Holy Crap! Snow! (Piedmont, SD)

We spent most of this month traveling and visiting family.  We managed to dodge several severe thunderstorms along the way, but not the cold fronts.  This was our first morning greeting to South Dakota.  From the posts I saw on Facebook, we are not alone with the surprise snow covered ground.  I am hoping it will be the last for this Winter....hmm, I mean Spring.

Dan spent a lot of time searching for the perfect campgrounds for us to stay along the way.  This is the first time we have driven this route.  We stopped to visit my brother in Huntsville, AL while staying in Redstone Arsenal FamCamp.  A very nice RV park with plenty of walking paths and close to shopping.  

US Space & Rocket Center

From there, we drove through Tennessee and stayed at Cherokee Landing Thousand Trails in Saulsbury.  

Cherokee Landing Thousand Trails

This park needs a lot of work.  The employees do a great job of keeping the areas clean, but the building and sites need to be renovated.  If you are looking for a more back to nature experience then this is perfect for you.

The cats loved this park with all the trees and wildlife to explore.  Since the park was not busy, they were able to explore quite a few sites away.

Dusty did not want to leave, but he was very happy with our new location at the USACE Maumelle Camp near Little Rock, AK on the Arkansas River.

All three cats even took a walk down to the river with us.  The park was busier than the last one, but the sites were large with plenty of space for the cats to explore without going into another site..

Maumelle Camp Near Little Rock AR

And Dusty did not want to leave.  Then he saw our new location at Chicken Creek Camp Tenkiller Ferry Lake near Gore, OK and he was happy cat once again.  This time I wasn't too happy to hear that the campground had emptied out earlier that day due to warnings of severe thunderstorms with hail and tornado warnings.  There were only four campsites in use besides us and the camp-hosts.  We decided to stay because there really was no place to get away from this storm front.  Lucky for us, the storm went around this area.  We got a little bit of rain and some gusts of winds, but otherwise it was a quiet night.

Chicken Creek Camp Tenkiller Ferry Lake Near Gore OK

Dusty was once again 'not a happy cat' about leaving.  Are you wondering how we know he is not happy with us moving?  Well, he starts crying as soon as the motorhome starts moving.  He'll even go to the door and cry.  If he doesn't like the site, he just goes to sleep.  "No worries.  I didn't like it here anyway." 

Dusty was not happy with our new site in Ft Sill either because he did not beg to out every other hour.  Sites are tight and boring according to cat's standards until we had visitors.  Dusty says Celeste gives very good belly rubs and makes rolling in the grass more fun.

We spent Easter weekend visiting with our daughter, granddaughters, and getting to know our soon-to-be son-in-law.  We spent Saturday afternoon at Ft Sill so the girls could enjoy the FamCamp's lakeside playground and had a delicious Easter dinner on Sunday.  It was wonderful to see our grandchildren again and to visit with Misty and Jeff.

photos by Misty

Back on the road again and heading north to South Dakota, we stopped in another US Army Corp of Engineer's park near Alma, NE.  Here's a unique sight.  While driving on the road to Hunter Cove, we passed a guy leading two packhorses down the street.  We saw him again the next day about 8 miles down the road in Republican City.

After we were settled into our site, we let all three cats out knowing they were going to love this park.  The first thing Hitch did when he was allowed outside was to climb this tree.  He climbed it a couple of more times and must have decided it was too easy because he took off at a full run towards the other trees.  He never got as high, but he was happy.

Hunter Cove Army Corps Of Engineers, Alma NE

Max was quite happy to find a nice soft spot among the big tree's roots for sleeping.  The campground wasn't busy when we were there, but it sounds like it will stay busy once school lets out.  In the meantime, we had a pleasant stay and the cats did a lot of exploring.

And of course, once again, Dusty was not happy about leaving.  I told him there would be other great sites, but I don't think he believed me.

Yeah, right...😒

We made an unscheduled stop at Wall Drug since it was along the way.  A nice change of pace from all our traveling lately.  We did a little shopping and had lunch.

This guy looked like he had a snack and was looking for his lunch....grrr

So, we are done traveling for the next month while we take care of our driver's licenses and do a little sightseeing in the Black Hills area.

On The Cutting Board

I haven't been in the mood for starting a new quilt.  I have been spending most of my time embroidering the A to Zzzz Snowman blocks.

Kris and Lights

I'm amazed how fast these are going.

Mittens

At this speed, I should have all the embroidery done before the end of the year.

Noel

Maybe by that time I'll be back in the mood to sew together the blocks into a quilt.

and Ornaments

Until then, I will keep on 'Stitchin'!

Happy Quilting!

Comments Rejected? (Tinker AFB, OK)

Do you leave comments in blogs?  Have you been receiving one of the Mail Delivery Failed like the one below?  I have been receiving quite a few from comments I leave in different blogs.  Another recent problem is the notices I use to receive from my blog for comments waiting moderation.  They were no longer showing up in my Inbox.  Now, I have to check the blog's comment section, so I decided to see if there was a way to change the settings.  I did a Google for "failure DMARC Yahoo" since I have a Yahoo mail account and I found this site explaining why our comments are no longer notifying the bloggers:   Could Yahoo! and AOL’s DMARC Policies Destroy Your Deliverability?   Apparently, Yahoo and AOL changed the settings for all their members to protect them.  The bad news is that we cannot changed the settings.  It looks like we are stuck with this new protective system whether we want it or not.  So, never fear, I am not rejecting your comments.  Sooner or later, I will publish and answer your comment!

We move to Lawton, OK tomorrow morning.  I look forward to visiting with our granddaughters and daughter.  It has been three years since our last visit.  The girls have changed so much since the last time we saw them.

The cats will probably be a little happier with our new location.  We have been to Ft. Sill a few times, so we know what waits for us.  

Talk about a noisy location  The cats beg to go outside and only last about 30 minutes before a barking dog or some other loud noise has them running for the door.  Poor guys.  They are not happy campers right now.  I'll be happy to leave too because this campground is very small and the spaces are tight.  Parking becomes a major event while the poor driver tries several times to maneuver a big rig around cars and other rigs setup close to the road.  Parking our car is a pain too.  As you can see, our neighbor's assigned parking spot is at our door step and our car is parked at the next neighbor's door.  It feels a little backwards.  We are practically on top of each other.  Thank goodness the neighbors are quiet and most respect each others' small spaces.  Needless to say, I don't think we will be back this way any time soon.

On The Cutting Board

I feel like my productivity is way up, but when I look at the photos below....well, it just doesn't look I have much to show for a 10-day stay here.  I'm almost done with this wall hanging.  I just need to finish the border and decide on how to hang it.

 I appliqued jumping rabbits to all four corners of this quilt top.  I hope to sandwich the top in the next two weeks.

I finished quilting all the mug rugs below.  I need to add buttons to the doors and my heart patch to the back.  This will give me ten new mug rugs to list.

Speaking of listing.  I haven't opened my shop yet.  I'm not sure if I will open early or wait until January.  I thought I would build up my inventory first.  It would be nice to open with at least two full pages of items.  

Okay!  I guess I better get back to the cutting board and see if I can get a few more stitches in before bedtime.

Happy Quilting!

Season of Storms (Bartlesville, OK)

I'm happy to say that Dan and I decided to leave Amazon.  The pay was good, but the last two weeks have been some of the most intense and stressful times for us.  We were transferred from stocking/stowing bins to the packing area.  We were enjoying our job in the stowing area.  I thought packing would be fun too, but the job is too repetitive, not to mention, very noisy, and was causing both of us some problems.  We gave our new job a chance and decided it just wasn't for us.  We asked managers and HR if we could move back or to another area with no result.  Well, it is time to move on.

USACE Copan Lake 

We plan to spend a couple of weeks in Tinker AFB near Oklahoma City, OK and then on to see our granddaughters.

Season of Storms by Susanna Kearsley

After reading several of Susanna's previous books, I was excited to receive this one and started reading it immediately.  I was a little disappointed in her latest book and it took me a couple of months to finish because it just did not capture my attention.  The questionable paranormal or time travel activities that were so prominent in many of her books was lacking in this one.  A couple of times as the main character was walking through the gardens or getting lost in the mansion, I expected her to stumble into some kind of time slip or witness a scene from the past....but no.  So disappointing!

So the story is about Celia Sands who is named after a famous actress who disappeared in the 1920s from a beautiful Italian estate owned by her married lover and a famous playwright.  He has written a special 3-person play just for the first Celia, but it never makes it to the stage due to the first Celia's disappearance.  Alex the great grandson of the playwright decides to open the play on the very same estate and offers Celia's part to the new modern Celia Sands.

There is a lot of details about how the actors prepare for theater starting with the first reading right up to dress rehearsals.  Not my cup of tea, really.  And except for one Tarot card reading with foreboding warnings, one séance, creaking boards, and maybe hearing the dead Celia murmuring late at night, this was just a couple of mysteries from the past and present with flashbacks to the lovers in the 1920s that no one saw or experienced.   This was basically a murder mystery.

I preferred Shadowy Horses or Winter Sea over this one, but I see Susanna already has a new book coming out in April and it sounds like it will be more to my liking with more Jacobite history in A Desperate Fortune.  I have already pre-order for my Kindle.

In the meantime, I started reading Marianna  and I am already halfway through it!  My imagination was captured in the first chapter with the strange coincidences that happened to the main character over a twenty year time leading her to buy a house that she claimed as a child was her house.  Ohhh, and it gets so much better the more I read!  And that's all I'm going to say because I want to get back to my book...

On The Cutting Board
Before I go...
I did get a little ironing and sewing done since my last post.  I just love the way these two owls are coming out!

Happy Quilting!