or not working for us. This is a great networking time.

This year our host cave was Lake Shasta Caverns in Lakehead California near Redding. Such a beautiful area but man I was unprepared for the heat. Most of the days the temps were mid 90’s F. I thought the temps were going to be more like home so I didn’t bring enough cool clothes. It was hot!!!!

Some of our highlights: Sundial Bridge

We also took a walk on Sundial Bridge it was beautiful and a beautiful night for it.

This boat ramp is sooo steep. The water in the lake is down about 200 feet. It’s hard to believe but it was down even more in the spring and early summer. The sky and water is an unbelievably blue color.

***We had a nice boat ride on Lake Shasta.***

***My best cave girlfriend Ann. She is from Pennsylvania and I only get to see her a couple of times a year.***

When Shasta Lake is full, it is 517 feet deep at the dam 90% of the lake’s water comes from the rainfall. Currently it is about 200 feet lower than it should be.

Shasta Dam was built between 1938 and 1945. It is 602 feet high, 3,460 feet long, and 883 feet thick at its base. There are 15 million tons of concrete in the dam in the form of concrete blocks that are 50 feet square and five feet high. Shasta Dam was the 17th dam built by civil engineer Frank Crowe, who designed a system of towers that were used to get concrete to each of the 16,900 block forms.

Front side of the dam. We were able to walk almost all the way across it. It was so hot.

***We had dinner at a restaurant called Huff’s at the beautiful Bridge Bay Marina***

We had several speakers throughout the week.

Lake Shasta Caverns is one of the most beautiful caves I have ever visited. But it’s not easy to get to. Actually getting to the cave though is half of the fun. You take a boat across the lake from the opposite side of their ticket office. You then take a scary bus ride up a steep mountain road for 1.5 miles. Then you are at the entrance to the cave. There is 300 steps getting into the cave and then 300 steps back out. But it is totally worth it and the Lake Shasta Caverns crew have it all down to a science. They handle it all with ease. They also offer dinner cruises on the lake you can check it all out on their website here

At the top of the hill just before going into the cave. This was an amazing view.

***The inside of a stalactite. This one had been damaged and broken. But you can see the detail and beautiful design within it.***

These two boys are called The Fiddlin’ Brothers. They are 14 and 12 years old. They have only been playing for a few years and they are amazing.

After the cave tour we had dinner at the caverns and some entertainment. Such talented dancers.

On Friday morning I had to leave the hotel at 4:30 AM to catch my flight to San Francisco and then to Chicago and then into Knoxville. It was a long day and I didn’t get back to the house 10:30 PM. What a week.

***A beautiful sunrise in San Francisco***

A lot of airport time. I had a 3 hour layover in San Francisco. I have to give my new bag a 10 out of 10. It was on wheels and didn’t wear my arms out and it was small enough to fit under my seat. I splurged on a couple of books. For some reason I can’t resist books at the airport.

***And of course you know I took knitting.***

So I am home and so glad to be here for a while with no travel plans for a few weeks. How are you? What exciting things have you been up to.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Hello Monday, Scandinavian Vacation, First Stop Copenhagen

Hello friends, Happy Monday, Labor Day, and September. Sorry for the long silence on the blog. I have been traveling with my husband and nephew. We visited Northern Europe and just got back this past week. We visited five countries, well six if you count the Netherlands but we were only there during our brief stop in Amsterdam. Each country is so unique I will share them with you in separate posts. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. This is how it went down.

A little more than two weeks ago we left for a long trip to Northern Europe. Our first stop was Copenhagen Denmark. We have been planning this trip since before Covid was a thing. As you know any big trip like this requires so much planning and preparing. For some reason I think as women we get the brunt of this. Before leaving I planned for who would be at the house taking care of the babies and when everyone would be there. I made sure my mother in law was taken care of and would be checked on while we were gone. And that any supplies she needed would be gotten for her. I bought all of the necessary items we needed to take with us, although my husband did buy a few electronic gadgets we needed. Secretly he loves that.

I packed and packed and cleaned because I can’t leave my house dirty when people are going to be there. I caught up on everything at work and felt like I could be gone for a couple of weeks. And we were ready. Oh and my husband packed his suitcase.

We flew out of Knoxville to Atlanta and then to Amsterdam where we would take a shorter flight into Copenhagen. The flights over were very uneventful and all of our luggage made it through. Little did we know we wouldn’t be as lucky on the return flight.

I loved that the Amsterdam airport had this fresh flower market. The tulips were just beautiful.

Also lots of fresh meats and cheeses at the airport. That is not something we see a lot of in the U.S.

Look how tiny our room was. This was in Copenhagen at The Scandic Spectrum Hotel. Other than a small bathroom this was the size of the room. We were there for three days and fortunately didn’t spend a lot of time in the room.

I am always blown away by the amount of food that is on the breakfast bar at European hotels. There is so much that it is hard to choose from. Of course most Europeans make breakfast their biggest meal of the day. There is a lot of fresh meat and vegetables and this particular hotel had chocolate. You know I was all for that.

Our first day out we explored Copenhagen. I have to say I love this city. The people are so nice and friendly. They like to have fun and they enjoy being outdoors.

Kayaking in the canal. So much fun and activity going on. Bicycling is a very popular mode of transportation and who can blame them with gas being about $10.00 American. WOW!!! I also loved all the fresh flowers everywhere. And I loved that so many people wore dresses, short dresses, long dresses, flowy dresses. I loved them all.

See all the bicycles? There are dedicated bicycle lanes everywhere. And you better stay out of them because the cyclists will run you over. They have the same right of way as vehicles.

We saw the Little Mermaid Statue. Our tour guide explained that she has suffered a lot of wear and tear through the years. She has been the target of defacement throughout the years. How sad. But she has been restored each time. The Little Mermaid has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913.

This building was near our hotel. Very unique.

We visited Glyptokeshaven. This park has some of the most unusual statues and the most beautiful flowers. It was a perfect day for it with temps in the mid 60’s F.

The next day we visited Christianborg Palace. The Palace has an 800 year-long history as Denmark’s seat of power in Central Copenhagen. This site houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister’s office and Denmark’s Supreme Court. The palace is also home to visiting Danish Monarchs.

We also visited Frederiksborg Castle. It was beautiful!!! There was even a moat all around the castle. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark- Norway in the early 17th century.

I will have more about the other countries we visited in later posts. We started making our way back home last Monday. We flew out of Helsinki Finland which was our last stop on the trip. We left out at 3:15AM, It was a nightmare. Every flight was delayed and ultimately resulted in us missing our last flight which was out of Atlanta. Home is only three hours from Atlanta so we figured if worse came to worse we could just rent a car and drive back. But we were able to get on a later flight out of Atlanta. However it was delayed by about four hours. We finally got home after midnight on Tuesday morning. My luggage came through but Mark and Tyler’s luggage was left behind in Paris. Tyler got his the next day and Mark finally got his on Thursday.

I took off Tuesday and went back to work on Wednesday. Mark still has quite a bit of vacation time left. The rest of the week was spent catching up at work, buying groceries and doing the mountains of laundry we brought home. We had never had so much trouble traveling. Traveling is definitely not for the faint of heart especially international travel. But all in all it was a fantastic trip with so many memories and stories that will last a lifetime.

I am looking forward to catching up on many of my favorite blogs and my own. How have you been? What is going on in your part of the world?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!

Hello Monday!!!

Hello friends and happy Monday. How was your weekend? Mine was actually very quiet. I had a lot of things planned and then I didn’t get to all of them. I did a grocery pickup on Saturday morning and ran a few errands in town. Then I spent most of the day Saturday puttering around doing small things.

I cleaned the spider webs from the sides of the house. The spider webs have been really bad this year. I plucked several Japanese Beetles from my rose bushes. I’m telling you it was exciting times over here. I cooked dinner both Saturday and Sunday, laundry, the usual.

On Saturday evening a terrible storm came through. August is the worst month for these late afternoon thunderstorms. The skies get black as night and the wind is terrible. It’s really scary sometimes. Anyway the power was knocked out at my nephew and his wife’s house. They live about fifteen minutes from us. My nephew called on Sunday morning and wanted to know if he could come and get our generator. They had already been without power for about fifteen or more hours. They came to get the generator and spent some time with us and just before they left they got power back at their house.

On Sunday morning I went outside to see if there was any storm damage. The sun was shining and there was a light fog over the lake. There is an Appalachian saying that the number of fogs that you have in August will be the number of snows you have throughout the winter. This was our first fog for August. But we shall see.

***You can see a very light fog. A beautiful morning after such bad storms were in the area.***

I decided to go over to my Father in law’s house. It is just through the woods from our house. He passed away several years ago but we have kept the house. I try to go over every week or so and check the house out and do any cleaning that needs to be done. I knew the spider webs were going to be really bad so I wore a hoodie. It is crazy how fast the trail has grown up. Last year we were walking the doggos every day through this path in the woods. The path is still there but I couldn’t believe how fast it had grown up.

***Look at this spider web!!!! I’m glad I saw it before I ran through it.***

You can barely see the trail it has gotten so overgrown.

***I had to be careful I knew there was a lot of poison Ivy here.***

The road I take to work is currently undergoing a huge renovation. There is a much needed turn lane being added. There have been a lot of car accidents on this stretch of highway. However being stopped for fifteen minutes at a time while trying to get to work is a bit annoying. That is exactly what happened to me this morning. After sitting in the traffic jam for about ten to fifteen minutes I decided to take a detour. Fortunately I was right near a road that I knew led closer to a road near my work. I took it and man am I glad I did. Look at the views I saw. I think I will take that road again. It was just beautiful.

Beautiful Countryside.

Did I happen to mention that the humidity here has been stifling. It’s like the minute you walk outside you instantly feel clammy. Or your glasses fog up terribly. Oh well changes are coming. There is already a different feel to the air. A slight shift in the morning air letting you know that fall will soon be coming. And as for me. I can’t wait. I don’t like to rush the seasons but I will be happy to see cooler temperatures. We have been really fortunate this year with a milder rainy summer. It has helped a bit with the heat. How is the weather where you are?

Have a wonderful week

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!!

Hello Monday, Goodbye July

Well here we are again at the end of another month. This month seemed to pass both fast and slow. My brother in law passed away on the 10th, my little mother in law fell and had to have 12 staples in her head, she also spent a couple of nights in the hospital. We did a quick overnight to Nashville for a doctors appointment for hubs. And then when you work in tourism, like I do, July is usually one of the busiest months of the year. I am a bit tired of this month and ready to say goodbye to it.

The weekend was just what I needed though. It was long and lazy. It was also really hot with some of the hottest days we have had all year. Temperatures reached well into the nineties and the humidity was terrible. This caused a few late afternoon thunder storms. We stayed safely in the house and watched the lightning show.

I decided to bring out some cross stitch that I hadn’t worked on in a while. This particular pattern is one I tried to finish last year for Halloween. But I had gotten a late start on it and didn’t finish in time. I got it out on Saturday and worked on it for awhile. Maybe I will have it finished and framed by Halloween this year. I have also been working on a crocheted afghan. Don’t ask me what I will do with it. I have plenty but I just love making them. And I love giving them to people so maybe that is what I will do.

***I am loving the colors in this afghan. I am using a few different rolls of self striping yarn. Who know what it will turn out to look like. That’s part of the fun I guess.***

I am itching to start a knitting project. I still have those socks to finish and I know I shouldn’t start anything else until I finish them but you know I will.

I also started a new book by Jennifer Hillier. This is the third book by her that I have read in the last couple of months. I started “Creep” on Sunday when it became available on my Libby App. I should have known I wouldn’t get anything done that day. When you start one of her books you just can’t put it down. Be prepared to settle in and take the time it takes to finish. Her books are grisly I am telling you the truth. But there is always such a great story and there’s always a mystery. I read an interview she had given and she told the interviewer her husband asked how she could come up with such gruesome stories? I never read these books at night I always switch to lighter reading before bedtime.

We noticed a couple of weeks ago that something had gotten into our tomato plant. It had eaten a good chunk out of a couple of tomatoes. I thought maybe it could have been a deer, or possum or some other critter like that. Then I noticed these strange droppings around the plant they almost looked like tiny green grenades. But not that tiny. I told a friend at work and we googled different kinds of critter poop. Sometimes we need a little break from the craziness at work and I was really wanting to know what had been in my tomatoes. Well it turns out it wasn’t a critter at all well it sort of was. It was a horn worm. Of course if you are familiar with growing tomatoes I am sure this was not news to you. I would never have thought a worm could leave something like that behind. I think my tomatoes are pretty much finished for this year. We did get quite a few off of this one plant.

I found a couple of things from the Old Farmers Almanac that I thought was interesting. The first is how to tell a good watermelon when you see one

And the other thing: Have you ever said Rabbit Rabbit first thing in the morning on the first day of the month? It has to be the first thing you say, first thing in the morning. This is supposed to bring good luck for the month. Is this an English tradition? southern? southern Appalachian? Northern? I’m not sure just where it originated. I’ve heard a lot of tales of people who say this first thing in the morning on the first day of every month. I only heard about this a few years ago. I sometimes say it and sometimes I forget. It’s all in fun I don’t believe that saying anything like this one way or the other will bring good luck but I think it is a funny little tradition. And tomorrow is the first day of the month.

And I must leave you with a picture of my precious boy Gus. He was looking at me with this sweet face this morning, making it very hard to leave him and go to work.

So what was your month like? I for one am looking forward to cooler temps in the upcoming months. Of course this is East Tennessee and it has been over 100 degrees F in October so that is nothing you can count on. Have a wonderful week.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!