A cold mountain visit

November 19 -22

Clara and some of her friends (Sheila, Carol and Tina) came up to the Mountain House Sunday, November 19 for a girls trip.  They had a great time catching with each other.

They returned to Beaufort, Wednesday, November 16.

Friday morning, Clara and I headed back up to the mountain to close up the house for the winter as we probably won't be back up until April or May.

The weather forecast included a cold front moving through - and we know what that means in the winter - high winds.

We arrived late Friday evening and immediately in the dark started moving all the porch furniture to the garage and putting up the hurricane shutter on the big windows facing the Northwest.

Lucky we did it, because when we got up Saturday morning, the wind was howling.  Saturday night, we recorded 69 mph.  Sunday was in the high 50's a good part of the day and Monday it stayed in the 30's with gust up to 50 most of the day.  This is the most sustained high wind event that we remember.  Usually, a cold front moves through and within 24 hours, the winds have died down.  Not this time.

Finally, Monday evening, the winds abated.

A cold November sunset

The temperature dropped dramatically and bottomed out at 25 degrees with a wind chill of 6 degrees.  It is definitely time to be heading South (which we plan to do on December 14.

The house is buttoned up for the winter

A Happy Birthday

Saturday-Sunday, November 5-6

Happy Birthday to Clara.  She had quite a weekend.

Breakfast Saturday with Carol.

Our neighbors, the Goulds came over with a candle lit cupcake and sang happy birthday!

Of course the staff sang Happy Birthday and stuck this big hat on her

Jean and Madelyn went out to dinner with us (Mexican of course - Clara's favorite.

And Sunday afternoon doing what she loves the most - fishing.  Fortunately, the blues were biting and we landed 15 nice ones.  I wanted to stop after 3 which is a meal for us.  But it's her birthday, so 12 more fish later, she finally relents.  Great fishing!

At the dock.  Not only does she love to fish, she actually likes to clean them.

She accidentally dropped a fish in the water.  I haven't seen her move this fast in a long time.  In went the arm with the watch on it and she rescued the fish!  The watch is still working!

To the Cape

November 10 - 11

It's been nearly 2 years since Joe and I last sailed to the Cape on Eureka, and perhaps this will be the last time.

We've had the boat up for sale for over a year.  A few showings but no legitimate offers.  We're not letting a great boat like Eureka go easily.

It is with mixed emotions that we've made the decision to sale her.   Eureka is a great boat and has served us well for 10 years.  She has taken as far South as Miami/Key West on a great adventure, along with many sails to Cape Lookout, Ocracoke and the Neuse River/Oriental.

She has introduced Anna and Evan to sailing and we've had innumerable friends experience her plowing through Beaufort Inlet in a Southwest breeze running against the tide.

We've enjoyed many an evening watching sunsets from her cockpit while enjoying our favorite beverages and offering prolific insights into personal and public issues.

We have shivered below decks as we started an ill-fated journey South in February, ending with renting a car to get back home and to warmth.

We sailed her offshore overnight into what the weather forecast called for fair winds and following seas, only to wind up galloping into a gale in the darkest of nights and quickly ducking into the nearest harbor of refuge.

Clara refers to her as a "stout ship", and she has proven on occasion that she can handle rough seas much better than her crew.

We've found that with having both a motorhome and a sailboat, we can't seem to find the time for both.  And traveling in the motorhome is a lot easier on the back - and the back is not getting any younger.

We took everything off the boat when we put it on the market, which has made it rather difficult to just get on it and take off like we've always done.  We didn't have to think about what we needed - it was all there.  As a result, we just haven't made the effort.  But we did Thursday and Friday and it was a wonderful reminder of all the great times aboard.

It was a couple of beautiful days for sailing, with winds out of the Northwest on our sail out to the Cape and on the nose from the West coming back in.  It's always a beautiful evening at the Cape, whether it's warm or cold.  And Thursday night was no exception.

Dad is 101 years old

October 20,  2016

Dad is 101 years old today.

He doesn't appear to have changed at all this past year.  In fact, there is very little change in his health or appearance in the past several years.

We celebrated with several of his friends with lunch out and then cake and ice cream back at the house.

A few days on the mountain

October 6 - 19

It's Fall and time to enjoy the mountain house.

Clara and 5 friends went up to the house on Thursday for a girls weekend.

I stayed at home to  see if Hurricane Matthew would provide some excitement. Saturday night we did get some wind (70 mph) and rain, but basically, and thankfully nothing more.

I drove up Sunday (after all the ladies left).

The weather was beautiful almost the whole time we were there, with fog in the valley in the morning and mostly clear evenings with quiet sunsets.

We always enjoy spending an afternoon listening to good music at The Orchard

Sunrise in October often includes a cloud layer in the valley.  This morning I got up early enough to see the shadow of the mountain on the top of the clouds.

We enjoyed visiting with friends and just enjoying the view.  In the afternoons it was warm enough to sit on the porch and read.  Temperatures were comfortably in the 40's in the evening and  low 70's by mid-afternoon.  Great sleeeping.

The leaves are changing rapidly.  When I arrived, everything was green.  By the time we left, it was becoming multi-colored and beautiful.

For exercise, I joined the Fitness Express just a few miles from the house. Getting my regular swimming and exercise has become one of the major detriments of staying up here.  But now, with the fitness club I can work out and only drive to the Marion YMCA a couple times a week to swim.

Jorge came up and spent an afternoon weed eating the lower property, which has grown up quite quickly since our major clearing a couple of years ago.  If we let it go to long, the trees quickly grow up into the view.  We had quite a pile of brush so we spent another day burning all of that down to nothing.  It looks great when cleaned up.  We're finding new laurel and rhododendron coming up and hopefully some day it will cover the whole cleared area.

We left the house on Tuesday and spent the night with the kids.  This is the first time we've seen Anna and Evan since saying goodbye in Salt Lake City.  They seem to change over night.  They're growing up entirely too fast.

America Yacht

September 21

We're still on sta-cation.

We really don't take advantage of all the opportunities that are right in our backyard, so we're going to start trying more.

The America Yacht, a beautiful replica of the original 1851 race boat by the same name, is on the Beaufort waterfront for a couple of days and they're offering (for a price) a 3+ hour cruise. 

So this afternoon, we took advantage and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon on this beautiful yacht.

There were 78 people who took advantage of the cruise, and it didn't feel crowded

When dropping the sails, the crew, which as best I could determine were all young ladies, would climb on the boom and direct the sails with their feet.

The Captain and owner

White Oak Shores Bluegrass Festival

September 16-18

We continue to pretend we're on vacation.  We saw in the paper that this weekend there is a Bluegrass Festival here in Carteret County.  This is an annual event and we've been wanting to go, but have always had something that interfered.

So, this weekend we packed up the motor home (actually, it wasn't completely unpacked from the last trip and was still here at the house), and drove the 45 minutes to White Oak Shores RV Resort.

The weather forecast was iffy, and sure enough it did rain some.  But we would sit out in the rain with umbrellas and wait for the shower to pass while the bands played on.

There were four bands on Friday, playing and afternoon set and an evening set of about 45-50 minutes each and four different bands Saturday with the same schedule.

Maddie and Jean drove over Saturday afternoon and stayed until late evening and enjoyed the music.

This was a terrific setting for outdoor music, with a stage located in a big bowl shaped field

Sunday, we packed up again and headed back to Beaufort.

A great weekend for a sta-cation.

We're considering going to the Merle Fest, an annual music festival next April in Wilkesboro, NC.