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Coming soon!

North to Alaska Starring Lee and Jeannie. May 16th. Wish us luck! This will be my 5th attempt to see Mount Rushmore.

Please Pass the Salt!

Seems Like I have to eat some crow here. When I first moved into Strawberry Ridge I noticed many many people had golf carts. I said in my snooty manner that I can conjure up from time to time "What in the world do I need a golf cart for? I have a car and if I want to go somewhere here in the park I will just get in my car and go. Also it is just too much trouble pulling the car out and getting the golf cart out every time we want to use it. Well a good friend let us cart sit with her cart while she is out of town and we found we really had fun be-bopping around the park in the golf cart so guess what folks? We went out and bought our own. Not only that we have taken out bushes beside our house and plan to put in cement to extend our driveway so we can just drive the golf cart right into the side of the carport up in front of our car. Not having to move the car at all. So thank you very much I would like my crow deep southern fried and plenty of salt please.

And seems like some folks (lots of them as a mater of fact) have little doggies they take for rides in their carts. Well we've been there done that (Shades of Hannibal the Horrible) so Lee said he can be my little Doggie. The cart is mine and the car is his. So I ride him around the park. Cute little doggie isn't he!

Trip coming up soon

Been really busy this week getting ready for our trip. Spent most of the week booking hotels through Hotels.com. If I stay 10 nights I get one free. Usually don't book ahead when we do road trips. So far our road trips have just been cross country with plenty of Motel 6's along the way and have not had trouble getting rooms on the fly. Never wanted to be tied to a schedule in the past. However there are certain things we want to do in Alaska and had to book them in advance so to insure we had a place to stay when we get there I decided to just book those places in advance. Well I got wrapped up in this and decided to book the entire trip. So far I have booked 45 out of 70 days we are scheduled to be on the road. Have booked an Arctic Circle bus tour up Dalton Highway, The ferry down the inside passage, and a train ride over White pass from Whitehorse to Skagway and back again. Still need to book a whale watching trip somewhere along the way. Good thing I started booking early. Had trouble getting rooms at Yellowstone and Denali NP's And the people at the Marine Highway (Ferry) said if you don't book a cabin some time in Oct or Nov there wouldn't be cabins available in May. Sure don't want to spend 3 nights stretched out in a recliner chair sleeping.

Next I have been creating a really neat workbook in Excel. Using the snipping tool that is furnished with Windows I have been snipping pictures and booking information and creating a sheet for each stop we make. On the sheet I used the insert shapes tool to create "sticky notes" with little comments etc. Each sheet in the workbook has a different colored tab. It is pretty cool.

Also have started my packing list of everything we want to take with us. Gee, hope the car is big enough. We may just have to buy a box van to put all this stuff in it, LOL.

The Guys Rock once again

Another Wednesday night "Mystery Dinner."

This week it was Alma's choice. After an adventure where Jim took a little "scenic tour" down the wrong street and Alma and Daisy May (her iPad) kept telling him this was the case we finely ended up at a delightful new place for us. It was an Italian restaurant in Lakeland. Alma correct me if I am wrong, I think the name was Mario's It is in a strip center so maybe you just might pass it by without giving it a second glance but trust me. It is great. Food good and plentiful wine was good ambiance is great and the service is good. What more would we want for a "Wednesday night Mystery Dinner." Oh and of course the company was excellent!

Then home to what has become our weekly bowling match. We bowl two games

Girls against the Guys. I didn't post last week but REALLY the girls won. Sadly to say I have no evidence to back up that statement. BUT WE DID. This week the guys rocked. Check out Lee's score. He was on cloud nine. Good Job Lee. And drat that Jim. I chased him the whole game. All I had to do was mark in the 10th and would have beat him but alas I opened. We are having great fun with our bowling. Tried golf once but decided it was too slow for us. You know how "peppy" us old folks are.

What fun we have been having lately! As usual on Wednesday we went on our dining adventure with our good friends Alma & Jim. Then on Friday night we went to Sidesplitter's Comedy club the headliner for the night was a hypnotist. Several people from the audience provided us with a good show and the consensus was split between us whether the participants were really hypnotized or just putting on a good show. In any case we had a fun evening. We also had dinner at Chili’s before the show so it was a full evening.

Last night Jim & Alma came over for a fondue & Pate’

party. Alma made a great fondue and I made pate’. We had some really good wine to wash it down and lots of laughs for dessert. After we ate we had our extension entertainment and it was once again the Gals against the Guys in a bowling match. The Guys beat us again. We have just got to do something about that Jim. He is turning into quite a bowler and Lee’s game is much improved. We just might make a bowler out of him at last. As for me I am in a terrific slump.

Don't look TOO close at that score with the boys celebrating I had to work real hard to break 100 on the game and then just did.

But we keep on having fun with it.

As Gomer Pyle used to say, "Well Gaaollly." Didn't write anything for a month then bingo here I am writing again.

I always thought these things only happened to me until I talked to other people and found these sorts of things just abound. You may remember the story of the "Great Clam Caper" whereby some dastardly person sneaked into my house and stole my clams. Well He is at it again! I once had a pair of slippers that I liked to pack when I travel because they folded down to just nothing. Well somewhere along the way, one went amiss. I kept the other one thinking someday this horrible person would sneak back in trying to steal the other one and I would catch him/her. Well time passed and one slipper stayed in my drawer all by its lonesome. Then we went on a cruise some years back and the cruise line furnished some slippers so I started packing those when I traveled. Well lo and behold the sneaky thief got one of those also. He must be one legged cause he only steals one slipper. Well this went on for quite some time with two odd slippers in my drawer. Yesterday Lee was doing the wash when he gave my P.J.s to put away. I opened the drawer and there they were! The dastardly thief had once again snuck into the house and this time replaced what he had stolen. There in my drawer were two pairs of slippers.

Now I'm just saying! Go Figure!

Hi Friends and Family

It has been some time (actually over a month) since I posted anything on the blog. Not too much exciting going on here at the moment. Mostly we are getting ready for out big trip (to Alaska) trying to think of everything we will need to pack and take with us and things we will need to do before we go. Every day I seem to think of something else that will need to be done, gathered and packed etc. But as the days get shorter and shorter we are getting more and more excited.

Here on the home front we are entertaining ourselves watching our Boxed DVD sets. Currently we are watching NCIS and really enjoying it. Of course I have always loved JAG and found NCIS is created by the same people so it is tops with me. Just love the characters especially Ziva David (pronounced Da Vee) and Abigail (Abbs.) Also we are re-watching Lost. Along with our TV we are busy reading whatever book we can download on our kindles. Lee is finishing up the Rizoli and Isles series of books and I am currently re reading Roots. I read this book over 30 years ago when It first was published and am enjoying it more and more this time. The most amazing thing happened a couple of days ago. As I was reading the book the name of the family popped out at me. I went to the computer where I keep all my genealogy records and lo and behold the family who owned the salve Kunta Kinta was some of Lee’s ancestors. Lee’s sister Nancy always told me that some of them were prominent

plantation owners but had no idea they were connected with that particular family. Small world it is.

Here is the other thing we have been having fun with. Every Wednesday we go with our friends Jim and Alma to a different restaurant to eat. Every week a different one of us takes turn choosing the restaurant and of course it is a big secret where we are going until we get there. So far along with the old tried and true Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Cheddars, Jessie’s, Willies, Angelina’s, The Cheesecake Factory, California Pizza and the Oaks, we have tried some new places such as Dunderbaks, Four Green Fields and The Melting Pot. This past week it was Lee’s turn to take us somewhere new so we went to J. Alexander’s on Dale Mabry. A good choice, they had really great prime rib. At Dunderbaks we sampled the German fare and beer which was very good and at Fou

r Green Fields we were treated to the live entertainment of and Irish singer along with good Irish grub and Guinness beer. This week it will be Jim who chooses so we are waiting anxiously to see where we will go on our Wednesday adventure.

Last week we tried something else new and had a lot of fun. We invited Jim and Alma over for a Wii party. Alma and I whopped Lee and Jim at bowling but the guys (thanks to my horrible game) whipped us in golf. We were going to have a repeat party last Friday but something came up but we will definitely have to do this again and I must practice my golf. For those of you who may not know. Wii is an electronic game you p

lay in front to the TV. Very realistic and lots of fun.

So until the next blog, a very Happy Valentine to all, be good and be safe. Well be safe anyway, no

fun being good ha ha.