Kathy’s Blog

Although we are back into our regular routine, we did take a couple of days to drive up to Newberry, SC. After a three hour drive, we explored Newberry a bit and found the visitor center where we were provided with a map and self guided walking tour. During the renovation of the Opera House (left)  they decided to expose some of the brick roads which can be seen in the picture below. We had lunch at the Grille on Main but due to the cold windy, finished the walking tour in the car. I was impressed by the brickwork on the facade of some of the buildings but disappointed to find that this old hotel on the corner of Main and Caldwell was no longer in use and had fallen into pitiful disrepair. So many of the small businesses in these small towns have just folded since the economy took its nose dive. (Uh-oh, don’t get me started.)

When we arrived at the DeWalt House, the proprietor alerted us about the impending tsunami expected to hit Hawaii in just minutes and invited us in to her sitting room to watch the news. After about 20 minutes we decided that it was going to be a while, if ever, so we settled into our room, met another visiting couple and explored the house a little.

Sharyn bought the house in 1999 and spent several years renovating and updating the infrastructure. She filled every room with wonderful antique furniture and artwork and opened her B&B in 2004. We truly felt like we had stepped back in time to a very gracious period in American history. Please follow the link to read more about it and view some pictures.

After a light snack in our room, we ventured out again to see Ricky Skaggs and the Kentucky Thunder band at the Opera House. It is a small, intimate venue so, although our seats were in the balcony, we had a perfect view of the stage and for the great concert of some of Ricky’s favorite old Blue Grass music and musicians. Ordinarily, photography is prohibited in these theatres but patrons were taking pictures anyway. Unfortunately, none of those patrons was me but I did get a shot of the outside of the theatre (above)  and you can follow the link to see the inside and read about its history.

Over breakfast the next day we learned that one of the other couples staying there had also been at the concert. We learned that he is an artist/musician and she the director of the Art Department at the University in Athens, Georgia. The third couple at breakfast were a young newlywed couple. Besides the stimulating conversation, we all enjoyed a hearty breakfast of waffles with syrup and/or blueberries, scrambled eggs, bacon, mixed fresh fruit, juice and coffee.

I took about a third of the pics we took down island and put them up on 3 different websites.  Here they are:
St. Lucia
Grenada
Coming Home

They have all been reduced to 800×600, but are still between 100k-300k each. Hope you have cable!!!

-tom

I know, I know, what the heck has been going on. Well, The trip to St. Lucia and Grenada took up two weeks and over 400 pictures. Then I spent a week in York with my sister, Maria and Patricia, returning in time to paint the living room. But, now I’ve settled in and have named all the pictures and created a trip report for St. Lucia. An additional report for Grenada is forthcoming. But I’ll give you a brief synopsis here.

We flew into View Fort on the south end of St. Lucia and were transported via taxi and bus to Soufriere (Soo-fray) in the company of our B&B host, John Dorman. John was our guide for four lovely days helping us explore the island, experiencing the scenery, culture and music. His home is one of many built on land that had once been part of a large estate owned by a French aristocrat. The beautiful Botanical Gardens and Diamond Falls are also located on this property. This is the view from our balcony at the B&B.

We sampled breakfasts at three different little restaurants and found that no matter what you ordered it was always accompanied by a salad of greens and tomato. We also discovered that when you request $300 from the ATM, you get 300EC$ which is worth about$110 US. That was a mistake we only made once.

To get to Grenada, we stopped in Barbados for a couple of hours. Now there is an experience. We weren’t sure which door to enter so we went through the one that took us into the airport mall and walked around the lush garden and back to the door that took us to the gate for the Liat flight to Grenada. Even more interesting was when we returned from Grenada we did walk through the correct door and were greeted by metal detectors. (Which means that we missed the metal detectors completely the first trip. They don’t seem to really get the point of how to place these metal detectors to ensure that they get everyone through them before entering a plane. ) The flight was delayed but we were not required to board until the plane was ready so we settled to visit with other passengers and wonder how we were going to get a snack since the snack bar only accepted Barbados or US dollara and we had only EC dollars. That was fun.

We arrived in Grenada only 40 minutes late but Bentley didn’t seem at all flustered. He got us a taxi ride to the hotel while he waited for the rest of the arrivals from other flights. We checked into our room and headed directly to the Sapphire Grill at the hotel and found Jackie and Jim Marks. Thirty minutes later, Tuck, Sandra and Kim arrived and after hugs all around we settled down for a quick dinner. Although we found that the caranage (pictured at the left) at St. Georges had not undergone much change, the corner where the Alamanda Hotel resides has been built up over the past decade and would not have been recognizable to me were it not for the beach.

Naturally, my favorite part of the trip was the wonderful Grande Anse Beach behind the hotel. Every day the walk on the beach provided a different experience. One day it would be completely empty, the next you might find fishermen repairing their nets and preparing to to out in their boats. A number of bars are strategically located along the beach where mostly tourists partake of the local rum punches or their favorite beer. The vendors appear late morning on the beach with spices, baskets, coconuts and trinkets or perhaps a therapeutic foot rub with soothing oils or hair braiding. One morning we were delighted to find the nursery school children there for a day on the beach. They were there the following day all dressed up in their independence day colors.

The rest of Grenada will be in the trip report for Grenada.

We left on February 6th, spent the night in Charlotte and took the opportunity to visit with Maria and Patricia for awhile before heading to Georgetown. We did laundry on Sunday and I packed up for a week in York with the girls before getting back home again. Coming from the colorful Caribbean, the white living room looked even more dreary so after a trek up the beach to Home Depot for supplies, I set to painting the living room/dining room. Our wonderful neighbor and his son insisted on helping me with the stairwell so the job was completed in only three days. On the fourth day we had company for dinner. Tom made an east Indian dinner of Sri-Lankan curry chicken, saphron rice, and green beans in a tomato based sauce and our guests brought a salad.

Check back at this post in about a week for the Grenada trip report.

Well…here we are…into the new year.  We had a quiet Christmas and New Years.  Kathy went north today to visit her sister and I thought I would add a post.

The weather has been very cold…only getting into the high teens at night.  They even talked about snow, but none yet.  We should enjoy this while we can, because in about 2 months the hot weather will return, along with the mosquitos and humidity.  I am NOT looking forward to 6 months of that!!

We have several trips planned by the end of summer.

First, we are off to the Caribbean in 2 weeks. We will be in St. Lucia for 4 days and Grenada  for 10 days. We will stay at a B&B in St. Liucia and at the Allamanda Hotel in Grenada. We have friends there we haven’t seen in several years.  There will be about 30 of us Jammers getting together for snorkeling, partying and a daysail on a catamaran.  Should be fun. Kathy plans tons of beach time.  I plan to be close by, in the shade, with a cold Carib in hand.

Then, sometime in March or April we will go to the historic (1607) settlement of Jamestown, Va and Williamsburg.  We’ve been to Williamsburg before, but not for many years.

Then, at the end of May we will go to Phoenix for our granddauters graduation and to Bellingham for a week.  While I’m not looking forward to driving around the crazy city of Phoenix, it will be great to see Johnnie graduate. The only one of 2 children and 4 grandchildren to do it!  We are very proud of her.

We are really looking forward to seeing old friends in B’ham.  We will be staying in Sudden Valley at Phil & Ann’s house the first 5 days.  The last two days at our friend Sunny’s house in the old neighborhood.  We will call or visit as many folks as we can possibly fit in a week.

Kathy will be back on Monday and I’m sure she will have an update, with pics, of her trip.

Temperatures have been dipping into the thirties at night and it’s been raining a lot. I did take advantage of a sunny afternoon a couple of weeks ago to make a run to the dump with the recycle stuff. This is a shot of the Bradford pear trees along the road south of us. When the sun hits them just right, they literally glow.

Puttering in the house one afternoon, I paused to look at a flock of birds that almost covered the sky with their mass. They landed in the front yard, moving across it eating something they each found plenty of in the grass and then en masse quickly flew off but I could see the specks of red on their wings as they lifted off the ground and headed south. What a sight!

We took a couple of hours last week-end to go to another plantation just south of us on the main highway. The Hampton Plantation was deeded to the parks department in 1973 but has not been restored to it’s original glory as none of the furnishings were left in the house. Besides, it was in such disrepair that it was decided to expose much of the skeletal structure for visitors to understand how a home like this had been constructed in the early 1700’s. It was quite fascinating but photography was prohibited so all I could get was the outside of the building.

This early colonial implement of amusement was on the front porch. Apparently, you could sit on the long board and rock and bounce at the same time.

We had dinner with Carol and Garvey Winan at the “Humble Crumb” before they left for their daughter’s house in D.C. for the holidays. After a trip to Columbia (about three hours one way), we brought home the ingredients for an authentic east Indian dinner so invited Joy and Seymour to dinner last week. Tom was a nervous wreck while we were cooking but everyone wanted seconds so I guess it was a success. It seems that whenever we get together with them, we can only talk food. Seymour loves to cook and works part-time at the Kudzu Mercantile on Front Street - a kitchen store. Summer better get here soon or I’m going to blow up like a balloon and not be able to get into any of my summer clothes.

So after 5 traps and an undefined amount of peanut butter, we seem to have exhausted the supply of mice interested in our kitchen. Although, if there were more, they could have very well been drowned with all the rain that takes days to soak into the sandy ground. One of our new friends has provided us with 4 small banana trees that I managed to get planted before it starts raining again this week.

More excitement!! On Saturday, Tom was in his office and I’m in the kitchen when all of a sudden - no, not the sound of the hooves of eight tiny reindeer on the roof - we lost power. We waited for about a half hour and decided to go into town for a hot drink and see what was up. Front Street was being closed off for the Christmas parade so we sat back and waited for it to start. At 11 a.m. we walked down to the main corner where everything always happens in Georgetown and found that there was a bit of entertainment by the kids from the dance studio and then the parade began with this banner declaring it to be a Small Town Christmas.

As expected, there were representatives from the Sheriff’s Department, the Georgetown Cruisers, school bands, Grace Church for mentally handicapped children and adults, children dressed a wrapped gifts, Sons of Confederate Veterans and last but not least, Santa arriving in the bow of someone’s boat.

For added excitement, I’ve posted a few more pictures here:
xmas parade