A Happy New Year To You

Is it that time all ready?  Where has the time gone?  My life for over the past month has zoomed by.  So we just got back in a few minutes ago from having a cook out/New Year get together with the neighbors.  We took advantage of the weather being warmer!  (Next week it will be cold again)  Yes, we can no longer stay up til midnight like we used to when all of us would get together, but a few were still hanging out around the outdoor fire.  No dancing this year, man we are getting old!
So to all my fellow bloggers I wish you happiness and most important good health for the coming new year!

A Sunday Drive

 One of the things that I consider important when visiting an area is to see the final resting place of where family is buried.  Weird, I know, but I love looking at when someone was born, when they passed on, and anything else the family may have written.  This cemetery was almost as pretty as where my German grandparents are buried although this one has a gorgeous view.  Here in Middleton, CT you will find my hubby's grandparents buried amongst the hillside along with this very, very, old church.

 

 

 

Some very old grave stones here, but the view is fantastic.  His aunt said that a lot of people will come here just to walk.  I wish we would have had more time as I definitely would have explored it more.  So, next stop was Haddam.

 

Here is the boat that you can take to do tours on the Connecticut river.

 

The building there is what was the old opera house.

 

Doing a turn around I spotted this water fall, and had hubby pull over so that I could get a photo of it.

 

I don't know why I took this one.  I believe it is because the building is so old, and I loved the different colored bricks!

 

I wish we would have had more time since I would have loved to have eaten at the little restaurant across the street. 

 

 

 

This just looked so pretty and peaceful.

 

I would have enjoyed a picnic lunch here!

 

I loved this little area!  A pond, the split rail fence, the gazebo!  This definitely made a nice Sunday drive, and I am hoping that we will be able to explore more next year.

Waiting In Line

A good seafood restaraunt that was damaged by the hurricane. Unfortunately someone forgot to tell the birds!

Blogger problems

 Is anyone else having problems with posting and uploading photos?  I have been going between IE and Firefox.  I have so many photos to show you, and blogger is acting up again. Thanks for any help.

Connecticut shore

Arriving at our destination in Connecticut the first thing I like to do is head for the beach!

Found this cute little stepping stone in a neighbor's yard

Hubby grateful to be standing up rather than the 15 hours of sitting!

Looking out over Long Island Sound and the Atlantic beyond

Really a quaint area, different than the Florida and Carolina beaches that I am use to seeing

I wanted so bad to take this huge driftwood home with me. It could have gone on the roof rack!

Lots of holes, seaweed, etc. on the beaches from Hurricane Irene.  They were cleaning the beaches up while we were there

A few shells and small driftwood as I always have to get some from every beach

I did find this really cool piece of driftwood though so it made it home with me!

The beach was just down the street, and then you had the marsh down the opposite side of the street with all the big boats.

We had really good weather the few days we were there; some of the hottest days yet I had packed for a little cooler temps!  Never thought that a few weeks later that all through that area they would be dealing with a big  storm that left a ton of snow!  These days you never know!

A Virginia Sunrise

This month hubby and I took a very long road trip. It totaled over 2,400 miles so it was quite a trip! We have an uncle and aunt who live up in Connecticut that we were going to visit back in late August/September, but Hurricane Irene took care of that vacation.  So when we spoke with them again they asked us for a favor; if we came up could we take them back with us, and then on down to Florida.  Both of them had health problems this past summer, and our aunt's heart doctor didn't want her to fly.  Being "snowbirds" the Connecticut winters are hard for them to handle these days.  So of course we said yes....I've been longing for a road trip for ages!

 

 

 

We stayed over night in Virginia with my cousin.  The next morning was oh so cold and foggy, but it made for a beautiful sunrise with the fog in the valley.

 

 

This West Virginia rest area was among the prettiest that I have seen! I had to show a couple of photos from it.  After West Virginia came Maryland, Pennsylvania (where I saw an Amish horse and buggy going on a road over the interstate, but I was driving so no pic), then to New Jersey, New York, and then Connecticut.  Going back we avoided that part of New Jersey and New York as it took us longer going that route.  Of course you know how men can be when you say why don't we go this way.......after dealing with that traffic hubby was thankful to avoid it!
I'll have more photos together for more posts soon, but blogger was acting weird last night so I gave up!

Farewell to the roses

The weather is turning cooler here. For the past few nights we have been in the upper 30's which means pull out the blankets, and get ready to say good-bye to the last of the flowers.
Another month has gone by since I've last blogged, but we have been on the road lately.....up to Connecticut and down to Florida. Mission was accomplished, and I will share photos soon, I promise!
Till then, I wish all of you a happy Sunday!

Georgia GuideStones aka American Stone Hedge

Back in the early part of the year our next door neighbors family came down for a visit on their way to Florida. We love getting together with them as they are like family to us too.  Jan and her 88 year old mother
are always on the go, and they both love to garden which is why I probably have so much fun with them.  Plus when they are in town they always cook up a spread.  Can you imagine being on vacation and cooking for everyone?  They do, and man can they cook!  So Jan had read about the Georgia Guide Stones aka American Stone Hedge.  I had never heard of it before, the other one yes, but not this one.
It is located in Elberton County, Georgia about 90 miles east of Atlanta.  They stand almost 20 feet tall, and were made with local granite.  (Speaking of local granite, did you know that Georgia granite was used for a lot of the buildings in Washington, D.C.?)  On these "tablets" there are eight languages:  English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. 

Here Jan up north as we affectionately call her (she's from Wisconsin) since our next door neighbor is also named Jan; is pointing to the hole in the center tablet. 

If you enlarge this you may be able to read  it.

There is also a mystery surrounding the way this was built.  The story goes that a man went to the local bank with the proposal of building the stonehedge.  He had the money for it, but he wanted all of it to be hush, hush as to his funding it.  He swore the banker to secrecy.  Although a name was given it is suppose to be a false one.  Another curious thing is that there is also a time capsule buried next to the Guide Stones.  If you would like to learn more here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones that could give you that information.
Even though I have lived in this state for a long time it took an out-of-towner's curiosity for me to see it.  Sometimes you never know what you have in your own back yard!

What my summer garden produce looked like

Here it is

Yes, this is pretty much all I received this year. Sad, I know, tearful, I know.  We had such  a crazy hot, humid, no rain summer this year.  We put together a new garden  with several different bed areas in it.  Lots of fresh dirt, and I pulled any speck of weed that I found, and kept it watered too. So sad.  I planted so many different veggies.  That squash which is a Galeux d'Eysines, should have weighed 10-15 pounds, and as you can see it was probably a little bigger than a baseball.  It was the only one that survived, and I wish I could say it tasted lovely, however, it was bad on the inside.  All the varieties of squash that I planted got tons of blooms yet each one got this strange fungus on it, and then the bloom dropped off. Beans grow great here, no beans.  It's enough to make a person cry although the weird thing is you could go down the road a ways where someone had a great garden.  Go down another mile or so you would find a garden like mine. Squash and beans always do great here, but definitely not this year.
This has  been one of those summers.  We had planned a vacation up north to visit family in Connecticut, but Hurricane Irene took care of that vacation. Fortunately the flooding did not reach their house only their street. The heat here in Georgia was not the greatest although I should be thankful that it was not like Texas.  We are finally getting some cool weather so I believe it is giving me extra energy to do things again.
So, now that I am feeling better with things I'll be getting back to reading every one's blogs, and posting more than I have this whole summer.  Plus I'll show you a few things that I have been doing around the house.  I have taken my office apart, painted, re-organized, gotten rid of clutter, etc..  I am also starting a fall garden, let's hope it does better than the summer one!  Now let me get this one posted, cook some supper, and then get busy blog reading........I have a lot of catching up to do!  If you see 20+comments you know I've been by!

A trip to St. Augustine

When the girlfriends and I took a short trip to Daytona Beach, Florida back in June we also took a little side trip to St. Augustine, Florida.  It is about 40+ or so miles north of Daytona, so when we were rained out I suggested a quick trip there since it looked like they were not going to get any rain.  Wrong.  Well, we made the most of it even though we did not get to see as much as we wanted.
A little background history on St. Augustine, Florida first thanks to the Wikipedia. It was founded in 1565 by a Spanish explorer and Admiral, and it is the oldest continuously occupied European city and port in the continental US.
So, amidst the thunder and lots of lightening, here are the photos, and since I was dodging lightening so to speak I can't really tell you what all of these places are unless there is a sign in the picture.  We plan on making a trip back down there sometime as it is a really cool place to visit with all of the old history associated with it.

I believe this is some sort of school

This is the area where you can walk along the shops in the old town section.  Lots of interesting things here.

As we were walking through the old town we could hear the old style blue/jazz music and singing.  This restaurant/bar had the music piped outside so you could listen to him sing and play. According to the pizza guy next door the restaurant owner happened upon Charlie Brown playing and singing underneath the big Lions Bridge.  The rest is history.  He gave Charlie Brown a job playing in his bar, and let me tell you, that man can sing! We could have stayed there for most of the evening!

I love this red fountain!

One of my favorite photos

So, if you ever make it to Florida, and would like to see one of our oldest cities, I would highly recommend St. Augustine.  Oh, and one of the best places to eat? Saltwater Cowboy!  Down a little road on the edge of a marsh.