Blue Mountain Cemetery - Geocaching

A broken heart

This pleasant place is at the edge of the cemetery.

Blue Mountain Missionary Baptist Church.

Alco Cemetery - Geocaching

I went geocaching, mainly in cemeteries, today with Larry and Lu.  According to the person who placed the cache in the Alco Cemetery, there are 150 cemeteries in Stone County and he has tried to place caches in all of them.  Getting to some of them can be a challenge because they are hidden away on bumpy back roads.

Two grave sites had baskets of smooth stones like this one instead of flowers.  I would much rather have stones like this than plastic flowers.

I don't know what kind of tree this is but it sure has interesting bark.

This metal plate attached to Amanda Mills gravestone tells about how she tried to prevent men from dragging her father outside so they could torture and kill him.  They ended up killing her, too.  Amanda and her father were two of the first to be buried in the Alco Cemetery.

The Lazy Goat String Band

Samuel and Emily

Galen, Scott, Emily, and Samuel playing on the daytime stage at the Folk Center.

The Gathering

Bill M helping a new player.

All the classes for the day were posted on the board and labeled beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

The Gathering includes a raffle of some very nice items like this handmade wooden basket by Buster.  Proceeds from the raffle go to three local charities.  $5000 was collected this year!

Cindy, teacher of many excellent classes.

An ongoing class.

This was another favorite at the Gathering.  It is a possum board painted by Billy Martin, an excellent artist and fiddle player.

Ooops.  This photo of a morning smoothie got mixed into these photos and I'll leave it because it is pretty.  :-)  This particular smoothie has kale, oranges, and watermelon in it.  I forget what else.

Another favorite at the raffle.  This beautiful stained glass dulcimer was made by Karen.  She doesn't play dulcimer but her husband does.

Another ongoing class.

As you can see, we lucked out with wonderful weather the whole week.

More raffle items.  I really, really wanted to win the quilt on the left but I didn't.

Surprise Party!

Galen turned 70 this year so I wrote one of our Mountain View friends and asked if she could arrange to get a cake and round up a few people for a dessert first surprise party (Galen almost always eats dessert first) for Galen the day we arrived in Mountain View.  About 40 people showed up and we had cake and two tables of other desserts at 5PM.  Galen was totally surprised.  We all had a great time and went home with sugar highs.  :-) 

That's a washtub bass on the cake.  Is that cool or what?

 

Thank you to all our dear, sweet Mountain View friends for a wonderful party!

Westcliff, CO

We met Lloyd and Joyce for lunch in Westcliff.  The drive there along the Arkansas River was very scenic but there weren't good placed to stop for photos.

Lloyd letting Parker finish off a strawberry ice cream cone.

Bliss!

 

 

 

Lloyd, Joyce, and Parker headed home to Buena Vista but Galen and I stayed at a B&B.  We explored the charming downtown after an excellent dinner at the Feed Store and found the former jail.  There was room inside for only two inmates.  We went window shopping and just for kicks checked out the real estate offerings in the area.  We can't even afford the land!  The prices of many homes matched or exceeded the million dollar views of the mountains.

Hooper Pond

There is a lovely pond across the road from the pool where we like to take evening walks.  The pond is chuck full of frogs that sound like squeaky toys when we walk by and disturb them.

This cute little guy is trying to hide from us so we didn't tell him we could see him.  :-)

Mama and baby ducks.  They have grown a lot just since we arrived.

I shot this photo of a black crowned night heron from too far away to get a good photo but you can get the general idea.