age

Well we stayed home and rested, played cards, cleaned a little and enjoyed our Easter together.

We got a new computer program game thingy.  It is puzzles and what not and I must admit I am addicted.  I think it is so much fun.  I get up and play in my jammies.  I do not have time to put on my brace or clothes.  I much enjoyment can one have?  

Tomorrow we are on a "road trip".  We are heading North about 70 miles to Nashville.  We are staying at a campground build and run by the Corp of Engineers.  We are planning some activities while there.  More to come.

Heard form all family including David.  I do not hear from him as often as I really want so it is a wonderful treat when I do.  

It was gloomy and rainy here most of the day and into the evening.  So I stayed in my PJ's most of the day.  I did get dressed and we went to the BBQ place to have dinner.  We will not get another chance to partake of their delicious meat for some time so we thought we would have another treat.  I have enough left for a couple of meals.  

We played cards and computer games today so nothing to write about 

We do wish everyone a very happy Easter. 

Today we headed out to find the Elephant Sanctuary.  It is on Main Street in Hohenwald, Tennessee.  There is not really too much there yet because they are in the process of creating and building it.  We are not allowed to go to the sanctuary because these elephants are rescued from circuses and zoos and have been looked at all their lives.  At the sanctuary they are by themselves being themselves.  Another reason is they are big and safety is important.  They do have a program to volunteer.   They had pictures of the Girls on the wall with information about each one.  I put a few on the blog.

 

This is Tarra.  She is the elephant that I heard about on CBS.   She is the founding member and the youngest Asian Elephant here.  Her young life was spent entertaining in circuses and movies.  Her owners decided to retire her at age 20 and started the Sanctuary for her.  In the fall they get pumpkins.  I asked about getting their produce for the elephants from the Amish Produce Auction.  She said yes because of the low price.  They also  have people go there and bid on stuff and donate to the Girls. 

  

Winkie, Sissy, and Tarra
Winkie was only a year old when she was taken from her family in Burma and sold into the exotic animal trade, which brought her to the zoo in Madison, Wisconsin.   

Throughout history, elephants have been used as religious symbols.  At the sanctuary they get their own tree all decorated with delicious apples, pears, and more.  

Winkie  is more sensitive to the cold than many of the other Girls.  When Winkie comes in from the cold, she may pick up one or two of her blankets and throw them on her back.  They also have heated barns they come and go in. 

 

They have a large area where they bring in kids and teach them about the Girls.  On the wall in this area is a chalk (painted to look like chalk) outline of an elephant so they can visualize just how big an elephant is.  

They also have a wonderful time line of the sanctuary with the beginning with Tarra, listing all things important, and ending with the building of the Education Gallery we are in now.

 

  This is quite a story.  If you can not see it I am sure if you go to the web site you will be able to read this story and many more.  elephants.com

 

   These pix are of Tarra and Bella and their wonderful friendship.  They were featured on CBS and not long after Bella was attached by animals and killed and Tarra gentle carried her home in her trunk, hoping they could help her.  Elephants create a great bond and she pined for Bella many days and months. 

We had lunch in town.  We stopped at a Mexican eatery and what a mistake.  Tennessee is just not the place to get good Mexican food I guess. 

smoking hot

Ladies I would not use this one!!! Just saying

We had a wonderful day here just lazying around.  The high was in the 60s and dry.  They are forecasting rain tomorrow evening or night.  Then rain on Easter Sunday.  

I have been blue birds and cardinals, but they are very skid-dish and they really do not want their pix taken.  But I will keep trying.  There are also a lot of robins and ugly brown birds around. LOL

We took chairs and stuff out of the car when we got here.  So Rog decided to pack it up just in case the rains comes before they predict.  That was the big project that was done today.

Went into town to get dog food and people food too.  We stopped at a BBQ  place that Mary and Scotty took us to last year.  It is so good.  I got ribs and Rog got brisket.  It is amazing to find a real Texas BBQ in Tennessee.  We may have to find another excuse to go back before we leave this area.  It is a hole in the wall restaurant and butcher shop.  They do a lot of business at lunch time anyway. 

I am thinking that tomorrow I am going to try and find the elephant sanctuary.  I have seen it on the net and got some paperwork at the restaurant about it.  We have been in Hohenwald a few times and have not seen any signs of it, but I know it is there.  Hohenwald is not that big a place.  So I must find it.  

  

sunshine and ice crystals

Woke up this morning with the temperture of 26 and frost all over the ground and car.  The reason for the very cold temperatures was we now have clear skies.  The weatherman said this is the first sunny day in the last 5 days.  It is really nice to see the sun.  The birds are out or maybe they have been, but now the sun is shining on them and we can see them now. 
 
Great day we went for a walk and spotted some tiny flowers and plants.

 
Notice how small.  The fallen brown leaves are not all that big.

 
When the leaves are out in full force you do not see the campers on the other side of the lake.  Interesting. 

I made some really great lentil soup and a wonderful chicken dish with cream sauce and Parmesan cheese with noodles for dinner.  I was hunting around in the compartments for something and found about 7 butternut squash we purchased at the produce auction in Amish country when we were here last Fall.  They are still good, but that wonderful fresh taste is not quite there and I imagine the vitamins are not that strong either.  They were good, but not as. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMANTHA
SWEET 16
OUR GRANDDAUGHTER

I asked her what she was going to do today since her party is Friday.  She and her father were going to donate blood.  She had to wait until she was 16.  How sweat of her to think of others on this special day. 


Last night we had snow flurries before we went to bed and in the morning we has SNOW ON THE GROUND. 

Here is the car.  Having a black car the snow melted sooner than our neighbors with light colored cars.  We are not suppose to have snow tonight.

We even had the white stuff on the ground.  Just a little (enough LOL), but so pretty.  When we woke up our water hose was frozen.  Well that's not unusual because the water hose is just lying on the ground.  But what got us is that their water pipe coming out of the ground was frozen too.  It did not take long for all to thaw out.  We do not think it was because of the frozen pipes and hoses, but the toilet is having problems, because the toilet will not shut off.  Rog had to go into town and get a shut off valve so we can have running water in the house.   We will fix that in Nashville.  Also the water pump is acting up and Rog will look at that tomorrow.   

My little snowflake

This is the entrance to the resort.

When we went into town Rog drove into Amish country to see if the produce auction was open.  It is not, sad.  Before getting into the heart of Amish we noticed we were going in the right direction.  Traveling with all this traffic.

We are getting closer.  These guys are carrying long sticks.

These are pix of the neat farms in Amish country. 

We did notice that today is wash day.

buggy out front of a home

lumber mill

kids and buggy

 

 

 

 

Today was in the 40's nice.  forcaste is 19 tonight.  ouch. That is colder than by brother's place near Great Falls, Montana!!!!

cold snow

This was the temperature at noon today inside 61 outside 33.  The wind chill was around 23 degrees high.  We had some snow flurries.  I got some pix of the snow.  

We are thinking we may have left Orlando too early.   After looking at the news and the weather there we are soooo glad we left.  They had winds in the 85 mph area.  They were showing pix of a small town of Conway not far from Orlando on the news.  Saw pix of trees down, roofs gone, and very little visibility.  I do not want that.  Here it is just a breeze  ( 20 to 35mph) and little snow flurries.  I can handle this.   It is 7:45 pm it 33 degrees out and this is the most we have seen it snow here.  

snow flakes on my jacket

 I am trying to take pix of the snow flakes that are falling on me.  It is very hard to get them in focus.  I thought this one deserved to be on the blog even though it is out of focus.

This is so out of focus, but what a pretty shape for a snow flake .  Shape of a flower.  Even the snow flakes are ready for Spring  LOL

The Canadians are wondering what they are doing here so early too.

princess

 Hey it fits!!!

We stayed home today.  It was gray and rainy and windy.  Man is it windy.  We had rain in the morning and wind all day.  We are suppose to have this wind all night too.  The wind will rock us to sleep tonight.  This wind will bring us cold weather with the possibility of snow.  I am thinking the snow will stay farther north near Nashville.  But it is suppose to get in the low 30's here tonight.  But very toasty and nice in the rig.

No pix today.  It is hard when the wind blows the camera right out of your hands.  LOL  Everything would just be a blur anyway.  LOL  I still have it.  Funny

I did some laundry, read some on my book, and knitted.  Finished another wheel chair lap blanket, so will start another.  

Rog read and took care of the dogs.   He also went out and secured the thingy that sticks out on the slide-out yawning that keeps it from rolling out when it is in.  The wind gets under the yawning and rolls it out and blows it around.  It makes so much noise.  Before we would slide the slide-out in to stop the noise and possible damage to the yawning.  But Rog figured out that tying it down so it can not roll works so much better.  Now we have no more canvas flappy noises just the wind blowing around us and the slow rocky of the rig as a blast of wind it us.  LOL  I love Spring.

Some say we left to early from Florida, but the weather report there is 85,humitiy in the 80 percent area,  with thunderstorms and tornado warnings.  Hummmm cold is good.  

 

procrastination

Well we got here and the trees are bare and the skies have been overcast all day and now it is drizzling.  It has just been a gray day.  I did see a blue bird at our site, but was too lazy or slow to get a pic.  I will try and get that pic.  It will not be tomorrow because they are predicting rain all day tomorrow.  After the rain snow!  I love Spring.  

We did go into Hohenwald, the closest town, and did some grocery shopping.   The name "Hohenwald" is a German word that means "High Forest". The town was founded in 1878.  Hohenwald is also the home of the The Elephant Sanctuary, the largest natural-habitat sanctuary for elephants in the United States.

Our daughter, Laura, found out she has landed a job!!!  She has been working with one and two year grants since she moved to Denver, Co.  She is hoping this one will be a contract math position and she will not have to interview every year.  She will be working at the school she worked at this year.  She really enjoys the kids and staff.  She deserves a break and this job.  She will pack up her two cats and meet us somewhere in the New England states for a month this summer.  Two cats and two dogs in one motorhome, together.  HUMMMMMM  She has been looking things up to see and do while with us.  It is nice to have someone else help plan. 
 
This is not from the sanctuary.  We can not go to the sanctuary, but you can donate it takes a lot to feed just one of those big gals and they have 100 I think.  So go to the website and check it out.
  

   
 

lazy

 
We had a great time and Richard's and Nancy's,  After having a cup of coffee and visiting more we got in the rig and headed to Tennessee.  We are staying at the Natchez Trace Thousand Trails Resort.  We stayed here last year in the fall.  There were red, yellow and orange leaves everywhere then and  now there are no leaves.  Maybe we are pushing Spring a bit.  They are predicting temps in the 30's tonight and snow furries Monday!   Maybe.  

The trip was uneventful, thank you, but pretty.  I took a nap.  That is always great.   

 

Today Nancy took us to the Space Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  This is one of the Space Shuttles.  It is setting on its two solid rocket boosters and large external fuel tank.  This would be standing up right when launched and the stuff would be dumped into the ocean when used up.

 

This is the Space Pod that the kids go in when they go to space camp.  The schools have a program where the kids go to camp for one week and learn all about space.  What a wonderful experience.

This is the SR 71Black Bird.  Originally used by the CIA for spying on Russia.   It holds the speed and altitude records for maned aircraft.  Not including the space shuttle.
 
Big tall rocket.

 

Nancy took us to the Veteran's Home to drop off one of the lap blankets I knit.  I want to leave one in a nursing home in each state we travel in.  So now Alabama has a little heart on my map signifying blanket left here.  I was told they were giving it to a young man, but they can not give out names.  I hope it gives hime comfort and warmth.

 
This is Richard and Nancy's home.  We have had a great time staying here.  Their son and family came over for dinner and we had a wonderful time and a great meal.