Thermalgal’s Temperate Mumblings

What a week!

I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while. We had a big storm go through the area on Tuesday night (even an unconfirmed tornado sighting) and it took out our phone line. DH was supposed to call the phone company Wednesday, but he forgot. Then we left on Thursday for a 4 day/3 night backpacking trip in Shenandoah National Park. We came back to the phone still being out, so I’m writing this now with the hope that I’ll be able to upload it tomorrow when I go to Sue’s for BBQ and swimming.First off, a very very big thank you to “A Stitching Friend” and “ASF’s Helper”. I received the packaged Wednesday night. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to post anything to thank you for the wonderful generosity earlier. I was all choked up and almost in tears when I realized what I was opening. I wanted to run upstairs and post right away to get the thank you out… but our phone was still down. ASF was kind enough to send me a signed copy of Dracolair’s Phoenix (with accessory threads) and Something Different’s Ione. Too many projects I want to start… not enough time!And then the next morning, we left for our 3 night/30 mile backpacking trip. We got back this afternoon. We hiked about 8 miles a day for the first three days and then only 4 miles the last day. I had to get back for a 6:30 pm meeting.During our hiking we saw lots of cool scenery, thru-hikers (we did part of the Appalachian Trail), 3 deer, and 5 bears! We saw a mom bear with 2 cubs on Friday morning just as we got back on the trail, an adolescent bear trying to scare a couple having a picnic at Elkwallow Picnic Area, and another bear this morning when we had been on the trail for less than a mile. I have pictures on my old digital camera (didn’t want to take my new digital camera with us). So, I’ll post them at a later date (once I find all the cables and such). I also happy to report that I wasn’t terrified one night during this trip! I’m usually terrified that a bear or murderer or wild cat will come and kill us during the night. I was much more laid back about the whole bear thing this time. Even when we saw the mommy bear and her cubs, all I did was stop point the bear out to my DH and waited for the bear to run away from us. It went something like this… Mommy bear to little cub: Humans! Get down the tree now, we have to go!… The bears were definitely more scared of us than we were of them. I’m really really glad that Shenandoah has black bears and not grizzlies. So, to celebrate the absence of my bear fear… I bought a little stuffed black bear. I named him Thornton after the trail we camped near our second night out (and our first night with Thornton). I’ve been wanting a small stuffed black bear to take with us backpacking (to keep the other bears away).It was a really good trip and it really bought home the important things in life… like toilet paper.We got home (after our traditional stop at Cracker Barrel) before 3, took a nice shower and then crashed for a nap. I’m glad I set the alarm, otherwise I would have slept through my meeting! I’m feeling okay. I have a blister on each heel and my ankles, calves, and shins are a big sore. I also have tons of bug bites. But other than that, we are doing really well. This was our longest trip to date. We’ve done 2 night trips before, but this if the first 3 nighter.My meeting… well, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on the blog or maybe I have, I can’t remember. But I’m going to Honduras for 10 days in August to help build houses. It is a yearly (and sometime bi-yearly) trip that the pastor from Glade UCC organizes. Every other year the pastor from my church (Grace UCC) goes and this year he convinced me to go too. I’ve been going to the Garret County (Maryland) Habitat work camps that my church organizes, so this is just taking it one step further. So, today was the first orientation meeting where we met everyone. I knew three people there. Pastor Joe and another lady from my church and a guy I graduated with and haven’t seen in 14 years. I shouldn’t have been suprised to see him. I knew that was his church and that he was the organist there. But I haven’t seen him since he lost a lot of weight (a friend told me this a couple of years ago). And he is so much different than the guy I’ve known since 1st grade!