Bar Harbor Weekend

Another most excellent adventure as Mom and I tour the Bar Harbor, ME area. Since I had to work back to back weeks up here, Mom flew up to meet me and spend a long weekend. It is truly a beautiful place, one that we have never visited before. The pictures don't do justice to how pretty it is here.



This is the hotel we based out of. It was about 3 miles from the center of town.

The highlight on Sunday was taking a 4 hour whale watching tour. After crusing out in the ocean (35 miles) and covering 85 total miles, we were able to catch sight of several whales. I believe they were 'fin whales' which we were told were the second largest mammal. All I know is, they were incredible. We close enough that I could actually hear them blowing thru their blow holes. Pretty impressive. It is kind of hard to see, but here are a couple pictures. Actually the entire tour would have been fine even without seeing the whales. We cruised by a light house island, some 25 miles out in the ocean and watched seals lounging on rocks, and diving as we shut down and just hung out watching.





We will have more pictures and stuff to blog later. It's Lobster time now! More blogging later....

Day 2 of the excellent adventure........

We're off to Acadia National Park and Cadilac Mountain. More pictures to follow. In the meantime, here are a couple from the Whale Watching outing.








Ok, day 2 was spent exploring Acadia National Park. The pictures below show some of the beautiful sights. Some of the things observed were Peregrine Falcon's nesting. Watching a mother Falcon ward off a hungry buzzard. Thunderhole which was a crevice carved between some massive rocks at the shoreline, with waves constantly bashing into it. The resulting sound was like thunder. Witnessing mom standing on the edge of a ledge overlooking the Atlantic ocean was something you don't see everyday either. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves and mom will contribute more narrative later, once she is home in Browntown. Enjoy!





Ok, Mom is home, or at least nearby, I talked to her and she was navigating Dulles Airport. The last obsticle is for her to find her car (she didn't write down her parking area) so that could take some time. I'm still in Maine, and went back to work this morning. We both are looking forward very much to having all of the kids home (for however brief a time) for a visit this weekend. If anyone wants more pictures of the Bar Harbor experience let me know and I'll send more to you. As for me, it's back to work! I can't wait to get back to Browntown and to re-collect myself before the next Excellent Adventure!

News From Browntown

News From Browntown/Show Dog Circuit

Auntie Char has some very exciting new to post. Here it is as e-mailed for posting :

Abby, Haley and I had a stellar weekend of competition in the dog sport of Rally Obedience in Fredericksburg, Va. This is a newer style of competition obedience that is sort of like a cross between Agility and traditional Obedience- if you are familiar at all with either of those. In Rally, the obedience exercises (instead of Agility obstacles) are placed around a course designed by the judge. You and your dog “heel” around the course completing the required exercises at each station-usually 18-23 stations, with “perfect heeling” in between the stations. Lots of fun, but requires attention and precision from both dog and handler.

Anyway, the total possible score with bonus points is 210. Haley had fabulous scores of 207,208 and 209 in 3 runs. And…Abby DAZZLED everyone with 3 PERFECT (!!) runs of 210 each. With that they BOTH earned their “Rally Level One” titles with “Awards of Excellence” for exceptional scores. With 37 dogs in the division Abby won FIRST place (in a run off!) and Haley THIRD. There were lots of great dogs with really high scores, so we really felt great about our wins!

Afterwards one of the judges shook her head at me and said “You have 2 lovely working dogs!” Another lady came up to me later and said “Do you realize that everybody here wants your dogs!?” We will now continue on with training for Level 2 and then Championship levels. Oh, and by the way, we beat a Border Collie AND an Australian Shepherd!! (Those 2 breeds excel at these things!).

Keith had to stay home and bale hay with John Deere (HIS absolute favorite sport!!) but I kept him posted by cell phone the whole weekend (thank heaven for those cell phones!). He is very proud of us girls!

Now Auntie Char has to begin digital photography so she can take pix of the shows and post photos of the girls performing! To think that Abby came from the Humane Society after a miserable life as an incubator for pit bull pups!! She is a star now!

Rupley Summerfest '06 Report

Well, another Summerfest has come and gone here in the Virginia Highlands. For those of you who don't know about Summerfest, it's basically a bigger and better Festival of Leaves. And Rupley would be the Summerfest equivalent of Chester Street for the Festival of Leaves. For that reason, we had several house guests at 991 for the weekend.

The festivities started Friday afternoon, with Ryan and Jarrett setting up the Washer Theatre in the front yard.



Washers is a yard game that our Indiana friends introduced us to. Basically, it's the same as horseshoes, it involves throwing washers from one side of the yard into a cup on the other side of the yard. It proved to be quite entertaining all weekend. For us, our houseguests, and even the neighbors stopped by to throw a washer or two... It is a gentleman's game, as Andrew demonstrates. However, we girls did get a few ringers in!







Wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me not forget the front porch jam Friday night! Andrew and friends entertained us on the front porch with some tunes. Then they got ambitious and moved to the intersection of Virginia and Highland, where they serenaded some poor guy trying to impress his date at the Highland Tap. From there, I'm told they moved to the Summerfest Main Stage, set up in the middle of the intersection. I did not witness this, as I was in bed trying to get some sleep before my big day Saturday... more to come on that.







After a late night Friday, Saturday morning came early for most. I ran in my first race, the Summerfest 5k, which started at 8am. I don't have pictures of this spectacle yet, however I hope to in the near future. I will post as they become available. Our neighbors, Scott and Kim, have a party for the race. All the neighbors and guests gathered on their lawn to cheer the runners on as we raced past. John Marc and I had been training for the race for a while, going to bootcamp regularly and running on the off days. We were both glad to run the race together, especially when we rounded the corner on Rupley and heard all of our friends and neighbors screaming for us with Chariots of Fire blaring in the background. The good news is that our street came at the end of the race, so it was pretty much downhill from there (not literally). I finished the race, which was my overall goal, in 30:26. I am hoping to improve that time for next year!

After the race, I was glad to join everyone else at the party... the weather was great Saturday. Not too hot, no rain, perfect! We did have a party Saturday night, which was a raging success. I think Andrew and Jarrett and I all met new people Saturday night! (Yeah, there were definitely a few crashers!) It was a good time, as was evident from the clean-up we had to do Sunday morning. Good times.

Overall, I would say Summerfest was a fantastic time, another reason why our neighborhood is so great!

Part 2

After returning to Abingdon from Holiday Lake, I had another Elderhostel to get through. This is a biking program that we do every year. The hostelers spend several days biking on the Virginia Creeper Trail, which used to be a rail line into North Carolina, and one day spent on naturalist studies in Tennessee and Virginia.

Shady Valley, TN. Eons ago a meteor formed this bowl, it was once a marshland, then a forest, now being returned to marshland.

A Salamander we found in Shady Valley. Scientists come from all over the world to study salamanders here, apparently there are more varieties than anywhere else, and a few that don't exist elsewhere.

This 1/4 acre cranberry bog is all that remains of the vast cranberry bogs that filled the Valley. This site is the smallest parcel of land owned by the Nature Conservancy, which is the largest single land-owning organization in the world.

A stand of old-growth forest in Shady Valley. The sun barely reaches the ground here.

Backbone Rock. The highway goes right through the rock, like Natural Bridge. This is a big recreation area, there was a group of kids climbing and rappelling off to the right.

The view from atop Backbone Rock. Look at the previous picture. Yes, we hiked/climbed to the top. Yes, we walked across. Yes, this is what it looks like peering over the edge.

A creek that runs parallell to Backbone Rock, under the road. It reminds me a lot of Passage Creek, near Elizabeths Furnace. In fact, the whole area bears a strong resemblance to the Lee Ranger District of the George Washington National Forest.

Climbing back down from Backbone Rock.

As you can see, this Elderhostel program is a particularly interesting one. We're doing it twice more this fall, so hopefully I'll get some biking pictures, maybe on the trestles that cross over the Holston River.

It's now quarter to one in the morning, and I have campers coming tomorrow. So I'm off to bed, and I'll talk to you all in August. Except for when I'm home in two weeks for Adam's wedding. And when I call on a weekend sometime. And maybe an email during the week. You get the idea.

Camp Approaches

As I told mom, I have been taking pictures and contemplating a blog entry in my mind for months now, I just haven't gotten around to doing it. So now, on the night before camp begins, I decided to throw something out to you all before I drop from sight for the next ten weeks.

It's been a busy spring here in Abingdon and at the 4-H Center. Since March, we have had three Elderhostels, one week of State Staff Training, one week of staff training, one board meeting, one Serve-Safe class for foodservice workers from the area, a teen and adult volunteer training weekend, three groups of foster kids on the ropes course and, starting tomorrow, camp!

In early March, we hosted 18 hammered and lap dulcimer players from as far away as California and as close as North Carolina. It's a program we do every year, and this year we had several repeat customers. Apparently, most Elderhostel sites don't get many repeats....we do. It seems the hostile elders like our approach of quality over quantity, the individual family atmosphere we achieve with our smaller groups.

A few weeks later, we had another Elderhostel, this time working with the local Hysterical Society to put together tours and lectures on the history of the area. We visited the Museum of the Middle Appalachians in Saltiville, several restored historical homes in Abingdon, and had an interesting tour of the oldest cemetary in town. It's actually two cemetaries...one for the whites, and one for slaves across the road. We took a walking tour of downtown Abingdon, stopping behind the Cave House to see the cave that Daniel Boone supposedly named the town after, when it was known as Cave Hills. One of the more interesting activities was afternoon tea served up by the Daughters of the American Revolution - Blacks Fort Chapter. The ladies came in full period garb and in character, serving tea while telling stories. Sam and I had a laugh at our handling of the delicate china...I took pictures, but they're not on this computer, so I'll have to share them some other time.

About three weeks ago my camp staff and I drove to Holiday Lake 4-H Center in Appomatox for the annual State Staff Training event. The other five 4-H Center Program Directors and I had begun putting the event together several months prior at a three day retreat. It's a great event, camp staff from all over the state teaching each other new songs, new games, learning to teach classes...in short, a nerd-fest for "camp people". Everyone's a type-A and loves attention, a rowdy group.

Nate, PD at Holiday Lake, and I pose for a picture. Nate was in the Peace Corps in Bolivia.








Leading a group in a team building exercise.









Southwest leads all the other 4-H Center Staffs in a song before lunch.








Yes, we stil square dance at camp. Well, at State Staff anyway. Thing 1 & Thing 2 are on my staff.









Southwest leads a flag raising ceremony on the last morning.










Everyone's favorite (former) teen counselor, Megan Stephens, makes an appearance.





One or two familiar faces for Andrew. Bob Meadows, Associate Director of Virginia 4-H in the blue shirt, and Barry Garst (reddish shirt, no book), my boss, next to Bob. Andrew remembers Bucket and Bubbly Bob fondly, I'm sure...




With that, I'll close this post. I'll do another one on the last Elderhostel.