Camping Near Duke

For the past couple of months we have been staying near Duke University in order for our aunt to receive treatment for a brain tumor that was discovered a few months ago.

Misty's aunt is living with us in the RV, which makes our close quarters even closer.  But it has all been good and believe it or not, we have not gotten on each others' nerves at all.

If anything it has been a real pleasure to offer our RV to our aunt so that she would not have to pay for a hotel for her three months of treatment and doctor appointments.  Family takes care of family and we feel God has given us this way of life, so that we could assist in this matter.

The kids with Aunt Lynn.

While attending service at Hope Creek Church, we met a family who invited us over for dinner one Sunday evening.  We had such a great time and before leaving we made plans to get together again.

 We ended up visiting the Sarah P. Duke Gardens on a Wednesday  afternoon which is fifty five acres of beautiful gardens, landscapes, ponds, and woods located in the center of Duke University's campus.  Here is a map of the gardens, if you are interested.

There are over five miles of trails that take you through it all with beautiful views of water fountains, and four distinct types of gardens.  Free admission is a big plus and it never seems to be very crowded even though it receives over 300,000 visitors a year.

Welcome to Duke Gardens.

Entry gate to the gardens.

Walkway down to the Mary Duke Biddle Rose Garden / Roney Fountain.

Courtney, Avery, Tia, Ian, Chloe, Ethan, Don, & Misty posing in front of the fountain.

One of the cute gazebos that bridge one garden section to another.
This one is between the Historic Gardens and the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants.

Even the rest room's architecture is pleasant to the eye.

The Pergola viewed from the Historic Terraces.

Molly and Avery enjoying the fish in the Historic Terraces and Fish Pool.

Another view of the Pergola from the Historic Terraces.

A nice spot to rest while enjoying the bamboo in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum.

The garden at the Burpee Learning Center and a reconstructed tobacco barn.

A tub of meat eating plants.

A beautiful pitcher plant.

A Yellow Pitcher Plant with a view of its deadly water.  Deadly to insects, that is.

My favorite meat eating plant, the Venus Flytrap.

Another deserving fly that ended up as a meal.

Cute little piece of citrus fruit named Calamondin which is also known as a miniature orange, but used more like a lime.

Beautiful steps of stone and a grist mill grinding wheel. 

All in all we had a wonderful time with our new friends and really enjoyed our walk through the gardens.  We walked a good two plus miles that day, so not only did we enjoy our company and surroundings, but felt good in the fact that we got some much needed exercise.

It was also nice to let the kids run wild and burn off a lot of their stored up energy.  It is always easier to put them to bed on days like these, when we wear them plum out.  The trick is to let them wear out, without wearing you out in the process.

One of the many frogs at the Blomquist Pavilion pond.

The pond at the Blomquist Pavilion was a perfect backdrop and had just enough stepping stones to get a picture of all the kids, including Allison and Molly, who are two of our friends' kids from church.

Ethan, Allison, Avery, Tia, Courtney, Ian, & Molly at the Blomquist Garden pond.

 Also during our walk the kids had a chance to feed the waterfowl while at the Garden Pond in the Culberson Asiatic Arboretum section of the gardens.

Ethan, Allison, Ian, & Avery feeding the waterfowl at the Garden Pond.

We want to thank God for all of his blessings and the opportunity to help out our family in their time of need.  We also want to thank Him for guiding us to such good friends while on the road and keeping us safe.

Everywhere we have gone, we have always met just the right people to make our stay a better one.

Coincidentally one of the neighbors in the RV lot next door is actually from Fayetteville, West Virginia and knows where the Lively Family land is at, in Fayette County, where my father grew up.

Another coincidence is that an eleven year old girl, that the kids met just down the street, is also from West Virginia and still has family living in Charleston, close to where we used to live.

I've always heard that the North Carolina license plate is an alternate West Virginia license plate due to West Virginians migrating to North Carolina for work, so maybe it is true since everyone we met, seems to have connections to West Virginia.

Until next time may God bless you too!

Thanks!
Don, Misty, and Kids...

 

Strawberry Fields Finally

While visiting North Carolina we stumbled upon a pick your own strawberry farm, which is something Misty has wanted to do ever since we hit the road.  Actually, it originally started with a pick your own blueberry farm, but we missed the season last July, while in Alabama.

Luckily the strawberries are in season, so we made sure that we did not miss our chance this time.  Everyone participated in the picking and eating, to include Chloe.

Chloe eating one of the strawberries we picked.

"Yum!  That's a sweet strawberry!", says Chloe.

When you first enter the strawberry patch, they have instructions posted on how to properly pick strawberries.  Like everything, there is a right way and a wrong way to pick them.  You can go here to see some tips on picking strawberries.

Courtney, Ian, Tia, Ethan, and Avery ready to start picking strawberries.

From back to front, Tia, Ethan, Ian, Courtney, Avery, Chloe, Don, and Misty at the strawberry farm.

Strawberries ready for the picking.

Avery examining one of the strawberries he just picked.

Some lovely strawberries Misty picked.

With two adults and six kids, it did not take us long to pick a bunch of strawberries.  Everyone did a pretty good job, except for Chloe who did not really understand the importance of only picking ripe strawberries.

Below is a picture of what each one of us picked.  I'm not going to say who did the best, but let you decide from the pictures.  Do not be afraid to comment on who you think picked the most.

Strawberries picked by Ethan.

Strawberries picked by Courtney.

Strawberries picked by Tia.

Strawberries picked by Ian.

Strawberries picked by Avery.

Strawberries picked by Misty.

Strawberries picked by Don.

All in all it was a pretty good time and later on that night I was tired of cutting up strawberries and getting rid of the tops.  

We did notice that after picking them for a while, all of our wrists and forearms broke out a little from the strawberry plant leaves constantly brushing against our skin.  Next time, we're wearing long sleeves or long gloves.

We also discovered that Courtney is allergic to strawberries when she broke out in a rash after eating a good many of them.  We will have to keep an eye on her from now on.  Miss Courtney insists that she is only allergic to the tops and says she will not eat that part anymore.  We wish that were the case, since she loves strawberries so much!

We want to go picking one more time before the season is over, which I think is next week or so, but even if we miss that, we finally made it to a pick-your-own farm.  I'm sure there will be more of them in our future travels.

The fruits of our labor.  There were more but we ate some before getting back to the RV.

We pray that your harvests are as plentiful as ours and that you are blessed as well as we are.  May God look down on us all with his loving grace and keep us protected.

Thanks!

Don, Misty, and Kids...

 

One of Those Weeks

Have you ever had one of those weeks that you thought couldn't get any worse, but does?  Well we have and hope it does not continue. 

Actually, it was spread out over a couple of weeks, but who's counting?  I guess it all started while we were back home near Charleston, West Virginia.  We were at the Charleston Town Center Mall shopping for clothes.

While Misty was shopping in a certain store, that I will leave nameless, the kids and I were killing time.  Some of the kids decided to dance in the store front while people waked by and looked.

 Tia posing in the store window.

 Avery, Ian, & Tia in the window

After a while one of the store employees chased them out saying that they could not be in the window, which is totally understandable.  Meanwhile Misty was trying on clothes in the changing room.

So me and the kids wandered over there to wait on Misty.  I was standing in front of Misty's changing booth, with the kids standing next to me in front of the neighboring changing booth,  and I was hidden from others, from certain angles, by a support post.

One of the employees came over and wanted in the changing booth the kids were standing in front of and rather than asking them to move, nicely, he barked something like, "Get out of the way kids!"  or something like that.

I stepped out from behind the post and firmly asked him not yell at my kids, especially since they were not doing anything wrong.  He quickly apologized, but I guess I was still upset, more than I thought, over them chasing the kids out of the window, so went up to the manager, or who I thought was a manager, and told her I was not happy about her associate yelling at my kids.

I also mentioned that they were not hurting anything standing in the window dancing and was told that it was just store policy.  So I told her it was my policy not to buy anything from a store where the employees yell at my kids for no reason.  Not the window issue, but the changing booth issue.

Misty was not too happy when I grabbed everything she was trying on, took them up to the manager, or who I thought was a manager, and said, "Here you go, we're not buying anything now."

Just so you know, I did not make too big of a scene and did not yell at all.  And yes, it was petty on my part, but it did feel good to dump a good amount of items on the counter in protest just knowing they would not be getting any of our money that day.  

And yes, I know that the employees probably thought I was a jerk and really could care less, but I'm not thinking too much about that.  I'm thinking more on the lines that I vindicated my kids for their unjust treatment.

Also while we were in, we took the kids to the eye doctor and had to get Ethan and Courtney new glasses.  So we had to not only pay for the eye exams, but two new sets of glasses.

The following week we took Tia and Ian to the eye doctor and Ian also needed glasses, so back to Vision Works for another pair of glasses.  We broke it up a couple of weeks so we would not have to spend all of the money the same week.  But we still had to pay.

Ian sporting his new pair of glasses.

On a good note, a couple days later, the kids did get to meet Kaitlyn, the WWE Diva Champion while we were at the mall, which was neat!  We had her make her autograph out to LivelyRV.

Ethan, Tia, Kaitlyn, Courtney, Ian, and Avery at the Charleston Town Center Mall.

A few days later after making it to North Carolina, our passenger cargo area window on the Yukon got busted somehow.  We do not think it was done on purpose, but by accident.  We suspect Avery had a hand in it, but can not prove it one way or another, so will just let it go.  We didn't need the $300.00 deductible anyway. (Right!)

Broken window on the Yukon.

Broken Yukon window from the inside.

Luckly we called USAA, who we have our insurance through, and they had Safelite come out and fix it the very next day.

The technician who came out used to sell RV's, so we had a lot to talk about, and he also put us onto an organic Farmer's Market to hit this upcoming weekend.

Yukon with broken window removed and caulk cut away.

Replacement glass for Yukon.

Window opening re-caulked ready for new pane of glass.

Fixed glass making Yukon as good as new.

We may never know how it got broken in the first place, but at least it is fixed now and we hope it does not get broken out anytime soon or ever again.

Another good thing that happened is that we finally received our LivelyRV Geocoins that we ordered a while back from Oakcoins for Geocaching.  We have gotten away from Geocaching for a while, but are starting to pick it back up.

LivelyRV Geocoin.

We ordered fifty of them so we can place one in each state while we travel America.  Each one has its own tracking number so we know which one is which and so they can be tracked between geocaches.

Each geocoin has its own homepage that has what its goal is and its history.  So far we have only registered the ones for North Carolina and West Virginia.  We will register the rest as we get into each new state.

 

So, maybe it was not as bad as we thought and some good things did happen too.  That is usually the case, but sometimes we just look at the bad and do not appreciate the good.  

God is good and has blessed us in many ways to include saving us from our sins by giving us his son, Jesus.  So why are we not happy all of the time?  Human nature I guess or just the devil in us.  May God help us to do what's right and to appreciate all that he has given us.

Until next time, God bless!

Thanks!

Don, Misty, and Kids...