Snow in the Mountains

 

 

Blairsville, Ga, (high 50, low 27)

I can’t remember the last time we’ve been anywhere where the weather was cold as it was yesterday.  The high temperature was only 37 degrees.   The wind was whipping all day long, with the occasional strong gusts that shook the motor home.  The sun never came out, so that made it even worse. 

It was too cold for the heat pumps, but fortunately our two little quartz heaters kept us nice and toasty all day without having to run the furnace.  Our furnace is our least favorite option for heat.  It’s noisy, and the dry air bothers our sinuses.   We turned the furnace on a few times, just to make sure it still worked and to heat up the basement.  We also kept the bay heaters turned on all day.

Today should be a better day.  The sun is already coming out, so we’ll soon be getting some nice free solar power!

We went up to the local favorite Jim’s Smokin’ Que yesterday for some bbq and Brunswick stew.  Afterwards, we decided to take a drive to check out the snow at higher elevations.

Brasstown Bald mountain is the highest peak in Georgia, so we headed that direction.

Despite the wind and cold, there was still some pretty color.

The higher the elevation, the more snow we saw.

It looks so cold up there.

It was a pretty ride.

 

We got up to Brasstown, we discovered the road leading to the visitor center was closed because of all the snow on the road.

It’s a pretty steep road with sheer drop offs, so I guess that was a good idea.  I’ll bet it was pretty from the top of the mountain.

A lot of other people had the same idea, I guess.

Someone made a snowman!

It was a small snowman. Can you see it?

This guy was going hiking.   Burrrrrr

These people were having a snowball fight. Notice the snowball I caught in midair?

We didn’t stay too long, because we turned the heaters off while we were gone and the little darlins were probably freezing.  :)   Just because they have fur, doesn’t mean they don’t get cold too.

This is a view of our campground.  You can see the trees are getting pretty bare.

There is still some nice color around the campground though.

Right across the street from our lot.

 

Our lot.

Since it was so bitter cold yesterday, we got nothing done in our preparations to head south.  We we won’t be leaving tomorrow.   Al still needs to drain the waterheater and washing machine in the cabin.  The hot tub also needs draining, cleaning and winterizing.  Hopefully the weather today will be more conducive to working outside.

We love our little home in the mountains, but I think it’s time to head south.

What do you think?

Snow

 

Blairsville, Georgia (high 40, low 25 with snow flurries)

 

Well, we got our wish. 

Last night around 11pm, it started to snow.  Big fat snowflakes, and lots of them. Baxter sat on the window ledge for the longest time watching them fall. He was so cute.

Al and I were pretty impressed to.  It has been a LONG time since we’ve seen falling snow.

I got up several times during the night to see if we had a blanket of snow on the ground.  We didn’t, but it snowed a little off and on during the night.

This is what we see outside our bedroom window this morning.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stick to the ground, but I guess that’s good because at least the roads won’t be slippery.  We have our hearts set on some Brunswick Stew from the local BBQ, Jim’s Smokin Q. 

I was afraid to walk onto the deck.  It was very slippery.

The poor birds are hungry and the birdfeeder was full of snow.  Al has since remedied this situation and now there is big fat dove sitting there.

 

 

After almost 4 months here in Blairsville, we have really settled in, and so we have a lot of preparation to do to leave.

We worked around here most of the afternoon yesterday, reorganizing, and moving things around.   We still have to winterize the hot tub and cabin water systems.   That didn’t get done yesterday, and now today, it’s cold and very windy outside, so that won’t be a pleasant job.

The patio furniture all goes into the cabin, but now it’s all wet.  

I guess we won’t be leaving tomorrow.

Okay.   We’ve seen snow, we’re over it.  If it’s not going to snow enough to cover the ground, then I’m ready for the sun to come out and the wind to die down.  Some sunshine  and warmer temps are starting to sound kind of nice.

It is definitely time to head south.

Merikay and Craig, aren’t you glad you left when you did?

 

Maybe we should be on the Overseas Highway?

 

Snow in Tampa?

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 65, low 41)

 

For the past 8-10 days, the buzz on the local Tv channels, has been about the chance of snow in the Tampa area this coming week-end. 

Our favorite local meteorologist, Denis Phillips (Mr. Suspenders) had had some fun on Facebook, teasing us about this possibility.  It’s hard to believe, but there are actually people in Florida who have never seen snow.

Several of the computer models have been showing the possibility of snow Saturday night or early Sunday morning. 

 

The last time I saw snow in Tampa was 1977.  There was enough snow to accumulate on the ground and of course it caused a  lot of accidents that day. 

 

The following picture is from the 1977 snow.  Notice the hair style?

 

I guess we’ll see how the snow prediction plays out this week-end.   We will definitely have some cold temps for the next week and may not even get into the 70’s all week!   I know that doesn’t sound cold to you northerners, but for us it’s cold.  Florida cold always seems colder for some reason.  :)

 

We haven’t been doing anything exciting around here.  Our days are busy, and we don’t seem to find enough time to get everything done, but unfortunately we haven’t had the time to do any kayaking. 

We have been going to the gym most every day.  I’ve had some problems with my right shoulder and have been unable to do most of the upper body exercises.  I suspect have a bone spur that is causing rotator cuff pain.  I’ve been through 3 rotator cuff surgeries with Al, so I know the symptoms.

Al’s been pushing me to see a doctor and get a cortisone shot, but I’m trying to avoid that if I can.  For the time being, I’m self-treating.

I’m taking ibuprofen, and eating lots of fruits and veggies for the anti-inflammatory properties.  I’ve  also started taking curcumin/turmeric for the anti-inflammatory benefits, as well  as using Joint Flex Cream .  The pain seemed to improve when I started using Joint Flex, but it could have been all the other things I was doing.  Joint Flex is great stuff though, if any of you have any aches or pains.  You can get it at Walmart for about $13 I think.

Al is outside playing “cornhole” with a neighbor.  I think I’ll skip that until my shoulder is better.

 

We’ve been on our Vegan diet about 7 months now. 

I remember the first day we decided to give it a try.  We told ourselves, we would see if we could do it for just one day.  That was easy, so we went another day, and another.  It’s now become a permanent change I think.

I remember when we first met David and Sherry and found out they were vegan.  Al told me (many times) “I will never go vegan.  Don’t you ever  ask me to.”   We still laugh over that!

I never did ask him to.  I also had no intention of becoming vegan either….until I read the book “The China Study” and watched the video “Forks over Knives.”

We consider ourselves 99% vegan.  When we want something non-vegan, we have it, but we don’t do it all that often.  We like knowing we can eat whatever we want.  We try to get a lot of variety or fruits and veggies into our daily diet.  The Blendec blender makes it easy by making a smoothie every day.

We  found a new restaurant we can get a quick and inexpensive vegan meal.  It’s called Tijuana Flats.  We normally have a wheat quesadilla with black  or refried beans.  We don’t have cheese or sour cream on it and it’s delicious, especially with all their choices of hot sauce.  It’s nice to have a place we can go besides Subway.

When we first started eating vegan, the pounds dropped very quickly.  The longer we were vegan, the more variety of foods we found to eat and probably the more calories we consumed.  We both gained a few pounds back and then hit a plateau.

We’ve been watching the fat content a little more and substituting cooking with olive oil, to cooking with a veggie broth or Olive oil spray. 

Whether it’s because we’re going to the gym most every day, or the cooking, or both, but we’ve both lost a little more weight.  I hope the trend continues.

Al is down 18 pounds and I’m down 17.  We still have more to lose, but it’s been very easy and we still eat all we want, so we haven’t felt like we were “on a diet.”

Many people think all Vegans eat is tofu and vegetables.  I can tell you, that is far from all we eat.

We still have our favorite foods like taco’s, pizza, spaghetti, and lasagna.

We’ve learned to love new foods like, Red beans and Rice, veggie/potato scrambles (compliments of Sherry) and many bean dishes and soups.

The dish below has potatoes, onions, garlic, spinach and “sausage”.  It was yummy.

Here is the “sausage”  Another Light Life product.

We discovered Light Life products and they have given us back our “ground beef.”  I don't believe anyone could tell the difference between this and ground beef when mixed in spaghetti, or lasagna.  The taste and texture is the same. The grocery stores (except Walmart) carry these products too, so we can  get them anywhere.

We’re hoping our health has improved with all the exercise and diet changes.  I guess we’ll know when Al gets his blood work done in the next month or so. As a test, he quit taking his Lipitor (with the doctors approval) a few months ago.  The blood work will tell if he will be able to stay off of it or not.

 

I’ll report back with pictures if we get any snow!