The Aftermath of the Storm

Monday
It rained all day

Tuesday
It has finally stopped raining after 60 hours continuous dowmpour. The sun has also made an appearance - I was forgetting what it looked like. The ground is muddy and strewn with leaves, small branches and loads of acorns. The rain has been most intense inthis last few hours.
Since it has stopped we have decided to go and look at the damage, we first went to the local stretch of the Callusaja river, which has risen and flooded the road.
Then we went to the local waterfalls, which were quite impressive. I have some video footage of our adventure.

From My Videos

Noah's Ark needed.

The South has been under a depression for the last week, which does not seem to want to move, so we have had torrential rain for most of the time for the last 7 days. Everything is damp and muddy. There are flood warnings all over, but we should be OK as our friends home is half way up a mountain.
Saturday dawned dry, if overcast, so we went up to Cherokee where there was a Mountain Festival at a centre where they have reconstructed a farm from buildings taken from the land before they made the Great Smokey National Park. It was very interesting as folks were dressed in costume and doing things like bark tree basket making, sorgum milling, making molasses, making hominy and making brooms. For our English friends and family, sorgum is a kind of cane sugar which was grown widely in the South. They would harvest it, then squeeze the juice out between rollers turned by a mule or horse. The juice was then boiled in several vats over fire to reduce it to a syrup - molasses. It was used in many recipes. Hominy is made from dried corn which is boiled in lye ( lye was made by passing water through the collected ashes from the fires) thus removing the hard outer shell. Then it is boiled for hours in water, changed several times, to cook and soften it. Very bland taste, but very nutritious. It must have been a very hard life living on one of these farms.

We then went into Cherokee Town itself. It was not really our cup of tea - too commercialised and touristy. When you'd been in one shop you'd seen what was in all - mostly tourist tat. Cherokee is on the Cherokee Indian Reservation and we would have been quite interested to go to the museum but we had run out of time. We may go later. It started raining at about 4.30 and hasn't stopped since - 24 hours!!!
Sunday
We went to a new church for Jay and Christy - they have only moved up here from Florida about 2 months ago and are still trying out Churches to see which is the right one for them to belong to. It was a good sermon and the worship was good too, shame that the people seemed too shy to come and welcome us!! Only one guy came to speak to us - I found that a bit off putting.
Jay, Christy and Terry are watching American football on the TV busy supporting Jay and Christy's team - Pittsburg Steelers. I cannot understand American Football - no matter how many times Terry has tried to explain it.
It's raining water and acorns on the trailer roof - we are partly under an oak tree!
The bad news is that The Steelers came second.

Takin' Life Easy in Franklin

Franklin is a small town, so Sally and I have delighted in taking part in town life with Jay, Christy, Myah, Sarah and Noah.
Tuesday evening we went with Noah to attend his Open School Evening, where we were shown round Noah's new school. We visited his classrooms and met his teachers,saw his very impressive Gym, library area, dining area and music room. It was very interesting. Suppose, once a teacher, always a teacher.
Wednesday evening saw us at the Macon County Fair. Macon is one of the smallest counties in North Carolina, so the fair is a very local affair. There are no rides or midway. It is more like an English agricultural fair, or even a village show. There are many comptetitions for different foodstuffs, artwork, craftwork and displays from different interest groups and clubs. It was fascinating to walk round just watching people enjoy themselves and looking at the livestock and exhibits. We also had Funnel Cake (I enjoyed it, but it was a bit greasy). Now Christy had been a judge, mostly in the kids art categories, and learned a thing or two about local competitions. She came home with a look of trepidation, because she had found out that for pumpkins here was a 'Large Pumkin' class and also a 'Largest Pumpkin' class. One for best looking, the other for sheer weight. In watching the judging she saw a huge, lopsided pumkin, easily the heaviest there, dissmissed because it was entered (by the stewards) in the 'large' rather than 'largest' category. You could see that at some time when the grower found out, that there would be blood on the streets of Franklin. Christy was worried that she was the steward who had checked that pumpkin in. Fortunately not!! Agricultural and garden shows can be a dangerous place in a country which has the second ammendment.
There is also a pet competition. Family Baird have a Family Dog, called Sidda, or possibly Sitta, it seems to vary every time you ask one of the kids. She is a lovely nearly two year old boxer. They had entered the dog into the Best Dressed Dog category, dressed as a cowgirl dog. The competition was a riot of children, animals and parents variously trying to control, or escape, eat other contestants (there were some very appetising (to a dog) turtles and ferrets there for the 'Unusual Pet' category) or just run amuck, with a dear lady compere who was being so sweet to everyone, while having a number of long leashes wrapped around her by errant dogs.
After a very long process, whereby Sidda did not win the Best Dressed Dog award, which went to a 3 year old dressed as a fairy princess, whose dog, for some strange reason, was decorated as a butterfly. However, automatic entry into the Large dog Category gave Sidda the award of Best Large Dog. This placed Sidda into the Grand Final to find the Grand Champion Pet in Macon County, 2009. For some strange reason they won this section, so Sidda is now a famous Grand Champion, with her name in lights and a picture in the local paper!
Thursday Sally and I had a wander round downtown Franklin, looking at some of the crafts and getting a great cup of coffee in a place called Cafe Rel . This had been reccommended to us by a local. It was part of a local filling station and looked a bit rough on the outside. However, when we went in it turned into a high class restaurant and we had a really pleasant coffee break there.Scrummy cakes. Thursday evening saw me driving to Bryson City where Jay works on the local newspaper. We were going to a local Jam Session in the Library. We had a great evening, met a lot of locals and enjoyed some really good jamming.

Friday, Sally and I drove up country to Highlands, so that we could see some of the lovely waterfalls in the Cullasaja River. In the evening the local Arts Center had booked Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. The place was packed and held about 2000 people. Everyone was up for a great evening. We sat and enjoyed some really good music. Afterwards we went to Fatz to get a cup of coffee and a late night snack. Very enjoyable night

Over the Hills and far Away

Interestingly enough, even though Knoxville TN is little more than 50 miles from Franklin NC, as the crow flies, locals very rarely cross the Smoky Mountains to visit, except on vacation. Its almost as though there was an ocean between, not a range of hills. Anyway, we were due to leave our friends in Raccoon Valley to see our friends in Franklin. Before leaving I had decided that one of the ti(y)res, which had been slowily losing air, needed to be changed. I am very grateful to our friends and their tools and equipment which made this possible. One of the problems of living in a trailer is that if you need to do something to it which requires moving it you have to wait until you are ready to move on. However, the punctured tyre has been replaced with the spare, so it is ready to be fixed.
We had a lovely drive through the mountains, nice weather, clear views.
We stopped for our packed lunch at a rest stop on I 40. Then had a fascinating experience. Sally wanted a coffee from the vending machine. Having only a $5 bill I put it in the machine. While it dispensed the coffee it also dispensed the change, all in quarters. Now instead of it delivering the expected 16 quarters, it kept going, eventually stopping when (I counted later) it had given out $9.75 in change. Here was a machine I liked!!!
Warily I put another $5 bill in and ordered myself a coffee. Low and behold, it discharged yet more quarters, finishing up with dimes, as I assume it had run out of quarters. This time it dispensed $7.65, as well as the coffee.
At this point I quit (no more $5 bills) and went my cheery way, just a little bit more cheery as a result of our lunch stop on I40. (oh, of course I would have reported it to the Information Office, but there was a stern disclaimer by the vending machines to say that they had nothing to do with the running of the machines - fair enough!).
We had a reasonable drive from there to Franklin, though worryingly the truck was dangerously close to overheating on a couple of the long climbs on R74, but cutting the A/C, putting on the heating and dropping the speed back as far as 25 m.p.h. held it well in the working temperature of the engine, though it does not bode well for trips to the Rockies next, or in subsequent years.
Having arrived at our good friends The Baird Family, late of Winter Haven FL, now proudly living in Franklin NC, we needed to park the Trailer. Easier said than done, as they have a lovely property which is down a narrow lane, with entrances front and back both with tricky bends in them. We tried to go past and reverse round into their front drive, but the turn was too sharp for our rig, which has a terrible turning circle forwards, and jacknifes very easily going backwards.
The only solution was to back up their road about 100 yards (as we could not turn round), turn at the end of the road and back down the road on to their drive. This was not an easy task as the road was narrow and curvy. The line had to be exactly right, or it would jack knife away, however thanks to excellent support from Sally and Christy we eventually managed it. It took us an hour and a half of work to get the trailer in place! The neighbours had free entertainment watching our shenanegins! The problem with reversing is that there is not pattern of using the steering wheel to get the unit to go in the right direction. It depends on the angle of the truck and trailer at the tow hitch as to whether the back end goes to the left or right when the steering wheel is turned. Over steering not only changes the angle, but also the line of travel, often making it impossible to continue in a straight line without drastic changes to the steering wheel, or moving forward to restore the original line of travel. In other words, it is still an art rather than a science to me.
Anyway, we are here now and safely set up.

Smokey Mountain Fiddler's Convention

Friday
George and Kay took us to see Oakridge, which was a USA Government facility during the 2nd World War where scientists worked on developing the atom bomb. It was secret, hush hush and not even the locals knew what went on there. Terry may well write more about it. He wanted to see it and has now ticked one more place of interest off his list.
We had supper at Cracker Barrel, before heading off to Loudon to the Fiddler's Convention to listen to the concert. It was a great show and we all enjoyed some good bluegrass music from three bands.

Saturday

George and Kay were busy, so we did some shopping on our way back to Loudon. The Fiddler's convention competition was in full flow when we got there and we caught the banjo class followed by buck dancing, junior fiddle and mandolin catagories. Some very talented players put on a good show. The evening was the band competition and we listened to some excellent bands, before leaving at 10pm. We listened to the rest on the radio as the local radio station was broadcasting it live. The last band finished at 11.30 - me being safely tucked up in bed by that time. There were 13 bands entered and the compere said that they were going to have to have a two day competition instead of one day if the numbers of entrants keeps rising. There is some talent in this area- some very young kids - 12, 13 who were incredible and a good few teenagers. There was a lot of interest in a band from Australia who came 2nd. The blokes had to speak really slowly so the Americans could understand the lingo. 'G'day y'all' sounded really strange. All in all, a very good day.

Sunday
Rest day. - at least for me, Terry has washed the truck and the trailer and made me feel tired just thinking about it. Tonight we are going to church with George and Kay, followed by supper at Shoney's. yum.

Chill, Chill, Chill

Today we could relax, recover and recooperate. No deadlines to meet, though Sally put in a fair shift with the iron to dewrinkle the clothes we had vacuum packed and left here. I pottered round getting things out, but spent a lot of time trying to sort out the car insurance, still that seems to be clearer now. In the evening George and Kay, who have been great guides, hosts and friends showed us Norris Dam, the first TVA dam to be built, finished in 1936, it is 265 feet high and very impressive, set in beautiful countryside. One of the things that I find amazing is that the water from this, the Clinch River, will travel into the Tennessee River, then the Ohio River, then the Mississippi River and finally out to the Gulf of Mexico. I reckon that is somewhere around 2000 miles. Now the water at the foot of the dam is about 760 feet above sea level, that means that over all that distance it only drops by 760 feet. Amazing. Anyway, more about the Mississippi another time.

Not only were we out seeing the sites, we were going to a special restuarant. Rickard Ridge BBQ is set in a State Park with beautiful views, they cooked us a lovely meal and while we were eating a group of musicians were playing some good bluegrass music. Very friendly, the musicians came and talked, the waitress got up and sang and we had a great time.

During the day I was able to contact our son JP and get an update on their house. They have now found a lovely 5 bedroom house in Spondon, so that is great news. Hope it stays that way as contracts progress and the chain sorts itself out.

Istachatta to Raccoon Valley

Tuesday Marilee had invited Marlyn and Bill over to supper, Marilee had cooked up some Mexican. It was really nice, Burritos. (I'm not sure if the Burro bit isn't to do with mules, but didn't enquire too closely). Then we had time for some more jammin'. Unfortunately the clock always wins and we had to end the evening, but we had all had a great time. So thanks for our couple of days in Florida everyone.

An early start the next day found us back in Orlando to catch a flight for Knoxville on board an Air Trans flight. It was interesting to fly up across parts of Florida we had visited on the ground. We hit cloud over Georgia, so were unable to see the Ockeefenocee, or the North Georgia Highlands, though it did clear briefly as we flew across Pigeon Forge.

George and Kay were waiting for us at Alcoa Airport with our truck, all ready to go. George had even washed it! Many thanks for that, now I have a standard to maintain. We stopped on the way at Shoney's for one of their buffet meals and George and Kay showed us round downtown Knoxville and the University. Knoxville has some interesting places, they held the World's Fair there in 1982, so a lot of interesting buildings went up then, including the Golden Globe, a very large globe on a tower(They really do have the moon on a stick here). The University football stadium is massive.

On being re-united with our trailer we started the clean out. Everything was fine except for some droppings and nuts in the trailer. Sally thought mice, I thought squirrel, George thought chipmonks. Whichever way, they had not damaged any of the furnishings or got to any of the food, so it was just a case of sweeping out the floor of the trailer.(That's the bit Terry did. I had to disinfect all the kitchen and all the surfaces!!) We are once again sited on the Raccoon Valley Festival field, nobody else here but the deer.

Hot and Steamy Labor Day

Howdy folks. Greetings from the good ole US of A. It's still here and just as good as ever.

We had a really good journey to Manchester - quickest yet, maybe something to do with it being Sunday morning and then an excellent flight as the 'plane was half empty and we had 6 seats between the 2 of us. We managed a long sleep and arrived feeling fresh as a daisy - no stiffness or aches and pains. We made it out of the airport in 45 minutes from the opening of the 'plane door and driving off in the hire car.

It's hot and steamy here in Florida - this is the earliest we've been in the fall and it's great to be back in the sun. Too hot to be outside for long so you really appreciate the aircon.

Yesterday was Labor Day - so a public holiday - Marilee had most of the day off and we went to lunch at Marlyn and Bills. It was so good to catch up with everyone - Ed and Lois, and Ed were there too and we all tucked into the most delicious dinner of roast chicken, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweetcorn, beans, coleslaw and scrummy gravy. Add on top Marlyn's home cooked yeast rolls with butter (yum), followed by coconut cake and America's version of a trifle and we couldn't move afterwards. I had a sleep while everyone else got the intsruments out and played bluegrass. Marilee's sister, Tina, joined us in the evening after a two hour drive and she stayed overnight. We had a great time, chatting and playing and singing bluegrass. It was a really enjoyable day. Thank you everyone for your really warm welcome and hospitality.

Today, we went to - guess where - Walmart. I had left my navy blue lightweight jacket in the UK so I went to get a replacement and ended up buying two - one navy and one black. Like the equation ?- Terry wasn't too pleased. Tough I thought. Tina shopped for curtains and accessories for her revamped house which is nearing completion and then we had coffee and a doughnut at Dunkin' Donuts. - Nice.

Feel as though we've never been away!! Still got to get my American head on as I'm still speaking English and you get some funny looks when you use English expressions.

The evening of the night before

Last night at home. It's been a busy day trying to get all the bumf printed off, last minute shopping done, last minute washing of clothes, bedding and towels and the packing done. Thank goodness we have a wardrobe of clothes in the trailer so we don't have to cart loads of clothes backwards and forwards. Terrry defrosted the fridge and the freezer, yesterday and cleaned them out. Our neighbour was landed with the last few fozen foods which she can use up.

Our neighbour, Sarah is a gem. She keeps an eye on the house for us, deals with the post and waters my houseplants and tops up the bird feeders for me while we are away. Thank you Sarah. Her two kiddies quite like feeding the birds.

Terry is playing in his band tonight so I'm on my own finishing off the last few bits and pieces. It's not a late booking - finishes at 10.30 so he will be back at a reasonable time. Thankgoodness, as we have to be up and leave at 7.30 am. I normally am not even awake at that time so Terry will have to prize me from my bed.

I'm recording the X Factor at the moment, so I can watch it before I go to bed. Debating whether to set it to record the whole series on sky plus or not!! Hmmmm - big decision!!

My supplements did not arrive - bummer!!! So Terry has spent a bit of time on line seeing if we can buy them in the USA. Success - most of them we can buy over there and the minerals we can find some as near to the ones I take so it's not the disaster I thought it might be. Had to ask Sarah if she would be able to rescue my parcel from the GPO when it finally gets delivered and send me the invoice so I can pay it. Must make sure I leave more time next time I order them !!!

Just hoping the journey goes smoothly and that I don't get overtired. Will try and have a sleep on the plane - inflatable neck pillow, ear plugs and eye mask all help.

Keep watching this space for tales of our adventures.

Excitement for trip number 6

Well, here we are again. Getting ready for trip number 6. We should be used to the preparation and have it down to a fine art BUT life being what it is, it's not that simple or straighforward. We gaily thought four days after returning from our meet with the Ridings Folk Group over the bank holiday weekend would be enough!!! Fools!!

All the bookings of flights both across the pond and up to Knoxville and car hire was done weeks ago. We have been steadily collecting presents for friends and bits and pieces necessary to making our trip enjoyable - such as Nescafe Gold Blend Coffee for Terry, who won't drink any other instant coffee ( Hi Jay - remember you thought it was the real mccoy). We had arranged appointments for hair dos, hospital, dentist etc. etc. and I had organised the ordering and delivery of my meds and supplements. Great , I thought. Not too much to do for these 4 days.

However, I forgot to order my supplements from my Doctor in Wales while away and only ordered them on Tuesday - they still have not been delivered! Help!! That only leaves tomorrow for the post - and you know how unreliable the post can be. I'm praying they arrive or I'll find I'll be slowly making less and less energy as I run out of the supplements I have in stock, till I grind to a halt!! I may be able to get some of them in the USA - hey- ho - lifes a >>>> when you have a memory like a sieve because of ME!

I went to the chemist to pick up my specials prescription, which was ordered 4 weeks ago, to find that hadn't been delivered either. Stress!!!!! Anyway - that was delivered this afternoon. Breathed a sigh of relief - my brain might continue to work now - without this medication, my cognitive skills decrease dramatically - bad enough when taking it!! Another ME symptom.

Terry decided to renew his yearly travel insurance last minute, as his existing policy expires half way through this trip - success - he saved a wopping £100 by changing companies.

The car developed a slow puncture in one of the tyres, so that meant a trip to the garage and a new tyre.

Our daughter, Helen, who is in Australia on her way round the world (She 's having a blast) needed help with a form from her insurance company over a claim when she needed medical help in the USA. This form had to be taken down to the Doctors.

Terry also has a residual cough from when he had a virus 4 weeks ago and decided to get it checked out by the Doctor today - He' ll survive - his chest is clear and the DR said it was post viral and would gradually fade away - the cough - not Terry!!

The health food shop had to order my face cream as it wasn't in stock so that meant a second trip down town to collect it.However some things have gone according to plan and we have slowly worked our way down the lists and are nearing the bottoms now! Thank goodness.

Our friend and neighbour, Kathryn has invited us over for dinner tonight so it will be lovely to chill out and eat good food - she's a great cook. This will leave us tomorrow to pack and sort the last minute things. We leave at 7.30am Sunday to drive to Manchester to catch the flight at 1.30.

We are really looking forward to this trip and hope to make good music, catch up with friends, make new friends, enjoy American food, weather and spectacular scenery and generally have a ball.