6-19-16  a different kind of Father's Day!

Just like my birthday, this is another day to sit in the car for hours and hours and hours ... .  Our little trip was coming to an end.  But first, Darryl cooked us a delicious breakfast of pancakes!   Then they took off to church and we took off to Atlanta.
Our view from the dining room table.  I thought it was ingenious how the old hot tub was turned into a koi pond.  

 on the road again!  Love the Tennessee mountains.

 and back to the traffic of the Atlanta outer belt! 

Now to start doing some vacationing in Georgia!

6-18-16 baby shower at the winery!

I wouldn't have thought of Belleville, Illinois, as a place to put a winery!  But they have one and that's where the baby shower was held.  In fact, they were also set up for a wedding and what looked like another shower.  It was all outdoors, but we did have a roof for shade.  There was a nice breeze blowing through the pavilion so it wasn't too bad---even for a very sunny midwest sunny day.
Heading down to our pavilion.

 here comes the mother to be and some friends.

 I thought these were really cute favors!  We actually used our glasses for our bubblie.

 The mother to be.

 view of the pond next to us.

 looking towards the main building.  I was surprised to see a lot of people showed up who weren't even part of the wedding or showers.

I don't think this baby will be lacking anything he needs.  He'll certainly be loved and well cared for.
Back on the west side of the Mississippi, we met back up with Carol and Darryl Hicks and we all went to dinner.  Another great dinner and great company!

6-17-16  trying to fix everything!!!!

Last time we were in St. Louis, I went to my Dr.s to get my prescriptions refilled.  As it turned out, my heart Dr. wanted me to wear a heart monitor for 10 days and come see him again to discuss the results.  This trip worked out being a good time for the followup.  So this morning I went to my followup for the next of my not too fun revelations.  Good news was my EKG and Echo-cardiogram were normal.  Bad news was my A-fib was much worse.  I didn't really think it bother me too much since I've been taking a low dose of Atenolol to keep my heart rate down, but I did feel it for a few minutes almost every evening.  Turned out that the monitor showed I'm in A-fib 22% of the time with the longest episode being about 5.5 hours with 13 episodes over an hour long, and during some of the episodes my heart rate was over 170 beats/minute.  That pretty much shocked me!  He had talked a little about a medicine to help eliminate the A-fib at our last meeting and I expected to hear more about that.  But he bypassed that and went straight to I should have an ablation.  That pretty well shocked me.  Maybe I'm not feeling as good as I can?  He doesn't do the ablation though, so referred me to his practice partner.  Now I have another appointment to go see the new Dr. next month. But I figure I'll go through with the procedure. 
Done with that exciting news, I went to the Ford dealer near my house to see if they'd check out the engine light.  They were having a grand opening with valet parking, high school band, and lots of police directing traffic.  It was quite confusing just getting to the service department.  But once I finally got there, they were very nice and ran the code for me.  I have no idea what it means, but he said I didn't need to worry about it.  So I'm not.

From there I ran back by the house.  Got a few more things to take back to Atlanta.  Also grabbed an extra key and took it to James to give to his Dad to fix our a/c problem before we come back next month.  With the a/c being about 25 years old, I figure it means getting a new one put in. 
Finally got back to the the Hicks's house about 3:30.  I knew Angie would be working on a news letter for her church most of the weekend, so didn't hurry back from the Dr.s office.   She even worked on it out on their patio for awhile.

 I love their yard.  Don't think I could do all the work that they do to it, but I sure do enjoy sitting back there looking at it.  Sure beats looking at the apartments behind our house in Florissant.

 They even had a flag flying.

 More of their yard.

 That evening Angie and I joined the mother-to-be and her mom for dinner.  It was nice seeing them again. 

6-16-16  bright and early to the airport and off to STL, again:

A couple of Angie's friends whose wedding pictures I took at the Biltmore in N. Carolina, recently found out they've been selected as adoptive parents for a little boy who is to be born in Aug.  Angie and I were invited to the baby shower, so we went.  Airfare to STL from ATL isn't bad, so we left bright and early for the airport---somewhere around 6 am!  I even spent the night at Angie and Josh's so I didn't have to have an earlier start!  Turned out Josh was flying out, too, about 15 minutes after us---only he was going to Puerto Rico, not STL.  
Not too often I see the sun rise!  But when I do, it's usually from an airport!

Last time I left through ATL it was quite a bit more crowded.  Took almost an hour just to get through security that time.  Today we got through in about 15-20 minutes.   Our flight was even on time and non-eventful.  That doesn't happen too often anymore! Too bad the rest of our trip didn't go so smoothly!!
Josh's folks picked us up and took us to Gingham's for breakfast.  Then dropped us off at our house.  That's when the annoying stuff of this trip started.  It was still early, but the temperature in the house was reading about 86 degrees.  The a/c was running, but not putting out cool air.  The floor grates weren't even cool, let alone cold.  The 6 pounds of Freon that were added a couple weeks before were gone.  With temps over 100 expected, we weren't about to stay there.  So we started checking out hotels.  Earlier Josh's folks had told us that we were welcome there if the a/c wasn't working, so we ended up taking them up on the offer.  Turned out to be a very good decision.  They made us feel very welcome without making us feel like we were putting them out.  We did our thing and they did theirs and sometimes we did stuff together.   We took over the basement and were very comfortable.
To continue with the "things not going right moments", the car that we were planning on driving back to Atlanta had the check engine light on.  What else could possible go bad?!
That night we all went to dinner with our Ferguson friends (Mayor Knowles and his wife and baby) and caught up on all that commotion.
That pretty much did it for that day. 

6-15-16 more Ivy greenway and our pool:

While on our bike ride a few days ago, we got to talking to a volunteer for the Gwinnett Environmental Center about the bike trail connecting to the Suwanee trail.  I had read that it was going to be connected, but couldn't see how.  He mentioned a trail within the preserve that I hadn't riden on yet.  I had seen it the first time I went that way, but didn't take that trail.  Then I forgot about it.  So today Angie and I went that way after our usual route the other direction.  It's interesting how they choose to just end a trail!
Our dirt/rock/sand route ends here:

 right after you go through this underpass!  Why would you build an underpass like this just to end the trail?!

Then we went the other direction.  It was only another 3 miles or so, but it was up and down some killer hills!  Had to make my bike shift into the first 8 gears---which it didn't want to do.  Never needed to use those gears before!  I even had my bike serviced during our last trip to St. Louis, but I had to manually force it into the first 8 gears.  Anyway----
here's where that trail ends!    A million dollar bridge to nowhere!  Apparently there's a .8 mile dirt path from there that you can't ride bikes on that connects to a 1.5 mile dirt trail you can ride a bike on that links to the Suwanee Trail.  So maybe someday they really will connect the 2 trails!

 Heading back.

 After the series of steep hills on the last part of that trail, it was definitely time to hit the pool!

 It amazes me that a complex can be so large and often I/we are the only ones in the pool!  It was that way in Coral Springs, too!

Not that I'm complaining!!!

6-12-16  more dogsitting:

The pups and I have been getting up and doing the walks.  The kids live in a neighborhood with quite a hill!  I doubt I could ride my bike up it.  Even Molly (the older dog) seems happy to get back to the house.  The pups have settled into their new home really nicely!  Molly has moved a few times, so this was nothing for her.  But this was Micky's first move.  Now the dogs chill together instead of him pestering Molly like he did in Florida.  Nice to see him calming down.

6-10-16  Mellow Mushroom!

No, not a psychedelic drug---but a great pizza!  It's a chain I don't mind going to.  LOVE their pizza.  Funny how we've only been there once since we've lived here!  I guess that's because we don't think of going down into Suwanee for dinner unless we're going with the kids.  All of about 3 miles away! 
Anyway, we are dog sitting for them this weekend.  As an added birthday celebration for Josh, he and Angie took off to a Wyndham Resort at Lake Lure in S. Carolina for the weekend.  So since we were already in Suwanee, I suggested we go to Mellow Mushroom for pizza one night.
Definitely a quirky little restaurant!

 Love their lava lamp chandelier!

 Lousy picture of the pizza, but it was very good!

6-9-16  Josh's birthday!

Nice that they invited us to go with them to celebrate Josh's birthday!  Nice, too, that they always pick great places to go to.  Ken and I end up in routines of going to the same ol' places to eat.
Josh chose to go to Bare Bones Steakhouse in another old building in Old Historic Buford. 

 the restuarant

 Interesting place.  Didn't start out the best of service.  Angie had made reservations a few days before.  Then when we got there, they said all the tables were being held and we'd have to go to a high top.  yet we saw a lot of empty tables.  So after a brief discussion, we were taken to a table.

 The waiter was very good and even apologized for the mix up.  He also said we were getting a complimentary appetizer----which never came.  After our dinner came, we joked to him about how good our imaginary appetizer was.  He, again, apologized and ended up comping the "kids" drinks.  Probably would have comped ours, too, but we had water which was already free.  Anyway---the food was outstanding, albeit a bit spendy.  I got a steak and it was the best I've had since Cunetto's in St. Louis.  (not sure I'll every find a better steak then their Bistecca Soto!)  We also had family style brussel sprouts  as well as mac and cheese that were great. 

I hope we go back there someday---not for the service, but for the outstanding food.  It was a great dinner with great company!

6-8-16 more of the Ivy Mill Greenway:

I stopped at the west entrance to the Eagle Scout project  on the Greenway, today and took a little walk.  This is looking towards the "wetlands".  It's been pretty dry, not much wetlands this summer.

 The boardwalk across the wetlands.  On the other side, there is a path to birding blind.  On a previous ride, I had walked my bike along the trail until I came to the steps leading up to a bridge to the blind.  Figured that's as far as I was going with my bike.

 I finally got Angie to start joining me for a ride.  She's been trying to come over M, W, and F mornings after walking her dogs.  Nice having someone to talk to on the trail.

 My dusty bike.

 a view of the river a little farther down the trail.

So far this summer, we've had very little rain and LOTS of sunshine and heat!  By the time we're done riding, I'm usually ready to hit our pool.

6-6-16 looking for bike trail:

So I looked on Google Maps and tried to find out how to get to the Suwanee bike trail from the Ivy Creek greenway.  I had Ken drive the road to see how busy it would be to get from the end of the Ivy Creek Greenway to George F. Pierce Park where the Suwanee trail starts from the north.  Doesn't look like a good way to ride the bike---pretty busy roads, but I did get to see that it's not that far to drive to if we want to take the bikes there sometime.  That trail is suppose to be about 9 miles long.  Did see that George F. Pierce Park is a large park with lots of ball fields, too.  
the park---

 the rest of the trail

 I hoped to find an indoor pool there, too, but was directed to a different park in Gwinnett county.  Turns out it's only about a mile or 2 from where we live.  I'm looking forward to going there in the winter when our outdoor pool is too cold.  We should even be able to get a senior resident pass.  Could never find a place to go to in South Florida for the 3 months or so when the out side pool got too cool to play in. 

6-5-16  Ivy Creek Greenway and Tannery Ale House:

Been hitting the bike trail fairly regularly.  Stopping here and there to check out the sights along the trail.
This was by the Mill ruins again, but I went down to the bank to look around and take a couple pictures.

 not nearly as much water going over the wall as a few days before.

 Looking downstream from the falls.

 I forget what these are called but they're growing wild all over the place here in north Georgia.

 Another view of the trail near the falls.  It's nice that there are benches along the way, too.  There are usually fishermen above the falls---wonder what kind of fish they're catching?!

 This is a boardwalk off the dirt/sand/rock part of the trail.  Apparently someone made it and a little amphitheater as their Eagle Scout Project.

 I decided to try and lengthen my ride today.  I had read that you could go past the preserve and over a hill and reach the Suwanee Greenway.  So I decided to go up towards the Mill Creek Environmental Center and see if I could find another bike trail.  Along the way I found this historic old house.  Apparently a man from Germany stayed here and in lieu of paying rent, he did a lot of folk art painting inside and out. 

 love the old barn on the property, too.

 Continuing up the hill I came to the back side of the Environmental Center/museum.  Guess we should go there some day!  Then I continued on until the trail ended at a road.  Figured I'd look on google maps later and see if there's a way to get to the other trail, but that was enough for today.  I'm not use to the hills!  In Florida I didn't have to contend with them!!!

 For dinner, Ken and I decided to go into Old Town Buford and check out Tannery Row Ale House.  They use to make leather here, then shoes, then it sat empty.  Now it's an interesting restaurant.  They even show family movies in it on Mon. nights!

 After we ordered sandwiches, we found out they're known for their pizzas.  Guess we'll have to go back!

 As it was, my pulled pork dish was good.

Definitely a place we'll go back to.