We've been perfecting the art of leisurely drinking coffee in bed, but Friday we were up and out of the house early.
First a quick stop at Pure Eats for freshly made doughnuts. Dare I say that they're better than Krispy Kreme? I'm a cake doughnut convert now! They're light and fluffy with crazy gourmet flavors like Margarita (lime and a little salt on top) in addition to the traditional Cinnamon, Maple, Chocolate etc.
Pure Eats is in a former gas station/garage and serves the odd combination of doughnuts early in the AM and then at lunchtime hamburgers made from local beef, fries and milkshakes. Other than coffee and soda, that's the whole menu; they're taking specialization to an art form.
Here's what it looked like "back in the day" from the back....
and now from the front .....
All the interesting character of the building is still intact.
Next stop was the house site for 8AM to meet the central vac installer. We needed to go over his final price and talk about locations for the outlets. The central vac was perhaps one of the best things that we splurged on at the old house.
We learned today that he can't get the Beam brand unit that I'd prefer to have and so I'm back in the hunt for another installer.
Beams and posts of another kind were being moved around at the house site that morning.
The prep work for the timber framing of the rear porch is still underway. We had hoped that it might have begun to take shape late this week, but things have been delayed a bit and we'll have to wait until next week.
As soon as we could shake free from the house site, we rushed off to the barn where we hooked up the trailer, loaded the horses and met Barb at the Hardees parking lot in Buena Vista. She'd gotten an invitation extended for Joe and I to come along and ride on a 7,000 acre tract of private property bordering the Blue Ridge Parkway.
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Barb and Gus |
Seven thousand acres! Can you imagine?
Lauren who is caretaker of the property was kind enough to take a chance on letting us come along. We tried hard not to make total idiots of ourselves so that we'd be invited back!
The four of us wound around on trails and old logging roads and had another perfect day with sunny blue skies and fine well behaved horses!
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Old Cabin Deep in the Woods |
Little Miss Cloud continues to amaze me with her calm demeanor and willingness. Her gaits are becoming more "set" and she's just a joy to ride. No Carol and Bryce.... you
can't have her back!
It was a hard ride for Sarge. Lots of steep grades and he's usually carrying the heaviest load; plus he's still not really in shape for the mountains so we had to stop a few times and let him take a breather.
Actually it was a hard ride for all four of us.... we only went 8.5 miles total, but there was a lot of climbing. We were pleasantly tired by the end of the afternoon but we had more to do!
It was a rush to get back to the barn to drop off the horses, gear and trailer; scoot home to let the dogs out and reassure them that we hadn't deserted them; and then straight back into Lexington to meet Barb and Rich for pasta and a salad at Salerno's.
With full stomachs, we strolled across the parking lot to watch the Christmas Parade!!!
The Grinch was a big hit as he spun and danced, taunted the crowd, from about 12 feet up in the air.
Old cars, marching bands, local beauty queens, cheerleaders and politicians. That's all similar to what I'm used to but what's the difference between a Louisiana parade and a Virginia parade?
No "throws"!!! A few folks walked along
handing out candy. Actually
placing it into waiting palms! Have you ever heard of such a thing?! No scrambling, reaching and grabbing. It was all very civilized! :)
My favorite group was the VMI marching unit which was followed by their bagpipe group! Awesome!
What's the same in Virginia as in Louisiana? The last float of the parade: Santa, of course!
It was another exhausting busy day where we accomplished nothing other than enjoying ourselves. We're getting pretty good at it!