Girls Weekend, part Thirteen!! Sunday, November 7

This is the day of our massages.  Just the word massage sounds relaxing, doesn't it??   I looked it up on dictonary.com and the slang definition for massage is:  attentive or indulgent treatment; pampering.  I believe that kind of treatment is exactly what we are looking for!!  So we got up around 8 a.m. and set out for the New Moon Day Spa and Salon in the Crescent Hotel.  Our licensed massage therapists, Chris and Elizabeth called us back to the room at just about 9 o'clock on the nose.  We each received our dose of pampering and indulgent treatment for an hour.  It was quite lovely and incredibly relaxing.  Kathi liked the blue oil from Aveda that Chris used so much that she just HAD to purchase some before we left.  As soon as we were done and were dressed and about to leave, Kathi's cell phone rang and IT WAS RIDLEY!!!!!  She was doing well enough to have earned the privilege to call Kathi, and one of the first things that she told Kathi was that she was feeling better.  This was significant because Kathi had asked her, upon leaving her at the hospital, that whatever else Ridley did and even if she didn't feel like talking to Kathi at all, to please call her and let her know when she was feeling better.  I could hardly stop myself from jumping up and down with joy over this phone call.  As soon as Kathi got off the phone, she broke down and sobbed.  This was the moment we had been waiting for all weekend, the moment of breakthrough, the moment that Ridley realized that she was being helped while in the hospital, as difficult as it was to be there.  In Kathi's words, "it is like the sun has come back out in her world".  Thank you, God, for your mercy and grace.

After our massages, Kathi had further pampering with a pedicure.

I sat in the lobby area and worked on this very journal while Kathi got her pedicure.  Once done, we went downhill (by car this time!!) to down and had soup and salad for lunch at the Cafe Sanctuary out on the deck in the sunshine.  We then strolled the downtown shops looking for gifts and souvenirs.  The shops all close down around 6 p.m., so we went back uphill to Ermilio's for dinner.  There was a bit of a line outside and we had to wait about 30 minutes or so before we were seated.  We ordered sauteed artichoke hearts as an appetizer (yummy!!!), then chicken parmesan and spinach fettucine with a primavera sauce for our main course.  We each had a glass of wine with dinner and ate until we were full.  Once back to the room, with a full tummy and all warm and cozy, I was feeling the need for a "nap" as early as 8:30.  So I laid down for a nap and Kathi decided that it sounded like a good idea, too.  We did a quick toss of the states before we laid down and we are now down to Wyoming and South Carolina.

Our "nap", it turned out, lasted until morning.  Apparently, we were in need of a good, long night's sleep!!

Saturday, November 6_GW13_Eureka Springs, Arkansas

I must say that the weather for this trip has been spectacularly beautiful.  It has been sunny every day and unseasonably warm, usually between 65 and 70 degrees.  As always seems to be the case for Girls Weekend, God is smiling on us.

So, even though we returned to the room fairly early last night and decided to stay in, we ended up staying up and talking until 4 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING!!!  I can’t remember the last time I stayed up that late!  But, since Kathi and I had not seen one another since July, we had a lot of catching up to do, so we did.  Once we went to bed, I think we both fell into a dead sleep but we still managed to get up at 10 a.m.  We had big plans for the day.  Our agenda included Quigley Castle and Cosmic Caverns.  

Quigley Castle is not a castle at all.  Just a house that sits a little bit outside of Eureka Springs.  Notice that I didn’t say an ordinary house.  It is not an ordinary house at all.  It is the house of Elise Quigley’s dreams.  It is a house that is covered in the rocks, shells and fossils that Elise collected along the nearby riverbanks since she was nine years old. It is a house that “lets the outdoors in”.  It is the house that has twenty eight windows and an indoor tropical garden.  It is one of the most unique homes that I have ever been in (House on the Rock in Wisconsin would be its main rival, although House on the Rock is just flat out weird, while this place is actually quite charming).

                        

So, back in 1943 Elise Quigley and her husband were living in a fairly ordinary house of the times on their land, but Elise had this house in her head.  Her husband had agreed to build this house of her dreams, but since part of the plan included 28 windows and glass was nearly impossible to get hold of at that time, he wanted to wait.  Elise decided she did not want to wait.  One day, once her husband left to go to work, she and her five children moved all of their belongings into the chicken house, then tore down their existing home, as incentive to get her husband to start building her dream house.  So construction began and about 6 months and $2000 later, the wooden house was built, but no glass was available for the windows for another 3 years.  The family just used blankets as window coverings until they were able to get glass for the windows.  During this time, Elise used her rock, shell, and fossil collection to cover the outside walls.

            

Today, Elise’s granddaughter lives with her own family in the house and has parts of it open to the public for tours.  She recalls her grandmother working on the wall of butterflies in one of the upstairs bedrooms as her last big project before her death. 

A most unusual, but delightful home.  One well worth visiting if in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

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From Quigley Castle, we moved on to Cosmic Caverns, one of many caves in the area.  Kathi loves caves and this is the third cave that we have visited together.  The first was Howe Caverns in the state of New York and the second was Marengo Cave in Southern Indiana.  All have a particular beauty of their own.  This particular cave has two lakes where the bottom has not yet been found.  It is the warmest cave that I have ever been in, about 70 degrees.  Unfortunately a previous owner of the cave decided to stock the lakes with trout and the trout ate up all of the native cave lake creatures.  To this day, the owners of the cave carry on the “tradition” of stocking the lakes with trout, making it impossible for the lakes to be repopulated with the creatures meant to live there.  Nevertheless it is a beautiful cave and Kathi and I thoroughly enjoyed the tour.

                

After leaving the cave we went back into town and bought tickets for that evening’s concert at The Auditorium.  The headliner was folksinger Eliza Gilkyson.  Never heard of her before, but apparently she is a fairly prolific singer/songwriter.  Once we had the tickets in had, we went back to the room to rest up a bit and catch up with our e-mails and stuff.  Then back into town we went for the show, which we enjoyed very much.  In fact we enjoyed it so much that we bought Eliza’s latest CD and had her sign it AND had our picture taken with her!! 

Back to the room for a late dinner of Italian leftovers. Kathi called the hospital back in Indianapolis to check on Ridley and see how her day went.  Apparently it was a bit of a rough day for Ridley. The Dr. is still working on tweaking her meds in an effort to get them just right.  We continue to pray for her and ask that all who might be reading this do the same.  We were exhausted after our day full of trekking around the area and listening to good music and turned in a bit early...............after the tossing of the states, Oh, and the count of African Americans still stands at two!             

Eureka Springs, Arkansas: November 5, 2010, Girls Weekend 13

Today was our first full day of Girls Weekend and after arising a little later than normal and just hanging out for a while in our cute little room this morning, drinking coffee, checking e-mails, and journaling, we headed into historic downtown Eureka Springs.  What a captivating place.  Built on hills with winding streets (there are NO perpendicular streets in downtown Eureka Springs), we parked the car in a pay parking lot ($5 for three hours) and started off on foot.  We decided that we were kinda hungry, so we went in search of a cup of coffee and something to eat.  No Starbuck's here so we found a cute little coffee shop close to a scrapbooking store.  Wellllll, there was no indoor seating at this particular coffee shop and, though the sun was shining brightly, we decided it was just too darn cold to sit outside and have a cup of coffee, plus we were in search of some kind of food.  The kind lady at the coffee store made us wonderful drinks and gave us a coupon in hopes that we would return sometime later during our stay.  We wandered into the "scrapbooking" store, which is really more of a specialty paper/art store kind of place,  found nothing we couldn't live without there, then went in search of food.  We ended up in a restaurant named the New Delhi Cafe and Restaurant where Kathi had a hamburger and I had tomato soup.  (Uhhhh, what happened to the Indian food we thought we were going to get???)  The food was OK, not great, but served its purpose.  There was a live band playing in the outdoor area of the restaurant, so we did get to enjoy a bit of that.  We are fortunate enough to be here on the weekend of Eureka Spring's "63rd Ozark Folk Festival", which involves lots of folk music being played around town in different venues all weekend long.  Once done with lunch, we ascended a set of steep stairs that took us up to the street above the one we had parked on and started browsing the shops.  One of the shops whose window we had peeked into the night before was a leather store that had some awesome shoes displayed in the window, so it became our first stop.  While the only purchase that we made in there was a pair of sunglasses for me (I left mine in my van back in Portland), we so enjoyed the ladies working in there that we just HAD to take have our picture taken with them.  They were also kind enough to give each of us a $5 Starbucks gift card with the purchase of my sunglasses.  Now we just have to find a Starbuck's!!  The shops here are fun to browse because most have unique and unusual things and most are NOT selling the trashy, touristy type items that one so often finds in these types of destinations.   Kathi was longing for a massage and pedicure while here, so during our lunch at the "Indian" restaurant, she called the spa at the Crescent Hotel and set up appointments for massages for us both and a pedicure for her.  We had talked about doing a ghost tour of the haunted Crescent Hotel, too, so decided that we would walk to it while we were walking about town so that we would have some idea about where we would be going.  We stopped in at a bookstore and got directions and a warning that a walk to the Crescent was not for the faint of heart or out-of-shape 50 year old women, since the Crescent sits at one of the highest points in town.  We, of course, did not heed this warning and made the trek anyway, at Kathi's insistence, I might add.  I am still recovering from this uphill hike as I write this and hope that I can find it in my heart sometime soon to forgive Kathi for forcing this torture upon me.
:-)

The Crescent Hotel was built in 1886 as a hotel, but has served various functions during its years.  One of these is as a Women's College, another is as a cancer hospital under the direction and leadership of a man who claimed, falsely, to be a Dr. with a "cure" for cancer.  Instead "Dr." Norman Baker was a vaudeville man who made millions of dollars off of unsuspecting, vulnerable people who were seeking health for loved ones whom the medical community of the time could not help.  Once "Dr." Baker was exposed he was run out of town and the Crescent was, once again, operated as a hotel.  Kathi and I decided that while the building is an impressive one, it isn't really what we would consider a beautiful one.  In fact, it is kind of a creepy looking place.  It LOOKS like a hospital where the world wants to hide away sick people that it does not want to look at nor think about.  However, present day, it is a very busy place where many locals choose to have weddings (it does sport beautiful lawns and scenery), as well as a place that capitalizes on the many stories about ghostly apparitions and paranormal activity.  During our ghost tour, we learned that the TAPS ghost hunting team came here a few years ago to do an investigation into the paranormal activity here and they had some positive and impressive findings.  In particular, they caught on video a shadowy figure of a man down on the lowest floor of the hotel in the room that "Dr." Baker used as a morgue.  They showed us a video clip of this at the beginning of our ghost tour.  I have to say, it did give rise to goose bumps!!  But, I get ahead of myself.  After checking the place out a bit, we made the trek back downhill (MUCH easier), via the scenic route.  We saw many charming homes, bed and breakfasts and beautiful garden areas on the walk downhill.

After the walk downhill, we were both aching and exhausted (Kathi, I TOLD you we should have driven up to the hotel!!  :-)) and decided to go back to the room and rest up a bit before our ghost tour at the Crescent that evening.  We gobbled up our leftovers from De Vito's, checked up on our e-mails and stuff then made our way back to the Crescent Hotel.

I already shared a lot of what we learned about the Crescent Hotel on the ghost tour.  Our guide was dressed in period costume and, as Kathi so aptly described him, he looked rather cadavorous.  Neither one of us can remember his name (shame on us), but we agree that he looks like one of the thieving characters in the Disney movie 101 Dalmations.

While the tour was very informative regarding the history of the Crescent Hotel and our guide shared many stories with us about guests experiences with paranormal activity and where most of it seems to take place, we didn't actually get to go INTO many of the rooms where activity is reported to be greatest, because, of course, this is still a functional hotel.  Again, in Kathi's words, we saw more inebriated wedding guests than we did spirits.  I guess one could say we saw many people that were inhabited by "spirits" just not the sort we were seeking on the ghost tour. :-)   Eureka Springs is the site of 6000-7000 weddings a year (second only to Las Vegas) and many of them take place at the Crescent Hotel.  We have seen 3 brides in our short stay here, one carrying her baby and feeding him a bottle while dressed in her virginal white, strapless wedding gown.

If you look closely at the picture of the staircase included in the collage above, you will see a white "orb" in the left-hand side of the photo at the top of the stairs in the portion of the photo.  The story that we were told regarding this staircase is that sometime back in the 30's a little girl leaned over the stair railing in answer to her mother's call from a floor or two below and fell to her death below on the tile floor you can see in the center of the photo.  Ghost hunters would tell you that the "orb" you can see in the photo is the spirit of the child who fell.  After going through the MANY photos that we took during the ghost tour, this is the only one in which we captured a "spirit".  What do YOU think??????.....

Our original plan was to go out and listen to music once we were done with the ghost tour, but we both decided we would be sure and catch some music on Saturday night and called it a night.

Eureka Springs, Arkansas: November 4, 2010, Girls Weekend 13

Before I go much further in describing the things that we did today, I have to say that this is a Girls Weekend unlike any in the past because of some difficult, as well as some wonderful circumstances that are currently present in Kathi's life.  On the wonderful side, Kathi is in love with a man that God put in her life at a time when she, most certainly, needs someone who is there for her and loves her unconditionally.  I have to say that I am truly amazed at God's grace and His timing at putting people in our lives who have gifts that we need at the absolute moment when we need them.  This has certainly been the case in Kathi's situation.  The difficult circumstances in Kathi's life right now revolve around her beautiful, spirited, talented and amazing daughter, Ridley.  This truly amazing child has suffered and fought with depression for a number of years and this struggle culminated in a suicide attempt about three weeks ago.  This, of course, caused Kathi great distress and heartbreak and she has been doing everything that she can in order to get Ridley the help that she needs to help her with this struggle.  The psychiatrist who saw Ridley in the program into which she was placed after her suicide attempt, diagnosed Ridley with  bi-polar disorder and put her on some medications to help her.  Even with this medication on board, Ridley revealed to the counselors in this program that she still has thoughts of harming herself on a daily basis.  Based upon this comment, it was decided that Ridley would best be served by spending some time in an in-patient program so that she could be observed while medications were added and adjusted, and so that she could participate in some intensive behavioral therapy, where she could learn some skills to help her cope with this disorder.  Ridley, of course, did not like this decision and railed against being admitted with everything she has, which led to a heartbreaking scene of Ridley being handcuffed in order to be taken from the outpatient program she was attending to the hospital to be admitted.  As a fellow parent, and loving Kathi like a sister and Ridley like a child of my own, I can barely even think about what kind of pain this caused Kathi.  So, this Girls Weekend is colored by these events, and while there have been plenty of tears, there has also been much therapeutic laughter.  I just ask that anyone who might be reading this, please say a prayer for both Kathi and Ridley in this great time of need and know that underlying all that we do here are thoughts of Ridley and prayers that God bring healing to her heart, mind, soul and body.

The only reason that I added any of this to the blog is that I want this to be "real", to exhibit ALL that goes into our lives and Girls Weekend.

(Ok, as I read the above to Kathi, to get her approval to post on the blog we are both sitting here crying like babies, so I am going to move on).


So, Kathi flew into Fayetteville airport about 3 hours before me and while waiting for me picked up the rental car, had a long conversation with Ridley's psychiatrist, then enjoyed a mocha and read a book.

Once I arrived, and after a big hug, we went to pick up my luggage, so that we can load up the car and make the 1 hour drive to Eureka Springs.  Over the years, we have kind of fallen into a natural division of duties regarding Girls' Weekend.  Once the state is determined, I usually am the one to do a bit of research and choose WHERE in the state we will be going.  I thoroughly enjoy this part.  Sometimes I have a place in mind, sometimes Kathi does, and we are always open to suggestions from friends and family.  As I said in the first post about this particular Girls Weekend, my mom was the one who suggested Eureka Springs and after I took a look at some websites describing the down, I was charmed and intrigued, so decided this would be our destination.  Having made that decision,  I started looking for interesting, charming, unique,  funky, yet affordable places to stay.  I REALLY wanted to stay at the Crescent Hotel because it is old and haunted and I thought that would be fun, but it was a bit too pricey for the budget, so, instead,  I found a charming little place with a small kitchenette that looked just perfect for us and was very reasonably priced.  Thus we landed in Suite number 4 at the Oak Crest Cottages.  I must share that the suite that we are staying here in Eureka Springs was used in a Billy Bob Thornton movie called "Chrystal".  Haven't seen the movie, but it is kind of cool knowing that it was used as a movie site and they have a few pictures up in the room of Billy Bob in this very suite!

Kathi's role in Girls Weekend planning usually involves car rental and maps of the area.  Kathi LOVES maps.  She studies them and fawns over them as if they were precious artifacts, but, by golly, she pretty much always gets us where we want to go.  So Kathi had Google mapped the route from the Fayetteville airport to Oak Crest cottages and printed out the directions.  Well, my goodness, for a 60 mile, 1 hour drive, I must say that there were so many turns and unclear directions (i.e. Turn Right......no street name or anything, just, Turn Right), that I think it was a minor miracle that we arrived here at all!!  Although, we did go a few miles past the place and had to turn around and try again.  Our host, Don, greeted us, gave us his recommendations for places to eat in town and grabbed a few brochures for the places nearby that he feels are worth visiting, then shepherded us to our room.  Once in the room, we immediately rearranged the furniture (which we often do) to suit our needs and unpacked our suitcases.  We made a run to the local grocery store, then had a delicious Italian dinner at a little place in town called DeVito's (Kathi had trout coated with parmesan and pesto, while I opted for spaghetti and meatballs) peeked in a few shop windows, then headed back to our cozy suite to turn in for the night, with plans of returning to town the next day for a full day of shopping and exploring the town.

                                  

Girls Weekend, part Thirteen!! November 5

It is that time of year again!  Girls Weekend!  I can hardly believe it.  In so many ways, it just doesn't seems like a whole year has rolled around since we were in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Now, I don't know if anybody who reads this remembers, but at the last "flipping of the states" last year, when it was down to just New York and Arkansas, New York landed face down and Arkansas remained face up causing Kathi to experience great disappointment.  But, hey, we rallied and now that we are here in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, I think we both agree that this is actually looking like it is going to be a very cool little town to explore over the next few days.  At this point I have to thank my Mom, who is the one who suggested this particular town.  I was looking at Hot Springs and Little Rock, but when Mom heard that our destination state was Arkansas she suggested Eureka Springs, and, by golly, she knew what she was talking about!!  Thank you, Mom!!!

While in touch with Kathi yesterday (our travel day) she told me that God had already given her our trip slogan for this year.  She would not share with me over the phone, said she would write it down and that I must read it.  I want to share that with you now:

"Girls Weekend 13 begins!!  It is protocol to wait until at least the final day of our trip, if not later, to look back over the memories and come up with a trip slogan.  That won't be necessary this year. I (Kathi) only had to enter the airport at 6 am to begin her journey, when she was handed the slogan like a gift from God.  A really  nice friendly, helpful, extremely polite young black gentleman took my boarding pass and with cheery "Good Morning", started to enter the information into the computer. "Just one bag? And I see that you have already paid for it online--good for you!"  Then, on the next screen...."Ok, let's see now....."  still in rounded, even corporate tones.  But then......"ARKANSAS??"  Part puzzlement, part incredulity.  Then, straight to the hood....."You goin' to Arkansas?  What, you work for WalMart or somethin'?  E'erbody go to Arkansas work for WalMart or Tyson Chicken".  And so, a slogan was born, at the very start of our journey:  "Arkansas!?  What, you work for WalMart or somethin'?"    :-)

By the way, Kathi also tends to count the number of other African American people we see while on our trips.  The count so far on this trip at the end of our first day (now keep in mind this includes the airport in Fayetteville as well as right here in Eureka Springs), is ZERO.  This always makes me feel incredibly guilty.  I told her that next year, should New York be the state we go to, we should go to Harlem, just so I can experience what it is like to be in the minority.  This feeling of guilt is what landed us in Washington, D.C. on Girls Weekend Five.  This was also the year that we bought our wooden puzzle map of the U.S. that we now use to determine the following year's destination, because we were completely indecisive as to where to go that next year.

Speaking of future states, the tossing of the states last night left us with:  New York, Virginia, North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Missouri, Wyoming, North Carolina, Hawaii, Colorado, South Dakota, South Carolina, West Virgina, Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island.  Of these Kathi is hoping for North Carolina, while Lori is pulling for Montana.

Today (Friday, Nov 6) we plan on exploring the cute little, winding, hilly streets and avenues full of shops and restaurants that make up Eureka Springs.

Kathi's Birthday Getaway in Florida

This was a very special Girls Weekend that was more, much more, than Kathi and Lori's annual getaway. This was a Girls Weekend on steroids event. This was a gathering of friends to help Kathi celebrate her 50th birthday in style. Nine of us, including Kathi, gathered together in Marco Island, Florida at the home of one of Kathi's friends, Connie, who graciously offered her second home there as a venue for this celebration. This gathering included 2 women from New York City; one from Toronto, Canada; one from Chicago, Illinois; myself from Salem, Oregon and 4 from Indianapolis, Indiana. We ate, we talked, some of us went swimming, we walked on the beach, we ate, we watched the Indianapolis Colts kick butt in a football game at a local sports bar, we drank a little wine, we ate, we laughed, we hung out and read books, some of us knitted, we played a crazy word game call "Pass the Bomb", we drank Pina Coladas, we ate, we laughed some more, we watched the Golden Globe awards, we learned another language (ole boy, ole girl, Nowember) courtesy of Capathia and Aisha, and we celebrated Kathi's birthday and friendship. It was a wonderful, magical weekend and one I am very happy that I was a part of. I hope that we can do it all again when Kathi turns 60!!

Monday, October 19: Yellow Springs, Ohio Girls Weekend

What the heck is this, you might ask?? This is Kathi in some sort of head gear that was at one of the "import" stores I spoke of in yesterday's post. The gal who was working the store told us that, to her knowledge, no one had every actually put the thing on before. This, of course, was something that Kathi just couldn't let be, sooooo, she became the first person on the planet to actually put this thing on her head. When I mentioned that I MUST have a picture of this, the gal working in the store told me that, actually, no one was allowed to take photos in the store. WHAT???? Why the heck not? I seriously doubt that any of our friends are going to want to run home and knit one of these things for themselves. This "thing" looked the same, front and back, as in, there were eye holes and a mouth hole on both sides. Anyway, Kathi and I backed into a corner, and I took this photo, without the giveaway flash, because we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to have a picture of this!

Ok, so, let's see. Monday. Our last full day of Girls Weekend 2009. ***Sigh*** It was another absolutely beautiful fall day, so we decided that we would hike in Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve and visit Clifton Mill. This turned out to be a good choice. The hike was beautiful. It was here that we actually did get views of the river at the bottom of the gorge and enjoyed the beauty of the colorful autumn foilage. It was the perfect day for a hike in such a place.

We worked up quite an appetite on our hike and as it turns out, there is a nice little restaurant inside the Historic Clifton Mill, so we grabbed a couple of burgers there with a view of the river outside the window. We could also see the guys that were putting out the lights for the gazillion bulb Christmas light display that they have every year at the Clifton Mill .

We were hoping to walk around to the side of the mill that sits on the river to get a picture, with the mill wheel but the Christmas light guys wouldn't let us climb the fence (that had a No Trespassing sign posted on it) to get the photo we wanted. So we gave the camera to one of the dudes to take the picture for us (because he WAS allowed to be on the OTHER side of the fence). He didn't frame it quite the way that I would have, so you can see some piles of Christmas lights in one corner, but you can still see just how pretty the mill is, sitting there on the bank of the river. Apparently the best shot one can get of the mill is from the covered bridge, but the Christmas light dudes had it closed off because it was absolute loaded down with strings of Christmas lights. Now, while this was not really a pretty or pleasant site on a beautiful fall day, the resulting light show looks to be spectacular (at least in the photos found on their website). From here we headed back to town, but decided to make a stop at an orchard that we had seen while driving about. This was a charming place, too, that was run by two cute farmer lady types who, obviously took great pride in the products they sold at their store, since all the produce was grown right there on the farm. There was a table laid out with all kinds of "edible squash", many of which were labeled with their name and a description of how they tasted when cooked up. Kathi, in particular, was fascinated with this and decided that she was going to buy some and try cooking them up once she got home. We both learned that there is a significant difference between jack-o-lantern pumpkins and pie pumpkins. I, personally, have just always bought my edible pumpkin in a can (courtesy of Libby's...thank you very much) and had never really given much thought to what type of pumpkin one would buy to cook with, should one want to cook pumpkin up fresh!! While there, we ordered up some hot apple cider, but also sampled some frozen cider..........pretty tasty!! Kathi came away from Peifer Orchards with some unusual squash and pie pumpkins to experiment with at home and I came away with lovely photo.
Once done at the orchard, we headed back to the room, where we settled in for a little e-mail, a little scrapbooking, a little journaling, some TV time, a little nibbling on things we had left in the fridge before calling it a night.