Thanksgiving in the Valley 2010

Jennifer and I spent our first full Thanksgiving in Jones Valley this year. We had gone up after Thursday previously, but this time we arrived midday on Wednesday just in time to see the arse-end of Joe Diffie’s HUGE bus!  He had just arrived also and ended up parking on the East end of the Diffie Dome.

Jen and I quickly set to ourselves to the task of setting up our little rolling home on wheels and were a bit envious of Joe’s rig that is always ready for either rolling down the road or living in, or both. We wanted to have everything ready before dark which was quickly approaching. The shot at the left shows a glimpse from just below the Cubage cabin and shows our new gazebo which will be handy in the summer.  The photo on the right shows the swimming hole with a lot of moss in it — looking like bass heaven!

The gazebo would prove to be unnecessary this trip but boy did it get a test-run on Thursday as the front came in. We had a cold, driving rain that yielded about 2/3 of an inch but included heavy winds. The gazebo passed with flying colors!

Effie, Cathy and Gary with son Chad, and Ray (Larry and Paula’s son) hosted us for Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon to which Jennifer added her wonderful green bean casserole.  We did the obligatory thing and ate too much and visited too long.

It was a great evening followed by a day of misery as I picked up a stomach bug and was laid up all day when the weather was nice — bummer! Not nearly the bummer is was for Nurse Jennifer. I recovered the next day and we had a great time accomplishing almost nothing!

Part of my mission this trip was to gain photos of the dam for some engineers to get an idea of what we have there. I enlisted the assistance of my ace assistant, Jennifer, and we set out to take a bunch of photos that I have uploaded to my Flickr site for the Executive Board’s perusal.

Because of my “sick day” we did not do a lot of the things we might have but I did get in a short ride on my mountain bike, and just some mozying around the grounds. I took a number of additional photos showing some maintenance that sorely needs doing. This deterioration on the dining hall siding indicates one of the ravages of time on wooden structures in a moist environment.

The roof of the bath house is another example of where work is needed. And this is the good side of the roof! One more wind storm and it may head to Kansas.

We did get to see some leaf color but between the dry weather, the warm fall and our late November arrival the color was not up to par. It was still nice to see the color of hardwoods juxtaposed with the evergreen of pines.  Each day reminded us of how the mountain temperatures drop like a rock as soon as the sun slips behind the ridges. It was a true fall experience, unlike what we see in Central Texas.

Ya gonna say something or just be a drive-by?

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