We don't have that here

Those nasty spots that rendered Lily nearly a cripple as we walked through the airport in Atlanta the other day look like this:

She also has a couple on her thighs some on the back of her legs, some on her side and 3 on the top of her back just below her neck and they are so itchy. I have completely ruled out bed bugs since she is the only one with them and I slept in her bed with her one night just to be sure. Rosie has one really freaky looking long skinny fluid filled blister on her leg but she often get manky things and I didn't give a second thought I just kept putting Germolene on it. In desperation this morning I put a photo of Lilys feet on Facebook and within seconds the diagnosis was in: Poison Ivy. Well DUH, we don't have that here so how on earth was I too know? Bed bugs made more sense to me. I googled it and yes indeed, they both have Poison Ivy so within minutes I jumped into the car and went straight to the pharmacy. Hopefully now the itching will stop and they will feel better. Lily can't wear anything but flip flops. We have decided that the day she caught her cloud is the day she walked through it and getting back into the car she rubbed against Rosie. It's a shame she doesn't share everything so readily with her sister.

Going back that way.

Yesterday we found ourselves in Atlanta as we made our way back home. We were meant to spend a portion of time in Georgia but it didn't happen that way so we will have to do it later. We set the GPS to head for the Atlanta airport and once there I entered places to see and choose the historic district. HAH, demographically that wasn't a good choice...that's all I'll say. We made a quick detour and I chose something else, FAST. We decided to head to the CNN building as we could actually see that. Much better.

It was such a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the sky was cloudless and there was a slight nip in the air if you walked in the shade, which of course, the girls and l did.

Lily thought the CNN sign was awesome!

I love flags


After we left CNN we walked across the street to the Olympic Park. Ironic that on the day off the closing ceremony of the of the Olympics in London we were walking in the park that commemorated the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.

the site commemorating the 96 Olympic games

The girls and I

this park is beautiful and smack dab in the middle of Downtown Atlanta

Then we headed off to the airport for a very uneventful flight back to Miami. Uneventful if you ignore the fact that Lily suddenly became itchy all over her feet and lower legs. She was covered in bites of some sort. Really awful bites and there were tonnes of them. I, due to my OCD and germ phobe brain, immediately became convinced that they were from bed bugs. She could barely walk they were so bad. Being Lily she sucked it up pretty good and being me I had benedryll cream in my purse but it barely helped at all.

It's good to be home.

A little less adventure

These photos are of some places that we fell upon that I just loved for a myriad of different reasons.

I loved being up high with nobody else around.

I told the girls I had bought this place and it was our new house.  Rosie looked very scared, Lily knew better

This church was in the middle of nowhere. 

Just because

A Christmas tree farm. How fun is that, I never see  one before, ever

The sky appears to be imitating the ground.

This one, I just like.

I'm heading to the airport in a few hours....wish me luck, please.

I wanna be a millionaire so freaking bad

When jacob announced that we were going gem mining the words to that song kept going through my head. I really didn't know exactly what it was we would be doing but I had an idea it involved mud and water and by jove I was correct. The girls were really excited, no Lily was really excited and Rosie was just tagging along unsure what she was meant to do.

Once everyone was set up with their stuff Rosie really got into it. I didn't do very much as I was busy helping Rosie and making sure she didn't fall off of the bench. Rosie thought the prettiest thing she found was a sea shell. Go figure. She tried to throw away a large ruby until the chap in charge suggested she keep it. It's so nice up here the people are honest and kind.......lucky for Rosie and her ruby.

It was so much fun. I won't be a millionaire anytime soon, at least not from gem mining but it was something different to do and we had a great time doing it. Lily ended up with the biggest haul and the biggest stone out of all of us, no surprise there.

bb, I couldn't help but think of you and the time you walked part of the Pennine Way and came home with a rucksack full of amethyst.

Lily all excited and raring to go meanwhile Rosie is wondering why on earth she has been given a sieve of mud to play with.

Daddy showing Rosie that she has got some good stuff

Taking their work very seriously

Our work area with a spectacular view........beyond the car park

I just love the old fashioned panning plate

Lily with her stash. To the left of her hand is one big ruby and above that is her pile of emeralds

Rosie with her cache of goods. Her ruby is also in the lower left hand corner.

One little interesting fact we learnt yesterday: North Carolina is the only state that has Emeralds. They are very light, not at all like the dark green Brazilian emeralds we are used to seeing. They actually look more like jade and are exported to China and are sold "as" jade over there. Hmmm, I wonder how many of us bought NC emeralds thinking it was jade??? Darn! The people here are so friendly y'all.

How to catch a cloud

From the first moment that we arrived in the mountains and Lily saw the clouds floating by just above our heads she was infatuated by them. Question after question pertaining to clouds, the fascination never ceased and all she wanted was to touch one, or better yet catch one. It became a running joke, with us asking the same question, "what would you catch it in?",

Finally she decided she needed a jar and she needed to have the jar at the ready as we kept encountering low hanging clouds and she was not prepared and all lunatics scientists are prepared. Today we went panning for gems which was absolutely fabulous and will get a post of it's own and after that we we decided to drive up. Up where we weren't sure but as long as the roads were climbing and our little rental car was grunting and groaning we were happy. We stopped for lunch in a nondescript town and saw a Walmart so we ran in there to buy Lily a Mason Jar but sadly they only sold them by the dozen and that seemed like over kill. I then had the bright idea to buy a jar of anything, run in to the toilet, wash it out and off we would go so that the mad scientist could be prepared. She chose a jar of horseradish ? ? ? I ran into the restroom flushed the contents and scrubbed it clean and of we drove, up and up and up. We stopped along the way at many picturesque spots but the low hanging clouds were elusive today.

The wonderful thing about the mountains is the weather. If you don't like it just change your elevation. We just kept climbing higher and higher. As the roads grew steeper I enjoyed the driving more and more, I have done 99.9% of the driving since we arrived. The clouds finally started to sweep down and Lily got more and more excited.

As I rounded a turn a cloud swept over the road. I couldn't stop as I was on a blind turn at the top of a hill but as luck would have it there was a driveway just ahead so I pulled in. Just as we got out of the car the cloud started "leaking" and we got drenched but I couldn't say no to her at this point. With her jar in hand we ran up the side of the road in the pouring rain. Once at the top she swirled her jar around and around and once she thought she had caught some cloud she slammed the lid on tight. My crazy nutcase kidlet was thrilled. She was beaming and soaked and she couldn't have cared less. Once in the car she showed Jacob and Rosie her cloud. And as I sit here typing this inside her jar has a tiny little swirling thing of moisture.

Kidlet caught a cloud!

What I didn't know was Jacob was taking photos and video. The photos are pretty bad as he isn't used to my camera  and he didn't think to change the settings.

 

You can see the cloud clearly here. It is NOT fog

Some crazy Mother and her child racing after a cloud in the rain

Looks like we are nearly there.

Just another day in the life of me.

Grandfather Mountain

I have a penchant for being outdoors and in large open spaces so today we headed to Grandfather Mountain. It was glorious, really it was. You should jump in your car now, right now, and head to North Carolina. Some of you might need to take a plane but that's just fine, go ahead and book your tickets.


The views were stunning, breathtaking in fact in certain places. We laughed as our little Nissan rental car chugged and puffed its way up the mountain roads. Of all the times to have an SUV parked in my driveway at home.

We stopped at all the possible places where you could get out and walk about and then once we made it to the very top we walked the mile high swing bridge and then Lily and I walked a trail back down and to the first/last parking area and Jacob and Rosie drove down and waited for us. Lily had wanted to hike up but a certain lazy bones had decided that it would be a dreadful idea so I promised her I would hike back down with her. We had a brilliant time and literally came face to face with a deer.

As we sat outside eating our lunch the humming birds were flocking to the feeders and at one time there must have been about 10 of them. It was gorgeous. Rosie couldn't believe that birds come in bright yellow, those were the chaffinches, (luckily for me Val had posted about them recently, thank you.)

The girls underneath Split Rock

Lets get  moving

The girls with Mildred

A hummingbird having lunch

yikes...a bear

1 mile high

don't move...at all

centre point of the bridge

the girls and I at the tippy top

Girls on a bridge

Ro

Lily on the trail we took back to the car. It was so steep in some parts, such fun.

Same kid, same trail, same fun.

The deer we encountered

Our view from the bottom of the trail

Must dash, more adventures to be had.

Zip a dee do da kinda day

Warning: this post is heavy on photos. Yesterday when we were driving around we saw a huge billboard for a ziplining adventure so we drove up the mountain to investigate. We arrived at 5.04pm and it closed at 5.00pm so we drove back down. This morning right after breakfast we drove back up. We arrived just in time and the lady said if you want to go zip lining hurry otherwise you are going to have a really long wait. I filled out the paperwork, Jacob ran and dropped some stuff off in the car and the guides started getting the girls into their harnesses. It all happened so fast which is a really good thing as I didn't have time to realise I was going to have to wear a hat that someone else had worn on their head or gloves that someone else had worn. As we were getting ready at warped speed Lily cracked up laughing and made a comment about community clothing and looked at me and the guide tried so hard to make me feel better. I sucked it up like a big girl and promised myself I would bathe in bleach when I got home, if I lived.

 With the harnesses on we climbed on to a platform, met the guides that we were zipping with and took off. It was fantastic. Mallory and Philip were incredible and made what would have been a great adventure a thousand times more fun. Lily and Rosie were able to zip line solo for most of the lines but for a couple of them they had to go tandem. Since you all know what a fruit loop Rosie is the best way for me to explain how amazing these guides were is to tell you that when Rosie found out she had to go with Philip, alone, and go first with out anyone she knew at all, she took off laughing. It was such fun. We flew,for miles, 4 miles in fact on various wires. It was non stop fun. well we stopped occasionally when fools like myself didn't quite make it to the end.

The kids did great, no fear, no mistakes. Obviously Rosie wasn't tall enough to reach the line so she couldn't break so when she got to the end Philip had to catch her but Lily did the breaking part just fine. We also got to walk over a couple of swing bridges which in my opinion were almost as great as the ziplines. We were fortunate that we had one other family in our group and they were lovely. If you are ever in Seven Devils N.C. and want to Zip Line I highly recommend Hawksnest but you really need to try it with mallory and Phillip as your guides.

Harnessed and ready to zip

I think I have just realised some one else has worn that hat as I appear to be gritting my teeth,

We sent Rosie first

off she goes, solo

now it's Lily's turn

She was flying

my outdoor girl loving every second of it

Rosie looking a bit tired. All that kit was heavy and it was hot but she never complained once, she loved it

the frist bridge, this one was really wobbly

Nope, I'm not scared

THe big guy, it really wobbled when he came over

Mission accomplished

Driving home I spotted this oldbarn. I've never seen a "proper American" barn before and I loved it.

I seriously think I am living in the wrong State. How the hell did I get stuck in Florida? I might chain myself to that old barn and refuse to leave.