March 18th Journal Entry

Wednesday, Again, I waited for the rain to stop. It took a lot of effort to get a fire started. Its good that I do not make large fires. I had to walk 1/4 mile to find a dead, still standing fir tree. I stripped dry bark slabs adn filled them with shredded inner bark. I used this to start the fire and make a small bed of coals. I called Jammie to ask for a ride home later. I can not stay out here and be this damp and cold. I will take my bedding home to dry it.
Gosh, I was cold last night on a wet futon mattress, under wet blankets. Even though I bundled up in a track warm-up suit, two pairs of socks and a sweater, I was cold.
I have walked all the trails in the State Park. I imagine that it really is time to leave here. Maybe by Saturday my raft will come. I'll launch from this dock are, cross the lake and then short portage around the dam. But it is more likely, I will exit the Interstate at exit 105 and launch from the Little River launch ramp. I will miss two miles of the lake, but I will not have to carry everything. Maybe Sunday or Monday if the raft comes from Jim Luckett by slow express.
Some sun! A mixed day now. I returned the red worms to the ground, packed all my things, wrapping everything in plastic as the rain began again.
Loaded up when Jammie came. She said I should stay in Wytheville until Lorrie's baby comes. Then I can be Auntie Dawn. I am not sure that is a good idea. I feel I should be letting Mikey and Lorrie have some space and a house for their own. I will go to check on assisted housing, but I don't expect much.
Good night, Daddy. Let me know if I am wrong.

May 16th Journal Entry

My laundry is dry and folded. I am reading and warming leftovers that have been in the refrigerator since last week. Packed all that I am taking back with me in black garbage bag. Curtis the cat immediately marked the bag saying "this is mine not yours." At least, he missed the clothes and only hit the outside of the plastic.
I cut flowers today and filled the vases, setting some in each room. Read some, answered my email and now wait for Jammie to take me back to the campground.  She got me back here at around 7pm. I put things away in time for another rain shower. Jammie had told me on the way back that the weatherman was predicting five more days of rain for this week.
Good night Lord.

May 11 Journal Entry

Rumi, the poet, calls you Beloved and i call you father or daddy. Both of us know your love and how you always come to find us when we hide in sorrow or pride. I used the present tense for both of us and you know why.
Watched the park employees driving out of the maintenance area on their way home last night. Lots of waving to each one. Two days here and I spread a bit of joy. Thank you daddy for the day, for friends, for dry kindling, for oatmeal and a can to cook it in, for being our beloved.
Took off for Dublin and found myself at a little convenience store just outside the park entrance. I waited for30 minutes until it opened. Discovered that they carried only cakes, cookies, candy and beer. Not exactly a good diet.
I walked up the next hill, passing a dead possum and a sign announcing Lupine Lane. Just over the rise I came to the junction with Dunkard's Road. I always read drunkards first when I see the word on a map. That road runs down to a hollow that was originally named Dunker's Hollow. Oh, the things you can learn by reading tourist bulletins.
I had just crossed the road when two pickups passed me by and then a woman coming from the other direction stopped. She asked where i was going, turned around and gave me a ride into Dublin. She took me right to the Walmart store by the back roads instead of the Interstate, so I would know the way to walk and hitchhike back.
I purchased some fruit and cheese, a pound of marked down hamburger and walked out the door. Surprise, there was the lady, whose name was Janet. Bless her, father. She teaches health as a professor at Johnston College in the Roanoke area. She gave me a ride all the way back to the park entrance.
I had a breakfast of hamburger patties, the whole pound. I was on my way to the dock to rig a mast and sail by 11am. The fire wood had taken some convincing to burn, mainly because of last night's hail and rainstorm. By 3pm I had a rig in place. The boats were bailed out, but I lost my oatmeal cooking/bailing can right at the end. It slipped from my fingers and sank. The water is 8 feet deep at the docks so I did not strip down to go fetch it. Much to public also.
It looked like another storm was building, so I set the sail in line with the length of the boats, tied it well and walked home, to my campsite. Last night before sleeping I called Jim Luckett of Instant Sailboat and arranged for an inflatable to be shipped after my Social Security check comes. i am getting a slightly used, slightly larger, but well patched 11 foot raft with stout oars. He will send a sail kit for it when I reach Bluestone Lake in West Virginia.
Resting now after gathering more dead-fall wood for the morning fire. I hope this wood burns hot enough to dry the gumwood the park folk brought me. The camp hosts for this section pulled in today. i thought they were trying to take a huge camper trailer down a very narrow roadway and hurried to stop them. But they were only setting to pull into the host site right by the shower house.
They have been hosts at this location for the past ten years. The Williams couple live in Rhode Island and she is a non-Hodgkin's cancer survivor. I will be talking more with them.
Life is good. Calling some of my kids tonight. Kay sent me a picture of the snow-covered street in front of her house.  Snow in Wyoming and thunderstorm in Virginia. Bye Jesus, night Daddy.

May 10th Journal Entry

It is Tuesday and I have no idea where one day disappeared. My phone calendar claims Tuesday should be the 10th of May. Good morning Lord. The day promises to be filled with adventure. Dew on the ground and chocolate bar wrapping paper spread under and around the picnic table. here at site C-11 the blackbirds and ravens like chocolate. They pecked into my plastic bag and took out my one and only candy bar. They ate it without a thank you or a by your leave. They did not even clean up the wrappings.
I picked up and started my fire with the wrapping for fire starter. I cooked up a can of oatmeal. I suppose I need to walk to a store in Dublin later. The map shows it to be just shy of 4 miles. The hike will firm my thighs and help me to grow curvy and svelte.
I found a Geo-treasure capsule stashed in a tree that has three joining trucks next to this site. I added a cigarette lighter and a note about this journey. Walked to the visitors' center and then back here to do laundry in the shower. Step and stomp while shampooing my hair and I have a double use of the soap and water. My cable knit sweater is drying on the table, properly blocked at site C-12.  I chose this site for its shade, rain and wind shelter. That one has sunshine and a breeze.
I could go down to the lake as there is a breeze and I could try sailing, but I would rather walk into town. No, I think I will wait until morning. Trees need to be stripped of squaw wood for fire tinder. There appears to be another storm coming.
I have been picking up mostly dry branches and breaking dry dead ones off of trees. I wandered over to campground A, no one is at B. A is closed but the hosts Don and Lynne Carpenter are in site A-1. They have been in retirement for two whole weeks.
They have four children and seven grandchildren, with another due in June. Lynne leave in the morning for the Carolinas to pick up two of her grandchildren. The youngsters are 8 and 4. Don worked for the Navy and is a military brat grown after being in eleven schools in twelve years.
As I flipped my drying sweater over on the C-1 table some of the conservation workers came to cut down a dead and leaning tree a short distance away. I asked if I could pick up some of the dead branches after the tree fell. In a short while they brought over some logs cut to firewood size. We talked about the troubles in Africa.
I pointed out that the people there were like our pioneers with automatic weapons, and that we were not civilized enough ourselves to criticize their actions. I said that only a hundred years ago here bride price  in the form of a dowry was common. Henry, my son-in-law's, grandfather offered me hundreds of goats when Henry proposed to Heather. We should be patient and not upset and angry when we don't see life the same way. it is not our place to judge others by our standards.
I have enough oatmeal for today and the morning, so I will have to walk to a store in the morning after the rain. Most of the clothes I washed have dried, so it is time to fold them. Maybe when I get back from Dublin, I can go sailing. But right now, I will get the kindling, wood and my books under cover. The sky is rumbling as if it had eaten a plateful of garlic sauce. I will go over to the shower house for a jug of fresh water and call it a day. Thank you, Daddy.

March 8th Journal Entry

up at 6am. Ate some corn chips for breakfast as that was all i had in the tent. Drank the last of my water and began loading. I watched the Blue Devil's racing crew stroke by on their skull. I launched and immediately made for the far side of the river. There was no wind and lots of near water mist.
The lake is 3/4 of a mile wide here. On the far bank the water was covered with a fine yellow pollen that shimmered in the sunlight. No current fought  my progress and I passed cliffs high enough to climb and dive. They were posted with signs saying don't.
By 8am I passed the first State owned boating docks fronting rental cabins. I had come to the State Park. I went ashore and walked over to a Mr. and Mrs. Miner who were fishing from one of the docks. There were other people walking by on groomed  paths. The Miners were staying in one of the rental cabins as a Christmas present from their children.
As they fed the fish worm on hooks, not on plates, Mrs. Minor told me that they farmed up by Bluefield, West Virginia. She told me how to find the marina so off I went. i paddled around a swimming beach, then passed some more housing and turned left into the marina. I parked my boats at an empty slip and began walking toward the boat ramp.
There I spoke with a long skinny policeman, who thinks his job is great.  he told me how to get to the visitors' center so i could check in. I paid for seven nights here and Kelly the office manager ranger told me I could leave my boats in slip B 16. At this time of year each night in the primitive campground costs $21. I paid with my card, expecting to be charged and overdraft fee by my bank.
There was a Yard Master wheelbarrow at the top of the boat ramp. People use it to take their possessions from their cars to their boats down on the docks. I loaded part of my stuff onto it and pulled it uphill, of course, to the campground. It is only 3/4th of a mile, but it is a hard pull up a steep hill. I made three trips and was dreading making more when the thin patrolman was called down to the dock to turn on the gas pump for a stranded boater. He said he would find me some help.
I unloaded the cart in the parking lot and filled it again with the last load. i had just returned to the first pile when two conservation workers pulled up in their pickup truck. We loaded up and in ten minutes unloaded everything at my campsite. We talked for a few minutes about my trip. As they left, I began putting things away. At 3:30pm I had moved in.
Tired, but happy, I found clean clothes, a musty towel and shampoo. Off I went to the showers. There is wonderful hot water, daddy. In less than five seconds, hot water is coming out of the shower head. This is neat.
After, I washed the towel and my dirty clothes in the slop sink in back of the shower house. They are hanging on the bushes and trees drying now. I cooked two cans of oatmeal, wrote this and am ready for bed. I am the only camper in this section of the campground. 8pm, no rain. Good night. 

May 6th Journal Entry

I packed up my tent and gear, laying damp clothing on top of the stowed cargo. Then I ate two apples for breakfast and started. Just after untying i spoke with a gentleman who has been fishing this river since the sixties. That's fifty years on the same waters. He told me which tiny fish, bream, could be caught and then used for bait to catch the bigger catfish. He would be taking his fishing boat downstream to the Lowman Ferry Road bridge. He was going to fish in the shallow water next to the deep channels for blue catfish.
We wished each other your blessings and then I crossed the river on a bend to stay in the main currents. The river is slowing as it nears the body of the lake. I found a 25 foot long bamboo floating near the shore where a small creek entered the river. I paddled and cut away at the tiny branches until I had a long green pole. Maybe it can be a fishing pole?
Made good time until the wind began to blow in my face. I crossed under the Hiwassee railroad trestle, which is part of the New River Trail State Park. This is where the trail leaves the river and heads toward Pulaski.
By the time I could see the Lowman Ferry bridge, both white and rust dark, in the distance my arms were sore and my right shoulder ached. I slowed down and drifted by the largest house I had seen on the river. So much glass looked out across the water, I bet it is dazzling in the morning light. The man mowing the huge yard said a large thunder storm was coming. I double stroked with the kayak paddle until I came to the boat landing at the Shop-Ez store where State Road 672 crosses the New River. I tied up and went in to ask where I could camp.
I bought a hamburger and went to the back of the store where a dining area looks out over the river. Lo and behold, there was Jim, the eighty year old gentleman who had given me a much needed ride on Thursday. He and his friend, a Mr. Williams, who had grown up with him, were working out a scramble puzzle. Jim was trying to convince Mr. Williams that the answer was a pun using furlong instead of "for long."
I went back to the cash register to ask permission to camp there as Jim said there was no other place for more than two miles ahead. The young clerk, an eagle scout, gave me permission and so i set up camp just as it was darkening to night.
Jim came out of the store and sat in his pickup, talking a while before going to see his girlfriend. Every once in a while he would load the sling shot he had made from a maple branch with a sinker and try to shot a blackbird. He never came close to hitting it, not even close enough to frighten it.
I went up to the store at 9:30 to use the ladies' room and at 10pm the skies cracked open like they were draining your bathtub. I wind blew rain under the vent and it leaked right above this notebook lying on the floor. That's why the pages have curled over. Put on my Coaltown Dixie shirt and went to sleep.