This evening is dank on South Mountain.  Anne is with friends watching the movie, Buck, at a nearby senior center.  I, Chuck, stay home recovering from intense soreness associated with a week of scrubbing and staining our log house and its porches and rails.  The place looks like new and we have not even coated the walls.

Our campground, Fort Wilderness, lies near historic Qualla Town at the edge of the Qualla Boundary, the designated lands of the Eastern Branch of Cherokee Indians.  At the top of the hill on this property is a small graveyard, about twenty feet square.  Most of the folk who reside there bore the names Conley and Wallace.  The stones are mostly simple and old.  Small tablets, a couple of narrow meter tall spires, and a few small standard round-top blocks make up the display.  A small square well-etched horizontal stone marks the grave of James and Robert T.

A rainy morning in the Smokies.  Anne is at work.  If the weather were otherwise I would be exploring some patch of forest or field in search of birds before going to Bryson City to shop for groceries.

Sunday in Cherokee.  It is warm this morning (finally) and we are planning a lazy day at home.  Already there are screams from the nearby campground pool as children take advantage of warmer weather.  I (Chuck) am still suffering from a persistent cold that Anne has left behind.  Still, Friday and and yesterday we made hikes in the Smokies.

After our marvelous backpack in Virginia we returned to busy times on South Mountain.  First a day of cleaning and drying our gear, recovering our baseline metabolism, and resuming our typically more sedate lifestyle.  Then, dealing with the unusually wet spring that continues to throw a storm at us every few days.  Thank goodness I installed a drain inlet beneath the basement floor.  The pipe has been taking water, at times lots of water, for more than a week.  On one day we took 3.7” of rain some water infiltrated through the opposite side of the basement.&n

An early April walk on the Appalachian Trail in central Virginia seems pleasant enough.  I wonder though, as I see my porch here in southern Pennsylvania turning white this evening from a late snowfall that may continue off and on through tomorrow night.  The weather is supposed to turn warmer next week but will remain damp.  We begin our planned nine-day backpack on Monday morning at Pearisburg near Blacksburg.  Give our adventure your thoughts and prayers. 

Already a week since our return.  The drive went well despite the painful increase in the price of gasoline.  I had sympathy for Mohamed Bouazizi, but the cascading events have been painful to all of us.  Sadly we didn't take out Gaddafi before he recouped to carefully exterminate the opposition.  Now, until he accomplishes that, the price of oil will flutter.

    This was a fabulous day in southwest Florida.  Bright sunshine, warm air, and a fresh breeze off the Gulf made the water sparkle.  Anne, Mom and Dad joined the Gallup’s early.  I arrived in mid-afternoon.  Everyone had a wonderful week.  Great tans, not too much burn. 

The sun shines and a warm breeze blows across south Florida distracting us from the turmoil of the world.  I am at the condo working on chores.  Anne has taken Mom and Dad to the beach to join the Gallups.  We are retired but still seem to be the generation in the middle.  Mom was anxious to leave this morning, apparently concerned that the family needed her as soon as possible.  Dad was concerned because the water was turned off in the condo for some kind of maintenance.

The two of us made a three-day, two-night excursion across the Everglades beginning last Thursday.  We awoke early and shivered in the 50 degree weather to get started in the darkness.  It took us twelve hours to cross the peninsula and turn south to Homestead where we had motel reservations.  Most of our stops were in the Big Cypress Swamp and Shark River Slough areas where we spotted the usual wading birds and studied the tropical trees.  We made our last stop at the Chekika entrance to Everglades National Park, but a volunteer was closing the gate as we arrived.