Bear Detectors

Well, I already blew my new exercise routine - but for good reason. About 7:30 Wednesday morning I was laying in bed and all of a sudden the cats went running to the bedroom windows. I thought the enemy kitty that was hanging out the night before was probably back so I looked out the window and there was a freakin' bear! It was just sitting there next to a lower level patio. I yelled to the kitchen for Robert to bring my camera so I took some pictures of it. (To be posted if I ever figure it out.) Then he reached up to drink water from my ANTIQUE ENGLISH birdbath and knocked the whole thing over. Luckily, it didn't break or I'd have to go out and beat him up. Then he ran into the woods. The cats were so spooked by it. Harvey ran and hid under the couch then he kept coming into the bedroom but wouldn't go near the bed like there was something underneath it. So far, they've been pretty good little bear detectors.
Robert was feeling better by afternoon so after lunch we took a ride on the Parkway again. This time we took my car and went with the top down. It was beautiful. We went to a place called the Graveyard Fields and went on a short hike. We hiked down to some waterfalls then took a trail that looped back around. I think we probably went about 1 1/2 miles or so but that's up and down. When we got back to the car a big gray cloud was coming in and it was about 66 degrees. We drove back for a while with the top up then the sun came out and it was nice again so we stopped and put the top down for the rest of the ride. The weather changes so fast when you're up that high. We went home and grilled some steaks, ate potato salad that I made earlier and grilled asparagus. Oh, and we had wine, too. We sat on the front porch hoping we could see the fireworks from downtown Asheville, but couldn't see them. We heard fireworks from all around and the sky was lighting up behind the mountains. There was a hillbilly party down in the holler with fireworks, too. Next year we'll go to the fireworks in Black Mountain.
Thursday we had appointments in Asheville. Robert for hair and me for a pedicure. Robert dropped me off and it was a very nice spa. I sat in a massage chair drinking water with lemon and had a hot aromatherapy pack around my neck which felt great because I woke up with a horrible neck ache. Probably because Robert made ME carry the rucksack (backpack) on our hike. After lunch we had a date with another couple. Robert picked up the guy along the French Broad River on Sunday. He went to check out a bicycle ride organized by a local bike shop. They have one every Sunday and Robert wanted to see if their route was flat enough for us out-of-shapers to handle. Only 4 people were there. The ride had been cancelled but it wasn't posted on the website. Robert got to talking with this guy and he's a retired vet (animal Dr., not Viet Nam) from Florida and they bought a house in Black Mountain last year. He was very informative about bike riding in the area so he and Robert exchanged phone #s and they called us and invited us over. I asked him, "What if they're Swingers?" He didn't care. We went to their house at 2:00. They live in a house that they call a treehouse outside of Black Mountain. They were very nice and know a lot about hiking, biking, etc. in the area. They are very outdoorsy and showed us this mountain that they climb. They're WAY ahead of us. They wanted to see where we're building our house so we took them to Creston. They really like it. Then we had to drop them off because we had an appointment with our architect, Tom Lawton. They were a nice couple so we made plans to have dinner with them in a few weeks. We met with Tom and had to make some choices on matierials for the exterior so he could submit them with the construction drawings for a meeting July 10 with the Architectural Review Committee at Creston. If all goes well, we should be able to start clearing trees and building soon. He gave us the names & #s of some door and window companies so next week I have to start investigating them and I also want to visit salvage companies to find "junk" to use in the house. Robert is going to Detroit on Monday for business (so he says) so I have the whole week to try to accomplish something.