Thursday Jan. 27, 2011 ---And they said hunting was difficult!!

After our visit to Montgomery yesterday we played it low key today.  I slept in late because I stayed up late watching TV and Ms. Sydney woke me AGAIN this morning at 6:30.  Yep, you guessed it; I forgot her bed again so she had to come out to the living room and sleep in her bed.  OMG!!  But she wasn't sleeping out there by herself without letting me know that she was one ticked off little animal.  When I finally rolled out of bed Jack had already gotten the grooming table set up for little Miss "I ain't sleeping out here by myself without making your night hell."

The first thing I noticed when I glanced out  the window was the beautiful sunny sky.  The second thing I noticed was the red headed woodpecker sitting outside of the window.  He was stunningly colorful and seemed not to be distracted by Jack and I starring at him, snapping pictures.

 

So, after getting dressed it was time to do the deed......I was not looking forward to grooming Sydney at all.  She was a good two weeks past her normal grooming day so she looked like a huge guinea pig walking around.  She smelled like one too.

I have to admit that Jack was right and I was wrong.  We didn't do half bad on Sydney's grooming.  She didn't looked bad at all.  And I'll bet you are all on the edge of your seat wondering how my anal gland procedure went with the dogs;  it didn't.  I'm still too chicken to try but I gathering up more courage everyday.  I need to watch more videos and drink a lot that day.  Perhaps then I'll TRY it.

After the grooming we had a late brunch, got our showers, took the dogs for a long walk and then decided to take a long bike ride.  Shortly after starting our ride we ran in to Fred and Ethel.  Jack stopped to talk to them, looked at me and said, "And they said hunting was hard.  Look here, I just found dinner." They both came right up to him. And the rule for me has always been, "You name em, you don't eat em."As if we would any way.

You can see how close this duck was to Jack. 

  Leaving Fred and Ethel to go about their merry way we visited the silo here in the park.  Walking up the stairs became kind of freaky for me after the first floor or so.  But the view was worth the nausea.

Jack totally looks like the cat who swallowed the canary in this pic.

Below is a pic of our RV from across the lake.

We continued our ride for awhile and Jack snapped a few more pics of the lake.  After that it was time to start dinner, make a trip to WalMart, and then relax for the night.  So, we are headed off for our last little walk before bedtime.  I do hope to get the Montgomery trip blog done soon.  That trip did give me goose bumps at times.  The history, the horror and the pride and honor of so many people who were willing to die for what they believed to be a just and equal society.   Their commitment to persevere for equality and honesty is something that is void in  many souls today. 

A rainy Tuesday Jan. 25, 2011 at Wind Creek State Park

I heard the rain lightly hitting the RV roof before I saw it...I did not want to get out of bed but Ms. Sydney had other ideas.  It's funny; when we lived in the house she could sleep until noon if I chose to.  In the RV she wants up early and she will not let you sleep if she gets it in her head she's ready to start the day.  Last night I forgot to bring her bed in to the bedroom (in case she gets too hot and wants to sleep on the floor) and trust me she let me know about it from 4:00 until around 6:30 a.m.  It took me all of that interrupted sleep by her continual barking and whining to realize what was going on.  My bad.  Jack spoils her rotten but he sleeps right through the nightmare. So, anyway.....rainy, yucky start to the day ... and it only went downhill from there.

When I lived in a home with a washer and dryer I often said I'd rather take a beating than do laundry.  I hated it.  What a hassle; sorting, washing, drying, folding, yaddy, yaddy, yaddy.  I take it all back.  Doing laundry at a laundromat is the absolute worst....First of all, I am a little obsessive, compulsive when it comes to doing laundry. I wash the washer out first before doing a load of laundry.  And at home I knew whose cooties were going in the wash.  Secondly, I always, always, washed bath, wash, and kitchen towels twice in steaming hot water; and rinsed them twice.  But having heard so many cons about  an RV washer and dryer we decided against it even though we did have it plumbed for them should we change our mind in the future .  But this laundromat thing is driving Jack and I both a little nuts.  Between the two of us it took over 6 hrs. to do laundry.  The dryers alone cost us over $14.00. We thought having a laundromat here at the campground would be so convenient but  I swear the state purposely fixed it so the dryers would only dry clothes on the lowest setting possible so you had to keep feeding quarters like some slot machine.  By the time we were finished with laundry we were ready to go postal.  Instead we decided to treat ourselves to dinner.  Then it was back to the RV,  had a drink, watched some TV and went to bed.

As I told you in an earlier post that the lake here, Lake Martin,  has over 750 miles of shoreline. The picture below is one Jack snapped from the truck window of the lake.  This picture was taken 17 miles from our campground. A huge man made lake. 

Jan 24, 2011- Heading further south today

We woke early this morning to get the heck out of Dodge.  Yesterday, while walking the dogs a local couple stopped us to talk about Sydney and Tanner.  We chatted for awhile and as we were bidding them farewell they reminded us of the snow that Huntsville was supposed to get tomorrow (today) and the ole' guy, in his cute southern drawl said, "You all better heed them warnings, especially being on this mountain." He told us he had never seen as much snow as he had this winter since 1963.  See, what did I say earlier?  It's following us where ever we go. We were leaving  today anyway  but the thought of being stuck on that mountain for another day or three scared the b-jezus out of me so I was up at 6:30 getting things together so we could take off as quickly as possible.

Alexander City, Alabama, is where we are headed now.  Jack says it is the largest state campground in the country with over 600 sites.  It has full hook up, laundry and wi-fi. It sits on a reservoir with over 750 miles of shoreline.  We've only been on the road for a few hours and already it is warmer than it has been since we've left .Indiana  I didn't mention that I finally had to break down and buy a coat.  WalMart had them on clearance and actually it's a man's bubble coat.  As I stood looking at myself in the mirror all I could think of was that this is what my life has become.  If the coat was white I would have looked like the marshmallow man in Ghost Busters.  So here is another disclaimer.  Any pictures of me, in that coat,  that would happen to accidentally get posted on this site please remember that  it does put another 25 lbs. on me.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Huntsville was a beautiful city with tons of history and many, many historical homes. The thing I most noticed, though, aside from the expansive 19th century homes, were the churches, of all denominations, were massive, huge, beautifully, expensive complexes.  I always thought  WCC, in Warsaw, was big;  three of WCC's could fit in some of the churches in Huntsville. They spared no expense when building most of these churches.  The city also is home to the largest medical campus I've ever seen.  Several specialized hospitals, clinics, labs, etc., etc. all in one area.  It is so large that it has trolley cars connecting the buildings.  And they say we have a health crisis here in the United States?  When you look at the new hospitals going up everywhere, even in a city with one of the poorest populations in the state of Alabama, you begin to question what is true and real  and as always the politics behind it. It's hard to understand why it is I love New York City so much and yet do not enjoy too many other larger cities.  I guess it's because in New York City we could walk to everything we wanted to see or do, or use public transportation.  In cities like Huntsville or Nashville, in order to go anywhere you have to drive and I know that driving gets old to Jack and being in the passenger seat "ain't much fun" either. 

We arrived at Wind Creek State Park around 2:00.  There are some other campers here, more than we've seen in any other campground since starting this trip.   We are backed up to the lake (for satellite reception) surrounded by tall pine trees.

Here are a few miscellaneous pictures I have wanted to post: 

Jack took this picture of Tanner.  I think it is beautiful.

When we got back from Lynchburg the temperature had dropped below freezing,  Our water facet froze up and started spraying water everywhere.  This is the ice sculpture it left,.

Another view of the ice sculpture.

When we arrived today at the campground it was 58 degrees.  YIPEE!!!  Compared to what we left behind in Huntsville 58 degrees felt like a heat wave.  Jack even cooked dinner outside tonight. 

Jan 23, 2011 Jack Daniel's Distillery Tour

As I stated yesterday the tour of Jack Daniel's Distillery was a very interesting experience.   The employees were extremely nice, the tour wonderfully informative and the smell!!!

There are several different versions of Jack Daniel's  life but the most common is both his parents died when he was quite young and that he was one of 13 children.  Other bio's say there were 10 children.  All records for that time period were destroyed during a court house fire so who knows if the true facts will ever be known.   His mother passed away shorty after Jack's birth in 1849. His father remarried and story has it that the step-mother was quite mean to young Jack and after Jack's father was killed in the Civil War, Jack at age 14 ran away to live with a lay minister who took young Jack under his wing.  The minister was also a whiskey maker but never took or sold a drink on Sunday.  Young Jack learned all he could from the minister and at age 16 struck out on his own, after the minister's wife insisted the minister give up his "moonshine" business.   It was an uphill battle for young Jack but eventually he became the country's #1 maker of whiskey.  Jack was quite a short man standing only 5'2".  This picture of my Jack standing next to Jack's statue makes Jack Daniel look much taller.  What you don't see is the pedestal they have Jack Daniel's standing on; it is almost a foot tall.




  Jack Daniel never married; never had children.  He eventually handed over his business to his favorite nephew, Lem Motlow, who had "a head for numbers."  Jack remained involved in the business and one morning CAME TO WORK EARLY which was unlike Jack's normal routine.  Jack tried to open the safe that stood in the office and as always could not remember the combination.  Finally, after several attempts of trying to open the safe, Jack kicked the safe out of frustration.  That kick eventually cost Jack his life.  His toe became infected and looking back now they believe he most likely had diabetes which would not permit the infection to heal. 

This is a picture of the actual safe Jack Daniel's kicked which eventually led to his death at age 62.
The moral of this story is to never go to work early; it just may kill you;

Below are some pics we took of the distillery and the town of Lynchburg. One of the first pics you will see is of some wild turkeys that run wild around the distillery.  "That, my friends, is the only wild turkey you will see on this property" said our tour guide.  It took me a second but I finally got it!

I am going to help Hulio on the rest of this post so we can get it published since we have had some people ask where it was.

The two ingredients that make Jack Daniels different than other whiskey is the spring water, which is why the distillery was located in Lynchburg, and the charcoal which is made on site and is used to filter the whiskey before it is put into barrels that are also made on site and are only used one time.

Spring water used in the process

Maple wood stacked for making charcoal

Getting ready to spray it with 140 proof whiskey and burn it to make the charcoal

This is one of the old fire trucks on the property. I didn't realize this is probably where the band got it's name.

This is first warehouse used to stack barrels of whiskey to age it.  The have newer warehouses scattered all over the hill side.

Hulio, the super blogger.  This is before she sampled the product.

Main ingredients

 

Downtown Lynchburg.  The barrel shop is where furniture and other things are made from the barrels.

Lynchburg, TN---Jack Daniel's Distillery & Miss BoBo's Boarding House

Yesterday was a long day.  I usually try to write in the evenings but last night I was exhausted and just wanted to veg out in front of the t.v. and try a little of the Gentlemen Jack sipping whiskey we bought at the distillery.  Our tour guide, Jon,  said it was the "smoothest" of their whiskeys.  I have never, ever, ever, liked the taste of whiskey so consequently never drank it more than once.  But "smooth", well, it might not be so bad.  Jack poured us "sipping" whiskey some over ice; which is the way Jon said it should be served.  I have decided that the way any whiskey should be served to me is not at all.  I could not drink it no matter how hard I tried.  Since it was so expensive, though, I didn't want to waste it.  I poured a can of Pepsi in it and after a couple of hours finally got it down. Jack said it was great and had two small glasses over ice.

We headed back up north 45 miles, even though it had snowed overnight, to visit the Jack Daniel's distillery and to eat lunch at a place called Miss BoBo's Boarding House.   Jack read about this place on the Internet.  The restaurant was really once a boarding house ran by Miss Mary BoBo.   She had one tenant ,who worked at the distillery, and lived at her boarding house for more than 40 years.  Miss BoBo passed away in  1983 at the age of 102. Jack read that it usually takes months in advance to get a "seating" but fortunately we were able to be seated for lunch without reservations.  They happened to have two available seats.  The meal was served family style everything being passed to your left.  There were two sitting rooms with beautiful fireplaces and overstuffed furniture to sit while waiting for the dinner bell to be rang. Seriously.  They ring the dinner bell at their three different servings; the first meal served at 11:00, the second at 1:00 and the third seating is at 3:00.  They only have the third serving during the busy months, which of course would be the summer months. Anyhow, when the bell rings you are escorted to your own private dining room (with the 10 strangers).  They probably have 5 or 6 dining rooms.  At first I did not like the idea of sitting with 10 total strangers but once seated and the food was served, the conversations began.  The most interesting couple to me was the young couple sitting directly across from us.  He is a cruise ship entertainment director from Holland and she is an author.  Another man at the table also retired in December.  I asked his wife how she was enjoying "his" retirement; she told us that she was thinking about returning to work full-time.  Miss BoBo's was a very enjoyable experience.  The food, while good, was nothing spectacular.   Sliced pork, chicken pastry (chicken with pastry wrapped around it in gravy), white beans with red relish (sounds yukky but it was very good), collard greens, corn bread and macaroni and cheese. For dessert we had a pie called "Chess Pie".  Now there are two different versions to the story behind this pie.  The one being a husband came in from the fields one day and smelled the sweet smell of a pie baking.  "What are you baking?" he asked the wife.  "Chess pie," she answered in her Southern drawl.  Translation was "Just Pie".  Another version, according to our hostess goes like this: In the "olden days" women would store their pies in a pie chest.  And so goes the "chest pie".  Whatever or however the name came about it is an extremely sweet pie that I noticed very few finished.  Southern cooking is made with tons of butter and salt. The drinks offered were sweet tea (I'd rather drink whiskey) or regular tea.  Two or three of us asked for water.  Below are some pics of  that experience.

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I loved the experience.  I especially enjoyed the conversation.

Our next stop was the Jack Daniel's distillery.  It was one of the best tours of any industry I've ever done and it was absolutely free.  Our tour guide, Jon, was born and raised right there in Lynchburg, TN with a population, I'm guessing, of a couple thousand people.  Cute little town though.  BUT Jon had a language all his own (we call it Lynchburg English).  Often it was difficult to understand him but when we did he was a real hoot.   However, it's getting late (Jack and I did a bike ride today and another tour of the town) so time's been short.  The furry ones are getting restless for their last walk of the night so we need to take care of them and head to bed for some much needed R & R.  Until tomorrow when I will tell more about the Jack Daniel's distillery tour and post some neat pictures we took.

Jan. 20, 2011----P.S. to Jack's entry

Anal glands.....  You Tube can instruct you on how to do just about anything.  Anything, including how to secrete your pet's anal glands.  What they don't show you is how not to throw up while doing it.  I'm going to have to work up to this job. Trust me.   Here's a picture of Tanner tonight---exhausted and not too happy with us.

Jan 20, 2011 Monte Sano State Park -from Jack

After returning the plastic dog clipper extensions we bought and buying the proper new longer steel blade for our new clippers we were in business.  This morning Janet and I finished grooming Tanner and other than a small place where Janet went a little crazy yesterday he actually looked great.  I told Janet not to worry about the little knick on his side because my dad cut my hair using clippers for years and always said after these little blips there is only seven days difference between a good hair cut and a bad one.  The only thing is walking around for those seven days was hell.

Being married for forty years you tend to figure out what each person is good at and kind of divide up what needs to be done.  Turns out I am good at using the clippers on the dogs.  One thing I told Janet I think she may have a calling for his "expressing" the dogs anal glands.  This is the other thing that got done at the periodic dog grooming appointments.  I told Janet that if we run out of money in retirement this is another skill she could list on her resume to keep us out of the poor house.  "Experienced and proficient dog anal gland expresser" or is it expressor?  Either way I just know she is going to be good at it.  Janet watched the video on You Tube so I believe she is ready to go. 

Turns out we are going to be getting a lot of company here on Monte Sano mountain this Sunday, January 23rd. A total of 350 runners will be running in the 50K Mountain Mist Trail Run.  It's limited to 350 runners and has been closed out for some time. We have heard runners from all over the country come here to participate.  Should be fun to watch.  Now back to Janet the real blogger from the 5er.