The Traveling Cardinal's: October 2010

Okay, my friend & fellow blogger shamed me into doing this. Since I'm not a daily blogger, I'll probably get behind in this too!

But here is what we'll be doing for the next 30 days starting today.....

30 Days of Truth:

Day 1: Something you hate about yourself
Day 2: Something you love about yourself
Day 3:Something you have to forgive yourself for
Day 4: Something you have to forgive someone else for
Day 5: Something you hope to do in your life
Day 6: Something you hope you never have to do
Day 7: Someone who has made your life worth living
Day 8: Someone who has made your life hell or treated you badly
Day 9: Someone you didn't want to let go, but who drifted
Day 10: Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn't know
Day 11: Something people seem to compliment you the most on
Day 12: Something you never get compliments on
Day 13: A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough times
Day 14: A hero that has let you down
Day 15: Something or someone you couldn't live without
Day 16: Something or someone you could definitely live without
Day 17: A book you've read that changed your view on something
Day 18: Your views on gay marriage
Day 19: What is your opinion of religion?
Day 20: Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21: (Scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you got into a fight a couple of hours before. What do you do?
Day 22: Something you wish you hadn't done in your life
Day 23: Something you wish you had done in your life
Day 24: Make a playlist to someone and explain why you chose those songs
Day 25: The reason you believe you're still alive today
Day 26: Have you ever thought about giving up on life?
Day 27: What's the best thing you've got going for you right now?
Day 28: What would you do if you got pregnant (or got someone pregnant) right now?
Day 29: Something you hope to change about yourself
Day 30: A letter to yourself

You can leave an anonymous comment to answer the question each day.

What do I hate about myself? Hmmmmmm, I don't know where to start! I'm sitting here thinking & I really don't know what to say. I guess I hate that I always try to be a perfectionist & that is not humanly possible. When I do something, I want to do it right the first time. We all know because we are human, no matter how many times we do things, we don't always get it right. I know that is one of the reasons I feel so strongly about my faith. I know if I don't get it right, God will forgive me & let me try again.

That was tough. I'd better start thinking about tomorrow's question! LOL

We are west of Shreveport, Louisiana tonight.

Until next time.........The Traveling Cardinal's

We begin another day.....Friday, Oct, 15th. Happy Anniversary to my sister, Romayne & hubby Bob. 55 years! Many more!

Friday David & Dianne took the day off and took us on a tour of Callaway Gardens. We certainly didn't cover it all, as it has over 13,000 acres of lush landscaping.

Our first stop was the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center.

David, Dianne, Peg & Bill. Little cooler today; needed our jackets.

This signs said the week's count was 855 butterflies. Well, we certainly didn't see that many. And, have you ever tried to take pictures of butterflies. I'm a little slow, along with the shutter speed!

Just inside the door you can see butterflies emerging from their cocoons.

They hang & stay in this environment until their wings dry.

I got lucky a few times, but it's hard to get them when their wings are open.

Butterfly attracting flowers.

Now these two had their wings open

This is the one I chased behind the pole on the right & never could get a good shot of it. Had the most beautiful blue color. He looked like he was striving to get out that window. David was a little more patient than I & he got a good picture.

Another lucky shot.

This is another of the blue ones. You can see the color inside but he wouldn't open up. He was right on the step & we were all walking by & waiting to take that picture.

After being disappointed with the number of butterflies we saw, we hopped in David's truck & headed to the chapel. Isn't these the most beautiful pictures?

"Goin' To The Chapel & We're Goin' a Get Married"..... Bill & Peg

Dianne & David.....David's smiling, he must be more excited about it than Bill!

Beautiful little chapel. Even has a stone for altar like our little Interfaith Chapel at Warren State Hospital.

Looking from Chapel toward Lake.

David & Peg. The blackmail picture!

The beauty posing! Ya Right!

After the chapel stop, we went to the John A. Sibley Horticultural Center. This being the fall of the year, beautiful mums were every where.

Don't know the names of all these, just liked the flowers.

Fountain with hanging baskets & mums

I believe this was called Blue Ginger.

I love blue & lavender flowers.

I wonder how they put all those mums in a tree-like form?

Artsy flowers

Mum like trees

Swan sculpture

I thought this was interesting.

Dianne, Bill & David looking down from the 22' waterfall.

Orchids

It was a pretty sight from up above.

Mum design

Banana plant tree. The flower was very unique.

BIG fish in the pond

Mums up close

One worm (David) & one caterpillar. Just kidding David!

Magnolia trees have a pod from where the flower was? Didn't know that.

By now everyone's stomach was starting to growl. We took time to run into town & meet MaryJo & Frank at the Whistling Pig. Oops, didn't take a picture! It is only open for breakfast & lunch & the lunch crowd was starting or had let up by the time we got there. We didn't have a long wait. Just a family run business with all kinds of BBQ items on the menu. Delicious apple cake too! So we got to rest our weary bones & visit then we were off again.

Remember I said there was 13,000 acres. We had only made a dent in the morning. So back to the beautiful wooded roads through Callaway Gardens.

Looking across Robin Lake. The building (floating) that you see across the lake is where Masters Water Ski & Wakeboard Tournament (the world's greatest water skiers & wakeboarders converge to compete in a highly prestigious tournament on Memorial Day weekend) is held.

Next we visited Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden

The Victory Garden background porch

Another view of the lake

A beautiful golf course. Hey, Randy, take out a loan & come to Pine Mountain, Georgia to play golf! Rumor has it, it's $95 a round.

Callaway Gardens also has planned communities. Beautiful roadways into the communities.

One of the homes that they are getting spruced up for the Christmas Open House.

There are several homes unoccupied (economy I'm sure), yet others are being built. But then the lot itself is $110,000. Now I think you know why some are For Sale. In one of the planned communities, the houses are quite close together. Beautiful forest setting, but too close together.

Our tour guides returned us to our trailer so we could put our feet up & take a rest. The four GA friends had a night planned to go to Columbus for a play & Bill & I opted to stay at the trailer. Laundry was calling.

Saturday I didn't take ANY pictures. I even left my camera at the trailer.

We all met for breakfast at the local Chipley Restaurant. Bill, Dianne, David & I had the buffet. Very good. Now if you eat like that for breakfast, you don't have to eat until supper. I did hear that Dianne had a snack before her nap though!

David had been away from the work on his house too long so he needed to get some things done. He went home to work, we then went with MaryJo & Frank to change from the car to the truck & then picked up Dianne & we headed out to Whitesville, GA where Frank grew up.

We toured the little Methodist church that Frank attended as a boy & he told us his Daddy did a lot of the work to put a basement under the church. We toured around the cemetery both by the church & across the road to see where his ancestors were buried. A lot of very, very old grave sites. Back in the woods, in unmarked graves, is where slaves were buried.

Some interesting facts about Frank's Daddy:

J.T. moved to Whitesville area in the 1920's after graduating from the University of Ga. He worked as a Extension Agent for Harris County; married a local girl ( Miss Mary Hopkins a school teacher at Sunny Side School) in June of 1925 and raised 6 children. In 1932 he bought the Daniel's place in down town Whitesville. It included a country store, the old griss mill (originally located on mountain creek and moved) and a home.

J. T. built a canning plant and portable hammer mill; to make feed on site at local farms, from grains raised there; later on. The home also came with a DELCO power plant that produced 32 Volt power for lights and appliances. It ran on Gasoline and so did the large ( hit and miss) motor that ran the griss mill. They ran on this electricity till REA came into being.

On Hwy 219 in the heart of old Whitesville , there is the old grist mill, and in the yard of the house next to the mill there is a sign with a bee hive on it and it says IF and When Honey. Bee keeping was a craft J.T Cox got into. It was just one of the many crafts he mastered in his 60 or so years in Whitesville.

He passed down his Bee's and skills, to his Daughter Betty Beagle (Frank's sister). She now has many more hives than Mr. Cox had in his time but she still provides the loving care he did before he passed away. In the back room of the mill there is a work area containing all the tools needed to get honey from the hive to the jar.

Mama B (Betty), as the locals call her, and son Fred do all the hives then take them to the mill to uncap the wax covered cones, put them in the centrifuge to sling the honey out of the frames, then they clean and put the supers back where they came from on the hives.

The honey is then packaged in jars of different sizes to be sold to waiting customers from all over.

Fred keeps another of his Grandfather's honey sales practices in place, On the front porch, by the door of the house, there is a table covered with different size jars of If and When Honey ready for you. The price is on the Jar and a Mason jar with some change is there. Pick your jar, put the money in the Mason jar and get your change. THE HONOR SYSTEM IS STILL HERE! Most of the people buy from the porch and have been stopping by for years.

Our next stop was indeed to the front porch to purchase some of the Cox family honey.

We got back to town, took Bill home so he could read the paper & take a little snooze. MaryJo, Dianne & I took in all the little tourist shops in town. None of us bought a thing! Didn't even see anything to catch my eye. Guess I wasn't in a shopping mood or at least a buying mood!

MaryJo took me back to the trailer & then we met them all again for one final night out for supper. Had a good steak supper at the Aspen Grill. We then went back to Frank & MaryJo's to play Tonk & later had Apple Cobbler. I used my first quart of Apple Pie In A Jar. Should have taken time to make a real apple pie, but I opted for the easy way out!

After a fun night, we all had to say our final goodbyes. We had such a wonderful 3 days with great friends. We certainly are going to miss having them in Arizona with us this year. Good Lord willing, they will be back next year & we will hopefully see them in the spring on our way back East.

This catches us up to our travel across the southern states. We spent last night in Vicksburg, MS & are here again tonight. We went to leave this morning & the front jack on the drivers side has stripped the gears. We put new on in Oklahoma City in the spring on the passenger side, now it's time to replace this one. The RV repair service came out late this afternoon, but was too late to take it to the shop & since we were comfortable here, we stayed another night. They will be here at 8am to jack it up & get it hitched to the truck. We'll then follow them to the service center for them to work on it.

Since were were stuck here, we toured the Coca Cola Museum & downtown Vicksburg. Picture will follow in the next post.

Until next time............The Traveling Cardinal's