The High House

Not so much an adventure as return to familiar territory. Since we all but ran out of firewood to heat our house last winter, the push is on to replace it for this coming year and perhaps the next one also. Murry came upson a treasure trove as a house is being built next to his mountain house and he has been given rights to it.
After an active week with Liz and rising way too early to return her to Hartsfield for the return trip home to Costa Rica, we are up again before dawn to meet Murry and his friend, Barry for a wood harvesting trip. The battery on the Suburban is dead, the power steering is screaming for more fluid and it is raining cats and dogs....so we are getting started a bit later than anticipated and traveling slow as water is standing in a lot of places.But when we arrive, it is just finishing raining up there so they couldn't have started a bit sooner.
The High House is a magical place on a mountain top in Hayesville, NC overlooking Lake Chatuge with a 360 degree mountain vista and a whole lot of privacy. Although I have been here many, many times, to the extent that it feels homelike to me, this is the first trip with the laurel blooming and there is a lot of it. The blackberries are showing promise of good cobblers to come this summer.
My role this day is Galley Slave and Beer Bitch (Murray's term). They cut, split and load wood for about four hours while I walk over with an occasional libation. In between I work on my jewelry making skills for graduation gifts and read. So peaceful and quiet. A real treat. It is mostly overcast with a cool breeze blowing, perfect. Leo, the duck hunting dog extraordinaire and Pumpking, the mighty stalking cat and I take a walk. Pumpkin meows loudly when I am ahead of him but is quiet when we walk side by side. Coming back he lingers, wailing loudly that Leo and I leave him. But he soon joins us back at the house, having taken the short cut. Even my jacket is not warm enough that evening and I end up coming in sooner than the rest. I have brought swiss steak and mash some new potatoes and Gene swears it is the best meal I have ever prepared. Swiss Steak??? Really! We turn in early, they tired from working and me from the Liz trip and too many early mornings.
A good night sleep does wonders and Murray cooks us a great breakfast. I assume role of Galley Slave while they head out to work a little more. By midday, Barry and Murray are ready to head home but we decide to stay another day. Gene goes back to cut a little more, then showers and we head off to town. I walk the square, discovering three places I have not toured before and scoring fresh cinnamon rolls for breakfast. It is really, really quiet and peaceful today. with just us here. Again, we are in bed early and again up early to clean up, pack up and pull a trailer load of wood back to Covington. A great weekend in a great location.

Adventure Number Next

Back to the airport early on Sunday morning hoping to find a hole in the sky we can fly through. The mission is to get the airplane to Mena, AR for a paint touch up but that weather is still sitting out there to our west and looks menacing. Blake takes our car and will drive John to Huntsville to ride a pass back to Dallas before heading home to Shelbybville where he will leave the car for us to pick up later. Gene, Lewis and I go out for a good breakfast and later Mike pulls out the pasta again for a late lunch. And we sit and watch the weather channel all day. Finally about 4 PM we give up and check into a motel, just as the rain begins and lasts most of the night.

Monday dawns with clear skies and we are at the airport at 6:30. Our devoted host, Mike, is there to see us off. Breakfast (and dinner last night) consists of cheese crackers and blond Oreos eaten en route. Lewis is Captain, Gene is co-pilot and I am in the jump seat for a better view. We see evidence of the weather in the flooded fields we fly over. I have never been to Arkansas and we fly most of the way across it. Mostly it seems to consist of yet to be planted farmland. Because Mena does not offer ground transportation, we land in Hot Springs to rent a car that I will drive to pick them up. There we meet Bill Adams, an American Airlines pilot, whose parents were pilot and stewardess for American and therefore likely worked on our plane. He is excited and Gene urges him to join the Foundation and get to fly the plane.

The drive to Mena is pleasant, through a national forest and low mountains, with a good lightly traveled road. After picking up the guys, we begin a mad dash to Little Rock to put Lewis on a plane to Nashville until realizing that we can drive to Kentucky and take him home quicker. My desire is to see Hot Springs and I am allowed one hour to scratch that itch. I toured the restored Fordyce Bath House from the early 1900s and it was a treat. The town is picturesque nestled against a mountain and has a lot of elaborate buildings from its heyday. I learned that the area was a national park from early on and land was leased by the government to the bathhouses, one of which still operates today. Many others are available for lease. Then we are off to Murray, KY. When we arrive at 11PM, it has been a very long day and we fall in bed exhausted. Gene is leery of the grizzly bearskin rug on his side of the bed, I have a zebra on mine. But that king sized bed looks and feels like heaven!

The next morning Lewis and wife, Ann, who we met on the Greenville trip, take us on tour. They dismantled and reassembled a three room log house to form the rear of their home, then built a modern addition around it, doing a lot of the work themselves. This area, near Kentucky lake, is a hunting and fishing paradise and they have recently built a lodge within their barn to house sportsmen. The first hunting season's income has paid the debt on it. It is quite well done! After a Cracker Barrel breakfast we tour their business. They are international dealers in antique guns. Of course Gene is in hog heaven. They also sell collapsible campaign furniture like was used on early safaris and have leather bags made with their logo plus there are several mounts, an Arctic Wolf being most startling in his size. Lewis is a master machinist and makes cartridges (and sometimes parts) for some of the rarer guns. He also bow hunts here and abroad and demonstates his technique...Gene cannot pull the bow all the way back. Though they urge us to stay and tour the area, Gene has a presentation to give in Atlanta on Wednesday evening.

Leaving Murray, we head off to Duckiworld where Gene hunts each year. It belongs to his brother in law and is located only about 20 miles away. We hop on a four wheeler and I get a tour of soon to be cornfields surrounded by levies which will become lakes next fall. One time driving off a levee I am unexpectedly thrown backwards, lose my grip on Gene and almost take a backwards swan dive. We both wish we could have seen our faces as he was as frightened as I was, of the wrath he would have endured had I fallen.

Now we head for Shelbyville to get the car. We have to detour in Clarksville for what we assume is a bridge out. In Nashville, there is still a lot of water in parts of town, like 18 wheelers with only about four feet showing, but no problems getting through on the interstate. We gather our car and I follow him on to Chattanooga. Toward the end of this journey, I am tiring badly. We reach the airport there at dusk to turn in the car, there is a mix-up and they want to charge us $800. We leave again still in two cars and find a place to stay the night until we can call the Hertz people in Hot Springs in the morning. Again, a long day. We have dinner at 10 PM. We get the rental car thing straightened out the next morning and thankfully are back home in Covington by noon. We had a great time, but these treks are quite tiring and we are thankful for our own beds.

Scottsboro Fly In

On Friday, April 30, after delivering my Fairy House to the Chimney Park Festival, Gene and I head for Scottsboro, AL to meet the DC3 and its crew for the annual Scottsboro fly in. The day is so perfect and lovely that it is hard to believe there are dire weather predictions for tomorrow. We leave the interstate at Adairsville, stopping for lunch at a new place there called the Sage Cottage. It is a very well appointed white tablecloth restaurant with really good food and great service. We enjoy our cross country journey through the north Alabama mountains and through picturesque Mentone. Our host, Mike Womacks, has arranged for himself and buddies to fly formation in Russian Yaks off the wings of the Flagship and escort her in and we do not want to miss it.

We arrive just as Mike and his son are about to depart to rendezvous with the others, then meet the Flagship. We wait on the tarmac in a golf cart squinting into the northern sky until at last we see the glint of sunlight on metal and the Flagship lumbers into sight with what first appears to be a swarm of mosquitoes off each wing. Turns out to be 8 Yaks. Wow!! They do a low pass down the runway and then sweep out over town to raise awareness of the event. This is repeated twice, then each plane does an individual fly by and finally they come in to land.

Blake Butler from Shelbyville, TN is in the left seat, John Thatcher from Texas in the right and Lewis Drake of Murray, KY riding the jump seat. The last two were with us in Greenville. Blake is teasing me because I seem to want to call him Burke and initially did not remember meeting him last year. He and Gene have recently bonded over their love of guns and Piper Cubs, one of which Blake owns.
This Scottsboro show is a joy to work as Mike and his fellow volunteers really take good care of the participants. Gene met Mike at the Covington airport when he came here to interview for a flying job and brought him home to spend the night a few years ago. He is from Dodge City, KN and worked his way through school as a rodeo rider before a career as an airline pilot. After the plane is cleaned and spiffed, we head to Mike's hanger for appetizers and liquid refreshment where we are joined by the Yak drivers and some air show volunteers. Mike's son, David and wife Carol, arrive later with copious amounts of Pizza Hut pasta a great salad and all the extras. After a great meal and some hilarious yarn swapping, our crew loads into our Suburban and repairs to well appointed (that means the fridge comes with beer) trailers at the county park for the night.

Saturday morning there is a lot of anxious weather watching as we pig out on breakfast at the airport. Looks like we may have dodged the bullet, at least for several more hours. Today the volunteers are decked out in shirts the exact color of neon yellow hi liter. We head to the plane and set up shop under the wing in case of rain. Skies are grey and the wind goes from breezy to "grab that tee shirt." Our son, Richard, arrives from Birmingham for his first view of the Flagship and in no time is running the store like a pro. We get only a brief sprinkle throughout the day but each time we go back to the terminal we see the havoc being wreaked on Nashville including a house floating down the interstate.

For the people of Scottsboro, the Flagship is a really big deal. This is the first plane many of them have been inside and they declare it "huge." We wonder what they would think of triple 7. Our lines get so long that the guys do the briefing outside to save time. Neon tee shirters come by to ask if we need anything. Volunteers are grilling burgers and dogs in a nearby hanger to feed the crews and we partake later in the day. The Yaks are putting on formation demonstrations and offering rides. Cessnas are taking children on their first airplane rides and a bi-plane is selling rides. A bright yellow modern bi-plane with short swept wings called a Lion Heart thrills the crowd with hi speed maneuvers. The high pitched whine of a jet engine draws our attention to the sudden appearance of a sleek jet painted in blue, grey and cream camo pattern which puts on a daring show before landing. At day's end we are treated to a steak dinner in the main hanger complete with live music. We are pretty much wiped out though and back to our quarters before 10. We have dodged the weather bullet for now but still have to figure out how to get out of here tomorrow.