A Walk in the Woods

I am very blessed to live in a place where I can walk out my backdoor and be in nature. I love hiking with the dogs. I almost never see another person. It's peaceful and I have the opportunity to clear my head. My usual trek is to head northward to a little creek. Sophie always jumps in and hunts for tadpoles, even in the winter. Then we continue to the powerline right of way. It's been mowed recently, so it's easy to walk. From here we either turn left and head toward Mt. Gilead Church Road and cut across Bam Bam's house (actually, where his house used to be--he and the house are long gone). OR, we go right and pick up an old logging road that takes us to another creek and a bridge. The logging road is grown over with young long leaf pines and the bridge is about to collapse. There's one more route we sometimes go...we head east on the logging road that is right behind the house. It runs behind all the houses on our side of Hudson Woods Road. Where the road forks, we go left and follow it to the end. It's a pretty good road even now because the people on 4-wheelers use it sometimes. There are a couple of deer blinds that some hunters built and abandoned. They're falling apart. There's also a little shed of sorts that appears to be a fancier deer blind. I never see any hunters, but my walks don't occur during prime hunting hours. I know there are a lot of deer out there. I see their tracks everywhere. And Sophie manages to locate and roll in their poop. Disgusting. She can't help herself. I try to get outside when the weather is good. The best hiking time is late fall to mid spring--after the undergrowth has died down and before the spiders start building webs everywhere. Dad used to spend a lot of time wandering around in the woods surrounding his house. Now I understand why.

He's still the cutest baby in the world

D.C. Trip and the White House

Nov 14, drove to Ft. Belvoir to see Bertie and family. Hung out for awhile and then went to an AirBnB in the district. It was pretty nice and much cheaper than a hotel. In the morning, up early to take Uber to the White House. We lined up outside at 8:15 and at 8:30 we went through the first checkpoint. They just looked for our ticket. Next security checkpoint they took our driver's license. My birthday on the DL and birth certificate don't match, so there was a bit of a hold up there. Then we went to the next checkpoint and showed our DL again. Then into the building and through the metal detector. After that, we just wandered through the east wing. Self-guided, but there was a docent in each room. The room were beautiful, of course and there were portraits everywhere. So much history! Afterwards we wandered out and found a really cool coffee shop/cafe. I had herbal tea and a fantastic pistachio cherry pastry. Then, Uber back to the AirBnB. It was about 8 miles and took 30 minutes. The traffic!! We stopped at Wegman's and picked up lunch for both of us and Bert. The boys were in school and Milo was in daycare. We chatted a bit then headed back home. We really enjoyed it. Next time--we'd love to stay longer.

NASA Open House

My brother invited us to the Open House at NASA's Langley facility, Oct 21. We met at his house and took the shuttle. He packed lunch for everyone so we wouldn't have to deal with the food trucks. It was cold and windy and VERY crowded, but very interesting. That evening, Kyle cooked dinner and we had a karaoke jam. Also there for the festivities were Johnny Mac and his family and later my old friend Carol. Lots of fun. My brother, like Mom, really enjoys entergaining a bunch of friends and family.

Fall Fest and a cute pumpkin

Yesterday was the BCBSNC Fall Festival on the Durham campus. Food, fun, live band and a chance to see other humans. A good time was had by all. Also, a picture of my sweet baby and his older brother. Getting ready for Halloween.

Carrboro Music Festival 2023

Mike's latest line up of the Blusterfields played the Carrboro Music Festival at Lanza's Cafe (the old Looking Glass Cafe). Beautiful day! although a little bit warm and sunny for an outdoor gig.

Cutest baby in the world