Pittsboro, NC

 Keith and Denise offered to come to Pittsboro and help me with some chores!!  So Denise and I rode together - stopping by the Asheboro Airport for a bit.  Denise got a tour and met all the folks there.

 

Saw that the new hangar is coming along nicely.

 

Then we stopped by the Siler City airport - and got to see a nice corporate jet take off to Arkansas.

 

The next day, I had a couple of airport meetings to attend.  Keith and Denise stayed at the house and did all the mowing/weed-eating/leaf blowing/etc!!  Taking a rest on the under-the-porch-swing.

 

Keith on the small tractor doing some touch up mowing.

 

 

A little overhead view.  Denise volunteered to powerwash our sidewalk!!

And then Crazy Lady volunteered to take over mowing some of the runway!!

So wonderful of them to help us out and fun to visit!

Mills River, NC

 Driving back to Keith & Denise's house last night....peaceful.

Hendersonville/Mills River, NC

 Still hanging in the mountains.  It's been soggy rainy for the entire week - finally getting a glimpse of sunshine!  Down to Keith and Denise's garden this morning.  It obviously loved the extended rain!

I was sent away with bags of goodies to take to Duane's folks house....

 

And the view from the McCraw ranch, haha.  Hope the sunshine wins out!

Hendersonville/Mills River, NC

 I know, I'm getting a bit remiss in updating here....

I'm staying at my sweet brother & sis-in-law's place.  In Mills River, there is an abundance of albino squirrels.  Unfortunately, they love to eat the bird seed on the deck....

Pretty though....

 

An updated view of their  beautiful garden.

They share their bounty!  Amazing huge head of cabbage and a dozen fresh eggs....

 

We had a few hours to kill today so we decided to take a little hike in the Dupont State Forest.  Strangely, growing up here we had never visited the park.  Miles and miles of trails. 

 

We hiked about 2 1/2 miles on the loop trail to a couple of waterfalls.  It was overcast and misty - keeping the crowds away.

 

Hiking up and down the mountainside.  The water gently flowing between the waterfalls.

 

Another nice hiker offered to snap our photo in front of the Triple Falls.

 
And a final shot showing all three falls.  A fun outing.

Hendersonville

 I was able to break free and spend an hour visiting my favorite ex sister-in-law and my mom for lunch. Good fun catching up!

Hendersonville/Mills River, NC

 Just hanging in the mountains!  My mom treated me to a lovely dinner last night, we sat up chatting until 1130. Way past cruiser midnight!  Here she is bringing me this huge broccoli head from her garden. I’ll take it over to Duane‘s mom‘s house and put it in a stirfry tonight.  Nothing else noteworthy happening….

Hendersonville, NC

 After spending the morning at the airport for a hangar construction meeting.....

I drove through Charlotte traffic....definitely not my cup of tea!

And made it to the mountains uneventfully for a little parental visiting! 

 

Pittsboro,NC

Kind of a bit of a “spa day”!  I treated myself to a Great Clips hair cut as my hair had gotten a bit “large” and too warm. Always wait so that a lady name Maria can cut my hair. Amazingly she’s been at the same location for about 10 years.  Nice and cool now!

Then I went shopping in an actual Kohl’s store. My mom had given me a gift card and it was perfect timing. The only shoes that I’ve been wearing lately have been my worn out boat shoes. It’s really time for a change. So I wanted to shop in person rather than just order online for something new. I found these new balance shoes, and I just love them! They weigh about an ounce each, and they actually pull on, the ties are really just there for show. Love them! 

Pittboro, NC

 I needed to do a little more paperwork at the Asheboro airport.....busy day out there!  Beautiful weather.  

We felt extra protected with a crew of 8 highway patrolmen there from the two helicopters!  (They were doing some FAA checkrides).

Pittsboro, NC

 Getting some more home chores done....I spent a good part of the day doing the yearly bleach/pressure wash our house.  It's fairly shady around the house and the siding always has a patina of mold on it when we return from the Bahamas.

 

 

The concrete needs some attention as well but that will have to wait for another day...

And our oldest, Robert, came over to do some car repair in the hangar....and we had a lovely evening and meal.  Nice to visit!

 

Pittsboro, NC

 Sitting on the deck this morning at Eagles Landing drinking my coffee. Absolutely gorgeous weather so cool and dry. Strange for this time of year in Central North Carolina! Lots of activity at the airport today, beautiful sky, and all I have to do is look up and there’s a Piper Cub, circling the airport.

Concord, NC

Duane has driven up to the mountains again to help out his folks.   I stayed behind and got caught up on some airport work.  Since I didn't have Duane to go home to yesterday evening, I drove the 45 minutes to Concord to visit with my sweet sissie and her hubby.

 

We went into downtown Concord to a new pizza place.  Yummy basil/fresh mozzarella with balsamic glaze pizza for me.

 

Back at the house after a lovely dinner, I had brought one of my favorite hanging kitchen towels to my resident-string-fixer.....she had it repaired in a jiffy!

 

Good as new!

Then they whipped out the birthday celebration.  We'd not been together since my birthday....fun pressies - some of the "Greens Seasoning" that I have not been able to find....a couple of beautiful colored dish cloths and a great "scrubbie".  (I had selfishly told her before that the lovely white ones she makes turn an awful color on the boat since I don't really do "bleach loads" on the boat).  And our boomerang birthday card, we've been sending the same card for many, many years back-and-forth.

 

A close up of the dishrag - a sailboat if you hadn't noticed!!

 

 Since the boat has just been sitting at the dock for 6 weeks, yucky slime has grown at the waterline.  I finally decided it was time to bite the bullet and go scrub it off...

Easy peasy.  The bottom paint we applied last fall is doing well - no barnacles at all, just soft slime-algae.  It brushed right off.  I was in the water just about an hour to scrub the entire waterline.  Looks good for now.  I guess I'll be doing this every 6 weeks now!

Oriental, NC

 A bit sad for us, but happy for them...What If shoved off for the summer season.  They'll slowly travel to NY where they'll meet up with two sets of grandkids for some visiting.  Glad they're able to get some cruising in this year!

Photo Ed took from the night before - they treated us to yet another nice supper.

 

 Off they went, beautiful day!

 

Later, Duane and I took a walk - different view of Sojourn.

 

And late in the evening, I got out my new sous vide cooker....interesting tool.   Just getting the hang of it but I hope to do lots of cooking with it.  Hard to see but I've marinated some mahi-mahi fillets in olive oil and spices.  Forgot to take a photo of the finished product but it was tasty and perfectly cooked.  I'll be experimenting more with this in the future.

Oriental, NC

 Getting back to "normal" around the boat.  We haven't mowed the lawn on the "extra" lot near Oriental since last fall....time for that chore.

The lot is looking better every year as all the dead trees and brush piles wither away to nothing....

 

Luckily,  our buds on What If and Charm have been keeping the dock-lot looking nice and manicured so we don't need to mow it for a while!

And since I whined so much when my microwave broke in the Bahamas this winter, thought I'd let you know that all is well in the world now....new microwave installed!  An almost exact replica of my old one so it fit the small space perfectly.

 

Oriental, NC

Yay!!! We decided that we could make a quick run down to the boat.  We haven't been aboard since we returned from the Bahamas in late April.  But we've had our various boating buddies checking in, going aboard - they would have told us if  anything was amiss!  

I took this photo from Charm's blog - this is our dock a few weeks ago when there were 4 Manta's all around!

 

When we went inside the boat, we had a couple of surprises on the salon table....our buddies from Charm and Breathe left us thank you notes and prizes.  They REALLY SHOULDN'T HAVE!!!!  We are happy to have our friends use our dock any time there is room.  

 Love the dish towel - it will be lovingly used and mates for the ones like my sweet sissie has given me over the years - 

 We had to haul a mountain of soft goods back to the boat so took us an hour or so to get comfortable.  (All the linens and clothes were removed for a good wash after the winter in the Bahamas!)

We got a big happy welcome from Ed and Cathy on WhatIf.  They'll be leaving on Monday to head to the New York area for the summer so we're happy we could time our visit to see them.

 We have new neighbors on the creek...it's two fellas from the western part of the state.  They have done a lot of earth work and appear to be having a good time making a retreat for themselves.  They have small boats - here is Joe out sailing a tri-maran.

Here is the view over to their property from Sojourn.

 

 Andy came over to our dock and invited Ed, Cathy, Duane and I over for "appetizers" in the evening.  It was a full plus-size meal!! Quite the host.

Both Andy and Joe have camper-trailers semi-permanently installed. A neat set-up.

They have lots of "toys".  Looking back thru the trees to Sojourn and What If.

A fun evening and I'm sure we'll see Andy and Joe often.