Friday, November 24, 2006

Black Friday

We are going out to do some shopping and help contribute to the economy. I've got several gift ideas and we are going to do our shopping over at the new WalMart between Jonesville & Pennington. We are having several photos printed, just as soon as I can get them uploaded to WalMart. Afterwards we are heading up to Viginia Lee to see how it has changed since the last time we were up there. We may even make a stop up Pucketts Creek. We've heard tell that we might be able to drive to the Rogers graveyard on top of the mountain - we'll see.

Before our shopping trip this morning I gave Mamaw Stapleton a full blown hair cut and trimmed up Mom's a bit on the back.

Our shopping trip to WalMart was a succcess. We found Christmas presents for several individuals on our lists, plus a couple of other things just because. The only problem with our shopping trip was with the WalMart photo department. We had three pictures that we were trying to get printed and they were suppose to be ready once we got there, but....as seems to be the case their machine was broken and they didn't have them ready. We'll try to pick them up in the morning.

We stopped in at Hardees for a quick lunch, before we headed up to Virginia Lee. Oh, what a disappointing sight. There were only a handful of houses left up the road and they were in need of repair and some up keep. It had changed so much since the last time that I had been there. We were leaving Virginia Lee and got stopped by a train. This was super event for Mom - she has been trying to get a photo of a train. The pictures at the crossing didn't work out well, so...I chased the train through St. Charles until we got to a nice parking spot so that we could jump out and take pictures of the train coming back towards us. Of course this did cause some concern among the local residence - they didn't want us to get into trouble for being on the tracks. Being close to the tracks I found a couple of trip 'souveniers' for the guys. I won't tell now what it is 'cause hopefully the fellows are reading about the trip.

On the way back we took another side trip up Pucketts Creek. We rounded a curve in the road to find a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting on the side of the road devouring a squirrel. I stopped as quickly as possible, but the Hawk was a bit quicker than Mom was with the camera. It was beautiful to see, even if she didn't get one we did have a real special treat. It was our inital plan was to get to the top of the mountain to see the Rogers' graveyard. However, this plan was thwarted by the Thomas', they were have concrete poured at the base of the road (which will be a great improvement for everyone). We didn't want to even attempt to go up the road - since we wouldn't have been able to get back down for the next several days until the concrete had completely dried.

After talking with several of the cousins who lived in Pucketts Creek we headed back out. When I got the brilliant idea to tape record the creek....This little project took some time. We would find a spot, stop, I'd jump out and walk over to the creek - tape recorder in hand and stand there for about 2-3 minutes. This went on eight different times. Then there was the picture taking too. I took a few pictures of the creek while laying on my stomach on a walking bridge that crossed over the creek, while taping the sounds of the creek. There were some finches in one group of pines where I was taping and I had Mom try to get a shot or two of them. I could see them just not really well and had hoped that her camera would have given her enough of a distance boost to see them. Alas, the lighting was just not right. Although they were quite interesting to see eating the seeds out of the tiny pinecones.

Our last stop on the way home was at the Niggerhead Rock. Mom wanted to see if she was able to get any photos from a different angle than is normally protrayed. I believe that she has some excellent shots that she will be sharing with us in the near future. I took a few myself and don't think they turned out half bad myself.

This evening Mom has been camped out in the backyard trying to take photos of the crescent moon as it rises up over the ridge. It is getting darker and the moon is getting brighter, but so are the lights from the prision down the way. Although the prision lights do add an interesting glow to the horizon. She really did get some nice crescent moon photos. Yet there were a couple of them that had this really odd refraction from the moon in them. It looks like a green crescent moon - I did a little cropping so that we could share it. I told Mom that it made it look like the 'moon is really made of green cheese.' It is really a fun image.

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Thought for the Day: "Yesterday's thoughts have created your present. Today's thoughts are creating your future." James Newman

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