A Big Red Truck Came to our Home

Hmmmmmm.... A big red truck pulled into our yard yesterday.... Wonder why????

NO----the men in the little white coats didn't come after me!!!!! And NO---I don't have the flu!!!!!! Hmmmmmm---what were they here for????? Come inside!!!

Wow.... Our fireplace got some new clothes... Do you like them????? Seems like they could have chosen a fancier color!!! Actually, if you haven't figured it out yet, this is the annual job done by our Chimney Sweep company.... And NO---little tiny men don't climb up in the chimney and sweep it... These days, they use a huge vacuum --and suck all of the grit and grime out of the fireplace and chimney!!!!!

This is the big vacuum--- which had a nice lunch of grit and grime from our chimney. NO--there were no small animals involved!!!! ha ha .... A big tube hooks into the fireplace/chimney and then comes out of the front door and hooks onto this vacuum.... Too bad they didn't stay awhile and vacuum my home too. Darn!!!!

Here's one more picture of how they cover the fireplace. You can see the black tube coming out in the middle... You can also see some beautiful roses sitting on our coffee table. (I didn't notice this until I looked at the pictures.)

Chimney sweeps do a great job these days --and believe it or not, it is a very clean job! They cover everything --and the entire cleaning takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

Can you hear our chimney/fireplace purring tonight???? Mr. Chimney got his back scratched and got a make-over.... Wow!!!!!

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Several of you have asked where we live. We are on a side street --with very little traffic (thank goodness) ---and we live on a golf course. Enlarge this Google Earth picture ---and look for the red print with an arrow --showing "Our Home"....

This is a 'protect the trees and wildlife' area... If you cut down any trees, you have to get permission --and then replace them with new trees. That is one thing I love about the area. It is truly like 'living in the woods'.

We have an empty lot (wooded) next door and there was one across the street until they built another home over there. We had almost total privacy until the house across the street was built... Grrrrrr!

You can barely see our home because we are surrounded by trees (except in front) ---but you can see a few of the homes in our area ---where there aren't as many trees. We love our little home --and it's perfect for a couple of retirees!!!!

My only regret is not buying somewhere where we had more land --and more privacy. But--we are very safe here; so overall, we truly are blessed.

Have a great Wednesday...

Hugs,

Rich Mountain Drive

After visiting the Methodist Church in Cades Cove last Thursday, we drove somewhere we have never been before. We drove across Rich Mountain on a one-way gravel road.... It was FANTASTIC---and we had a great day. Here are some pictures taken as we went over that mountain... Above is the sign telling about the road. Below are more!

Here's what the road ahead of us looked like for the most part. I'm glad it was one-way --so that we didn't have to worry about traffic going the other direction. The road was in fair shape --with some big ruts in places that Mrs. P (and George) did a great job of missing!!! Overall, it was fun being 'way back' in the mountains!!!!

We stopped at an overlook so that we could see Cades Cove. Enlarge this picture and you will see the Methodist Church that I talked about in yesterday's post... Click HERE if you missed that post.

This picture is looking toward the right ---from that overlook. Cades Cove is a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains.

This picture was taken looking toward the left. You can see the gorgeous Smoky Mountains --and some of Cades Cove.

On farther up the mountain, we found another small overlook. We need to go back when the leaves are off of the trees to get better pictures of the cove from this spot. George had to climb up a bank above the road to get this picture.

There wasn't much Fall color yet in the mountains, but you can see some color on the dogwood tree toward the right side of this picture.

Finally, we made it to the other side.. This picture was taken on the Tuckaleechee side of Townsend, TN. In the 1820's, when there were no schools in Cades Cove, the children from the 'cove' were transported across that mountain to attend school in Tuckaleechee Cove. Since it was a rugged trip across the mountain, the children were boarded at the school there.

Pictured above is Rich Mountain --which we had just crossed!!!!

We love our geo-tracker--- because it not only keeps track of where we take our pictures. It also tracks our entire trip!!!! Enlarge the map above and you can see where we went last Thursday. We went the same way both coming and going until we got to Townsend. We took the road to the left around and into Cades Cove. Then we turned right, to go over Rich Mountain.

Once we got to the bottom of the other side of Rich Mountain, we got lost. We went the wrong way TWICE --trying to get back out to the highway. Our GPS (which could have helped tremendously) wasn't with us that day (due to a recall), and the roads were not marked. SO--we just took a couple of side trips --the WRONG WAY....

On the map above, you can see where we turned right and sorta went around in a circle once, and then went to the end of another road before turning around and trying again. Finally, we went LEFT and then had no trouble getting back out to the highway... It was a fun side trip though... George did his blog yesterday on this and published a close-up map of our Townsend adventure as we tried to get out of that area without our GPS!!!! Click HERE to read what he said about this adventure!!!!

I have one more set of Rich Mountain pictures which I will share with you soon.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Hugs,