I took my little bistro table and chairs out of the shed in the back, plunked them in the middle of my dandelion decorated lawn, fetched my laptop and can of Pepsi, and now I’m ready to write.
It’s a little on the cool side when the breeze blows and the sun decides to play hide and seek behind the occasional cloud, but I’m determined to brave it and to call summer forth by sitting out here in my sandals and shorts. Only 15C (59F), not quite sunbathing weather but whatever sun there is, I’m soaking it up.
A jet just flew by reminding me of my recent travels to New Orleans, Louisiana and Flowery Branch, Georgia where I visited with some long time writing friends. It was a memory building trip I’ll never forget. A glorious gift for which I’m still, everyday, counting my blessings for.
Another awesome part of our travels was having Pat decide to join us. After she read my blog which talked about our travel plans she decided it was just what she needed too. Having her jump in for the ride was a welcomed added bonus to the whole experience.
As a result of this visit, there’s one thing I know for sure and that is that I don’t want our next visit to be another five years in the making. What I’d like is for this to happen again next year and what I would absolutely love is that it would involve everyone who’s part of Write Haven group. I say; why not start pooling our thoughts and ideas and make it a next year visioning plan?
As for this trip, we didn’t end up doing a whole lot of sightseeing, but what we did do, is build precious memories we can cherish until our next time around. We arrived in New Orleans on Sunday and we visited with Barbara until Thursday evening. Friday morning we took an 8 hour drive to Flowery Branch, a little town just on the other side of Atlanta, to visit with Paula and we stayed with her until Monday morning when we started our journey back to New Orleans to catch our flights home.
Two of the touristy things we did do while we were there was to visit the
French Quarter as well as a plantation called
Oak Alley. Of course wherever we went, in the heat of the day Andree often felt like she was going to die, while Pat and I thought we had already died and gone to heaven when the sun and the heat warmed our old bones. Another thing we were thinking of doing was taking a boat ride through the bayou but we ran out of time. That’s okay though, we have to save some stuff to do on our next visit after all.
While at Barbara’s I was showing her what would be the easier way for her to get into a vehicle and once she tried it, it did indeed work better for her. The next time we went to pick her up, she went to do it the old way which was to put her left leg in first. Pat who was holding the car door open for her very calmly said, “ass end first Barbara, ass end first.” That little saying became our motto for the rest of the trip. Ass end first.
On our car rides back and forth through familiar territory Barbara very knowingly navigated us around the streets to where we wanted to go far better than our old GPS ever could. On more than one occasion when we didn’t unplug the GPS Barbara, in no uncertain terms, told Rosemary or Josephine, whichever she happened to name her that day, to shut the hell up!
Thank God for that GPS to help us find our way though, especially when we had to get through Atlanta to get to Flowery Branch to visit Paula. Oh my god! Talk about a huge city to cross with 6 traffic lanes on each side criss-crossing every which way with everyone cruising at 70 miles per hour. It’s a good thing I had Andree doing the navigating while I concentrated on the driving.
After all that driving back and forth to New Orleans and Atlanta and across three different states on all kinds of Inter State Highways, without incident, trust me to bang up the car pulling a U-turn on a dead end street in the middle of a little historic town by knocking over somebody’s mail box. Luckily not too much damage was done but I did bust the tail light cover.
Pissed me off! We didn’t get billed yet for that one yet but I checked it out when I got home and the part itself costs $265.00. Not sure what they’re going to ding me for labor on top of that. But, as they say, what’s done is done. It could have been worse, like getting caught in all those tornadoes and storms, so I’ll shut up, count my blessings and be done.
Apart from that the only other little incident was my foot getting stuck on the floor of Paula’s car. Cracked everyone up except for me who kind of panicked when I gave my leg the command to lift up from the floor and it wouldn’t listen to me.
It took a couple of good tugs before I could set my foot free. And that’s when I realized I had stepped in a big wad of Bubalicious chewing gum and my foot was stuck to the carpet of Paula’s car. The comment from the back seat was; “Annette, are you into wrecking cars? If you ever come to visit me remind me not to lend you my car.” Who needs friends like that?
Me! I need friends like that. Friends who can make me laugh, friends who are true to who they are, friends who can just be. I wouldn’t trade any of them. They mean the world to me. Now and forever as I walk down memory lane.
Look at the size of these trees! Planted in the 1700's. They are 350 years old.
Barbara saying hello to the inch worm and hugging the trees.
The French Quarter
The Bayou and a monkey up in the tree.
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The car which was attacked by a mail box. The result, a broken tail light as you can see.
Knights of the round table at Paula's house.
The trip to the Rockies coming home.
I brought some dried up bread to treat the birds and was pleasantly surprised to find this mama with her ducklings. They are the cutest little things with their yellow down feathers. They certianly captured my attention for a good part of my time out there.
As I walked further down the trail, I was spooked by some noise coming from the bushes, and as I sat still and waited to see what was coming, these young girls appeared. I was envious of the way they were spending their day. It's been a long time since I've been horseback riding. Used to love going as often as I could but I can just imagine the saddle sores if I attempted it now. Still, it would be fun. Maybe I should book myself in for a ride one day.
It was good to get out and about a little bit even if it wasn't the most beautiful sunny day. Between cousnelling and writing, I've been doing way too much sitting on my fanny these days.
