2026 Happy Blog Challenge

  May 21st For some unknown reason I was unable to access my files to write my Blog on my phone on Thursday. Then I fell asleep from exhaustion. So, from my laptop, a day late, are my Happy Cemetery Day things: Work went well.  I ended the shift by almost completely catching up things in the Hazardous Materials Area.  I had to leave an hour early or those last three items would have been taken care of too.   After work Bel and Keziah picked me up so we could meet family members to plant flowers at the cemeteries.  This is a yearly tradition that I missed last year because I was backpacking. It was nice to visit with my family and clean up the grave stones.  We also went out to eat at Hodgie’s.  This is the first year I remember that they take cards.  They were cash only for a very long time.  I love their peppermint stick ice cream. Unfortunately my aunt’s barn has collapsed.  It was one of many fun little jaunts down memory lane....

 April 25th This morning we did some last minute site-seeing and checked out some of the local shops.  Later in the afternoon we packed and relaxed.  Tomorrow will be a long day in the car. Before getting to our first destination we saw more elk.  This time they were all bulls of varying ages. Don't worry, I wasn't the driver. This is from the back seat. We spent some time walking around a beautiful park on an island in Cherokee.  There is a quest to find as many bear statues as you can in Cherokee.  I snapped some pictures going through, there are some I missed. This painting is from a map dated 1838. The Oconaluftee Visitor Center and Mountain Farm Museum were our next stop.  The visitor center had lots of history about the Smoky Mountains.  One neat thing I kind of learned was how apples could be dried.  Apparently they put cut apples in a basket in a bucket with a red hot ax.  As the ax cools, the apples dry.  Pretty neat. ...