May 2009

We spent 4 nights in a campground outside of the park a short way– close enough to drive to every day.  We took a two hour tour through one of the caves on the first full day we were there.  They warn you before you start – be ready to go up and/or down close to 500 steps.  If you are too big you will have a difficult time in some areas because some places were narrow – it wasn’t bad though we all fit just fine.  Some of us my height (5’8″) and those taller had to stoop in places because of the height restrictions in certain areas.

Over all it was very interesting.  If you are the least bit claustrophobic don’t try it.  Or afraid of the dark – some places are very dimly lit.  When you first enter the cave you start by going down – I started to count steps and quit – too many. (me in the red jacket – 55 degrees in the cave, although I got to warm in the jacket and ended up tying it around my waist)

The tour group is large, there must have been 50 of us easily in the group, a ranger at the front and one brings up the rear.  Part of the group with us here in the photo on the right.

The photo on the left is some of the formations in the cave.  There were way too many interesting formations and things in the cave to photo all of them, but Mike tried his best but didn’t want to hold up the line too much.  Here on the right photo is more – such interesting shapes.

They did a lot of work in this cave to make it accessible to tourist, there are some paved walk ways, a lot of metal steps and some steps just kind of carved out of rock.

You are only allowed to bring in a bottle of water with you if you want it – no food, no purses, no fanny packs, no knapsacks.  You can bring in a camera but no bag to put it in.  I do believe some of these restrictions were to make it hard for you to try to sneak any pieces of rocks out of the cave with you.  You might be surprised at how many people would most likely try to do this if they could.  A flashlight is also allowed if you want to bring one, there are lights here and there so you can find your way without a flashlight but it would come in handy in a few places here and there.

On another day at the park we took a hiking trail that starts at the back of the visitor center and makes a very wide loop around it  down into the woods.  We saw a lot of deer for being on a trail where there are a bit of visitors – although most of the park visitors are there to tour caves not to take hikes in the woods.

The first creature I saw though was not a deer though but a tiny mole here on the left!  you don’t usually just spot these little things – slightly bigger than a mouse!!  I almost stepped on it though before it scurried onto the leaves and off of the trail.  It was hunting and had a worm in it’s sights – Mike was able to get a photo before it left the area – after it ate the worm that is

We saw a beautiful sight – a mother deer and it’s young at the rivers edge. You see deer often but how often do you get to see the baby on wobbly legs learning to drink from the river?  Oops – she spotted us (here on the right) and Mike was using the long range lens! She had great hearing although we were trying to be quite some other people were loudly talking coming from a different direction.

And look at these trees here on the left- what a twisted combination they are.    There were many twisted trees off of this trail.  Plus large ferns and flowers of all kinds. 

Anyone know what kind of flower this white one is?  It was very pretty but I could not find it in my booklet although there were a lot of them off of this trail.

As we were getting close to the end of the trail we ran into a family with children that were hiking from the opposite direction.  The kids were very excited because they had spotted a deer and had to point him out to us – we told them about the mother and baby deer further back on the trail but I doubt she was still there by time they would have gotten to that spot. 

This deer was in an unusual location.  He (if you look closely you will see he is growing a set of antlers) was laying down at the opening of a rock ledge a bit above the step area with the bench and stayed there the whole time just watching us.  Never moved even though the children were quite loud with their excited voices having spotted this deer.  After the family moved on  – believe me it took some encouragement from the parents to get these kids to move I reclined on the bench and just sat there watching him while Mike was taking photo’s.

This was the second to the last stop on our trip.  The last day we finally got back into Arkansas and camped for the night at a state park called Crowley’s Ridge located in Northeast Arkansas.   Mike is working on those photo’s so I might be able to post a few tomorrow and finish up the blogs about our trip.  I am amazed at how many of you have sent me notes enjoying the blog postings on our trip and I thank you for your comments!

Click on the photo’s to enlarge.

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Our little 2 day side trip to Lancaster County was great.  If you have never had the opportunity to go to this part of Pennsylvania try to sometime.  Quilters beware – you will spend at least a little bit of money and will need to have your self-control in place  LOL

The countryside is beautiful and takes you back to years gone by when you see the Amish and Mennonite people doing their farm work the old fashioned way.  I always thought it was the men only doing the outside work and the women tending the house and gardens ect., but we saw different here – look at that woman keeping control of these 3 massive horses!  The strength she must have in her arms – way beyond my skinny arms 

On the streets you see the little black buggy’s with a horse providing the transportation for the family.  They go down the main drags and follow the rules of traffic like everyone else.  Drive slowly – do not startle the horses!  It is really interesting watching the farmers do their work and the buggy’s go by in traffic – sometimes it is women driving the buggy and sometimes men – sometimes teenagers.  The Mennonites use more modern conveniences but dress in an old fashioned way.  We had stopped to get some lunch in the town of Intercourse and looking out the window we saw a teenage girl dressed in the old fashion way talking on a cell phone while eating her lunch – the combination looked strange to say the least.

While in Intercourse I had to stop at the Old Country Store – my favorite in this area - always has been even though there are others of course in the area.  I think a lot of it is just plain atmosphere for me.  I love the look of the place and the isles and isles of fabric.  I have a hard time deciding what fabric to buy if I do not have a project in mind – so even though my eyes lite up at seeing all the fabric I normally look at all the bolts of fabric but then buy fat quarters not yardage as it tends to sit on my shelves unused where as I always use up my fat quarters.  Mike caught me without me knowing he was taking pictures of me gazing at all the fabric 

The store had hundreds of fat quarter bundles waiting for people like me to buy in all kinds of bright colors, prints & pastels.  Here are displays of some of the fabric bundles.

This last photo is from a display in a different store -  I  think it was at the store that was selling hand quilts only and very nice ones at that.  People in this area have very distinct feeling on what good quilts are.  This means hand pieced if possible and hand quilted.   I talked to 3 different women working in this store and all had the same opinion – they sell only hand quilting and they look each quilt over with a fine tooth comb before accepting it for consignment.

All of the stores in the area that I looked at sold only hand quilted quilts.  In one shop I had an interesting and entertaining conversation with a Mennonite lady that was working in the shop.  Once she realized I was a hand quilter and hand piecer she was very vocal on what she termed “piecers vs. real quilters”.  We talked about quilt guilds and she could not believe that a good percentage of people in quilt guilds do not actually “quilt” but send their quilts out to be machine quilted. (this may be different on where you live, where I live handquilters are in the minority)  I got the very distinct impression that to belong to a quilt guild in this area you better be a quilter from the very first stitch of your top to the last stitch you take in your binding 

(I do not mean to start an argument among quilters about hand quilting versus machine quilting or hand piecing versus machine piecing  or even  a discussion about “piecers” versus “quilters”.  I am just sharing topics and opinions discussed in this area with quilters from this county.  Keep in mind that people in this area of Pennsylvania are traditionalists and many do things the old fashioned way and enjoy doing it that way as I do with my quilting.)

As always click on photo’s to enlarge.

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I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy Gettysburg all that much.  I had been there one time and that was 21 years ago – it was hot, I was sick, feeling horrible – I had not yet been diagnosed with polymyositis and lupus and didn’t know what the heck was wrong with me.  Overall it was not an enjoyable memory.  All I basically remembered of the Gettysburg experience was monuments – boring monuments and a small visitor center.

It has changed – what a nice new large visitor center and museum (on the left).  Of course my health has been under control for years now with the help of medication so that helped tremendously.

One amazing feature at the museum is after you watch the short movie that gives you the history of Gettysburg you take an escalator to the top of the building.  At the top is a round room, around the room is a painting – this painting goes around the whole room and it shows the Battle of Gettysburg.  I am not that much on the Civil War, it has not really interested me greatly other than reading “Gone With the Wind” a half a dozen times and watching the movie too    This painting though is amazing in the detail and how large it is.  These two photo’s only show part of the painting.

Here is a photo of part of the museum as well on the left.  And you can not go to Gettysburg and not see a cannon or two (try a hundred maybe LOL).

One of my husbands interest is the Civil War Era and he enjoyed the day immensely!  I must admit I did not read everything in the museum that tells you what it all is but I did enjoy looking at everything – and I’m glad we went again so that I do have better memories of it now.

As always click on the photo’s to enlarge.

Tomorrow I will do a post on our visit to Lancaster County PA – Amish country and quilts!

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Today we went to Gettysburg, PA for the afternoon and early evening.  I have no photo’s as Mike has not gotten to them but I thought I would post more photo’s from Harpers Ferry, WV.  Such a pretty old town, the architecture is something else.  That is me from the back in this photo to the left. Was a nice day – cold ever since!

There is a neat little restaurant at the bottom of these steps – basement level – photo on the right.  Serves the best Greek gyro’s I have had in years – the flat bread was to die for!

Looking off of the bridge we saw these black vultures – one with the wing span out – photo to the left. Pretty neat there were quite a lot of these birds down there on the rocks.

And here two  more photos on the bottom right and left of the buildings in the historic town.

I have not gotten any work done on my quilt squares since we got to this park.  We have been too busy visiting and seeing things.  I will get back to it when we get back to camping in the woods!

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The weather had improved somewhat while we were at the park.  It only rained a couple times but wasn’t nearly as bad as what we had been getting.  It did get down to 38 degrees the first night we were there and improved to 40 the next night!  It was great hiking weather though in the daytime.  The photo here at the left is very near the highest point in the park.  As always click on the photos to enlarge.

When we first entered the park a large black bear ran across the road in front of us but I didn’t have the camera handy and couldn’t get a picture.  We didn’t see anymore the rest of the time we were there and I had the camera handy then!  Every time we were in the car while Mike was driving I had the camera on my lap and turned on – of course when you are prepared you don’t see them!

We were surprised at how far behind in spring the park was – it is much higher in elevation than the valley – the highest peak is close to 4,000 ft. elevation.  In some places the trees had barely started to get leaves.  Another thing we noticed was how few evergreen trees there are.  In Arkansas we have so many pine it was something that we noticed so Mike got a photo of this pine tree to the right.  The mountain behind the tree looks brown and that is because of how little leaves are the trees.

Of course we took a trail that led to a waterfall – it was pretty.  As trails go it was short about 2 miles round trip – but always remember most mountain trails are not flat, I think this one took us about 1 1/2 hours to do.  It was steep in places but what a reward when you see the falls.  One of the days we took the hike to the tallest peak in the park (photo on the top) – this trail was only 1 mile up — straight up!!  It took us over an hour to get to the top just to go one mile.  At the top there was a rock shelter built where you could take protection from storms.  The Appalachian Trail runs right next to this trail in places and throughout the whole park, we actually got off one trail we were on for a little bit and walked part of the Appalachian just to say we had as the trails intermingled for awhile.

Here on the right is a look at some of the vegetation on the trail.  A tree that is alive had a hollowed out point in the trunk and a fern of some type was growing inside it.  The tree was quite large and this just looked so unique had to get a photo.

Our motorhome has a large picture window at the back where the bed is.  Wake up in the morning – open the blind and here are deer eating breakfast – what a view.  The last day we didn’t see any in the campground.  We had people on both sides of us with rather loud dogs.  One family didn’t follow the rules and did not have their dog on a leash – there are rules for that – for the safety of campers and the pets – we did not see any but this is a park with bears – keep your pets on a leash please!! Do not throw balls for them to run into the woods and catch – they might get attacked or cause an attack!!

On the last day at the Shenandoah’s it was a rainy cool day and I mentioned in the previous post that we found a quilt museum.   This is the outside of the museum – an old house that is in great shape inside and out.  The photo to the left is the sign outside of the building.  A great place if you are ever in that area to visit.

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I have not posted a blog post in sometime.  A week ago we arrived in Virginia Beach in the very late afternoon and spent mother’s day weekend visiting my husband’s mother and family there.  On mother’s day morning my wish was to walk along the beach for awhile before going to visit the family.  Here are some photo’s of that morning.  I am not a beach person – I do not swim – never learned.  But I do enjoy walking along the water with my pants rolled up and looking at all the activity.

This photo on the left is of a man “para-gliding” I believe that is the term for it.  It was a very windy day and Mike caught him lifting up out of the water several times.  It does look like fun doesn’t it – but I know I would never get up the nerve because of my “fear” of the water.

The photo on the right is of a children’s playground right there on the beach — what child wouldn’t love playing in that.  I thought it was very unique with the ship and sail.

This final picture is of me relaxing with the wind messing up my hair — it was actually chilly that morning only about 60 and with the wind it felt colder.  Yes I am back to dyeing my hair     I couldn’t stand it any longer.  After six months I had completely grown it out and I felt old, drab, and not happy with it!!  So it is back to a reddish brown for me – not my originally dark brown but there you go!!

I have no photo’s of the Shenandoah National Park to show today, Mike is working on them and I will try to post some before we leave here.  Here being Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.  We arrived early afternoon and I spent an afternoon of doing laundry – housework never leaves us does it.  After that was done we we down to the historic district and walked around and enjoyed the sites.  For those of you in Arkansas and maybe others who have seen Eureka Springs in Northern Arkansas – Harper’s Ferry is very similiar in that the town is built into the sides of cliffs – skinny narrow houses, a lot of them made out of rock.

I have not see any quilt shops so far on this trip but yesterday it was raining on our last day in the Shenandoah Park.  I needed to refill prescriptions and we drove to Harrisburg, VA for that (Wal-Mart comes in handy for prescriptions while traveling).  We saw the movie “Star Trek” and also came across a small quilt museum that had applique quilts on display.  They do not allow pictures.  You all would have loved seeing them.  There are old quilts there and the applique quilts were new ones.  Beautiful!!!!  http://vaquiltmuseum.org/

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