Our friend Jim sent this a while back. Thanks, Jim!
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The Dentist pulls out a freezing needle to give the man a shot.
‘No way! No needles! I hate needles,’ the patient said.
The Dentist starts to hook up the laughing gas and the man objects.
‘I can’t do the gas thing. The thought of having the gas mask on is suffocating me!’
The Dentist then asks the patient if he has any objection to taking a pill.
‘No objection,’ the patient says.’I'm fine with pills.’
The Dentist then returns and says, ‘Here’s a Viagra tablet.’
The patient says, ‘Wow! I didn’t know Viagra worked as a painkiller!!!’
‘It doesn’t,’ said the Dentist, ‘but it will give you something to hold onto when I pull your tooth.’
Today we spent the day at Cliffside Lake Recreational Area:
It was a gorgeous day with plenty of sunshine. We took a walk on the path around the lake and discovered this tree which had been gnawed by a beaver.
You can see the log laying beside the stump… apparently they chopped down the tree to prevent the beaver from doing the job. The poor beaver got gypped!
After lunch of hot dogs and s’mores, we decided to check out the Vista Trail.
See how happy I look at the beginning? It was a pretty steep climb and I was huffing and puffing after we got a ways up. But the guys were kind and let me stop and rest several times, for which I was very grateful!! The view from the top was magnificent.
We were pretty high up! You can see a little piece of the lake next to the bare part of Trav’s arm… the dark green area among the trees. The hike back was very easy and we saw a big bird (a grouse or something similar) on the way.
After a very pleasant day, we returned to the cabin for more rest & relaxation.
The hammock was one of the best places to hang out. Trav & I could curl up in it very comfortably! Entertainment for the evening was the final show of Americaan Idol (misspelling intentional to stop the sploggers from stealing my post). Chris & Adam were both so good, it didn’t really matter to me who won, and I enjoyed the show. Big day tomorrow – gem mining!!
Today we opted for a lazy day at home. Everybody else went antiquing while Trav, Bleys & I stayed behind. After breakfast I went on a little hike on the path from the house and took tons of pictures of the flowers, plants and other interesting sights along the trail. Here are some of my favorites:
Waterfall along the path
Coral mushrooms
Trillium
A very strange creature by the side of the road!
After I got back, I went to work on a batch of pitas, since I had promised to make some during our trip. I had to call my Mom to get the recipe for Oatmeal Pita Bread (thanks, Mom!) and it was kind of strange making dough without the machine, but they turned out great. We ate them with Jen’s delicious black bean chili.
The excitement for this day was seeing black bear prints! Trav & I went for a walk and on the way back, Trav spotted several tracks in the mud. Here’s one of them:
It was very fresh, since it hadn’t been there at the beginning of our walk. I’m sorry we missed seeing the bear! To get a sense of the scale, here’s a picture of the print with Trav’s hand next to it:
That was really exciting to see and one of my favorite moments of the vacation.
What promised to be a gorgeous day started out with a bit of shopping in downtown Franklin. There are lots of cute little shops there so we all kind of poked and wandered. Bleys bought a big thick novel, Trav got a few books to replace some of his old ones, and we got tasty, freshly made chocolate fudge to take home.
Then we set out to visit a place called Dry Falls, a waterfall which projects over a cliff so you can walk behind it. On the way, we stopped at a neat spot, where you can see the cabin from the road, way up on the mountain. Click for original size picture, where you can see the cabin perfectly! It’s the house with the red roof.
Also along the way to the falls was Bust Your Butt swimming hole, on the Cullasaja River:
After driving a little further on the narrow, winding mountain road, we saw signs for Cliffside Lake Recreational Area and decided to stop and check it out – see what was there. We discovered a lovely lake and park, with picnic tables, grills, bathrooms, and hiking trails… everything one needs for a day of fresh air and sunshine. We decided to come back and spend the day on Wednesday. I love this picture of Mike & Jen at the lake:
Then it was off to Dry Falls. We had heard it was being refurbished, and it was still closed when we went by, so we kept on going just a little further down the road to Bridal Veil Falls.
When we got there, people were down along the side of the falls, picking up stuff from the ground. I asked what they were after and they showed me the garnets they were gathering. They were just laying around, right in the open! So we spent a little while gathering garnets and that was really fun for me. I should have taken more pictures but I got in one of those modes where all I can do is look for shiny things. I didn’t want to leave – I could have stayed there all day poking around in the dirt!
After we each got a small handful of gens, we went down the road just a little further into the little town of Highlands. We poked around in the shops there, too. The reason we went shopping so much is because I was looking for a particular souvenir… a spoon rest. I didn’t find one; it’s just not the type of stuff the tourist traps carry around there. It was fun to look at all the stuff, though… lots of bear things, mountain crafts and pretty rocks & jewelry. We agreed to meet up at Buck’s Coffee Cafe when everyone was done browsing. Here we are enjoying delectable drinks:
After a leisurely day of exploring, we headed home, as it was getting to be supper time. We enjoyed our evening meal (I can’t remember what we had), and entertainment was backgammon with Michelle and cribbage with Bleys. A really lovely day!
Sunday was all about the food. Jen prepared a wonderful brunch of fried green tomatoes (from their garden), bacon, sausage, toast and scrambled eggs. We didn’t have lunch that day because we were all saving our appetites for dinner… when we went food shopping Mike & Jen bought these really, really nice ribeye steaks, enough to feed all 11 people that would be there for dinner that night.
Trav expertly seasoned and cooked them on the grill, and we enjoyed a mouthwatering dinner of steak, salad and seasoned potato wedges. In attendance were Mike, Jen, Michelle (daughter), Richie (son), Angela (daughter-in-law), Megan & Robert (grandkids), Isabella (grandkid), Bleys, Trav and me. Then we spent the evening socializing and watching the final episode of Survivor (during which I snoozed… not one of the shows I watch). Then it was time to turn in from a very lazy day at “home”.
The video below is proof that someone will take an eye out with roughhousing!! Warning: This video may be boring to those who don’t know the people involved. The end is pretty funny, though.
This is the story of the first day of our vacation to North Carolina. You can also read about the background and trip up.
The view from the cabin’s porch was lovely! Every morning we would get up and take our coffee and tea out and sit on the rocking chairs. A sample view:
The view was constantly changing, especially the first few days. One moment we could see mountains, and then soon we would be enshrouded in the clouds and couldn’t see a thing. One thing we did see was this brilliant bird – a scarlet tanager. I had never seen one of these before so I got to mark it down in my book. Yay!! Great way to start the vacation. Click the picture to see the zoomed in shot.
The first order of business was to go grocery shopping and then head over to Sylva to get beer from the Heinzelmannchen Brewery. What a cool place! The Braumeister gave me a little sample of each of the seven beers… all but one were very good and we ended up selecting the Black Forest Stout (a dark, smooth ale; balanced roasted coffee and caramel flavors with a thick creamy head) and their spring ale Hoppy Gnome (a creamy pilsner style ale with a mild bitterness and hoppy bouquet; light and refreshing). Here’s the Braumeister filling Mike’s growler:
They also had root beer and birch beer which were pretty good. We took home a gallon of root beer for floats. Nummy!
After the brewery, we stopped for lunch at a little cafe on the main street of Sylva (I had a delicious goat taco) and then headed back to Franklin. On the way back, we stopped at the Ruby City gem store. Oh, I was in heaven! Rocks everywhere… so pretty. Trav bought me an amethyst heart and I got him one made of black, sparkly rock. Bleys & I got magnetic hematite bracelets, too. Mine is black and his is blue.
When we got back to the cabin, we found Mike’s son and his family were there to visit. It was nice to see them again (we met them last year) and we spent the afternoon tipping a few beers and chatting. Also, Jen was presented with a gift from Ruby City… she collects these glass paperweight things and Mike got her a really nice one. Here she is, opening her gift:
I would say it’s 6-7″ tall and has a squid-looking design captured within. The egg now enjoys the center spot in the display of her collection.
That was pretty much it for that day… we ate another delicious supper, socialized with each other for a while and then went to bed. It was a very relaxing day. Don’t they look relaxed? :)
When our friends Mike and Jennifer found out I had a long-time wish to go gem mining, they invited us to go with them to Franklin – a quaint little city nestled in the Smoky Mountains in the extreme southwest corner of North Carolina. The company they work for owns a cabin up in the woods and they let the employees use it for vacations, so we reserved a week in the middle of May to make the trip up.
We left Friday morning with two mini-vans packed with 7 people (6 adults and a 2-year-old), a small dog and supplies for the week – food, clothing and entertainment. The drive up was quick and uneventful… the highlight of the drive there was seeing a place in Georgia called “Goats on the Roof“, which was a restaurant & country store with grass growing and live goats running around on the roof! I definitely want to stop there if we ever go by again.
We got to the cabin around 5 o’clock, so we had plenty of light left to unpack the cars. Here’s the cabin from the end of the driveway:
It’s three stories with decks on the back and wood throughout, and it’s decorated as an old-fashioned, down home cabin, complete with animal skins and deer heads hanging on the walls. Here’s part of the hearth and a perfect example of the lovely style:
After unpacking the cars, we threw together a delicious dinner of veggies and pasta, made with vegetables harvested from Mike’s garden… tomatoes, onions, peppers and eggplant. Jen and Michelle are really good cooks!
Just as we were finishing our meal, a rain storm blew in, with lightning and big winds. Not too long after that, we lost power! So we found some candles and settled in to wait for the electricity to come back. After a while we heard some commotion outside and discovered the electric company guys out at the end of driveway, cutting up a big tree that had fallen on the power lines. At that point we all decided to call it a night and everybody went to bed. Luckily we had explored enough to make our way downstairs and into bed by candlelight.
So that was our first day. I’ll be posting an entry for every day of our vacation, so check back later for more updates. Oh, and here’s another picture from the first day – Trav, Bleys and Mike at Tallulah Falls:
In this series of vacation posts, you can click any picture for a larger version.
I’ve been working hard trying get caught up this week, so I haven’t had time to post the details of our lovely vacation. I will soon – probably this weekend. I did update my gratitude journal for the past 2 weeks, though, so that’s something to look at in the meantime. And here’s the first picture from our vacation, where we stopped to check out Tallulah Falls.
Our friends are taking us to a ”cabin” in the extreme southwest corner of North Carolina… it’s in a little town called Franklin out in the middle of nowhere and we’ll be gone for a week. It’s so far in BFE, the nearest Starbucks is 25 miles away! It should be fun, though… I’ll finally get to go gem mining, something I’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time. We’re also looking forward to long morning walks and spending time with our friends and each other.
Luckily our friend Terry is staying at our house, to take care of Sadie and the kitties. My gratitude journal will resume when we get back. Take care everybody, talk to you soon!
The quest to complete 101 tasks in 1001 days started on July 30, 2008 (339 days ago) and will be completed on April 28, 2011 (662 days left). See the list.
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