The road is long. With many a winding turn.....

Well, after what seemed years away from home, our vacation is over and we have returned from an unexpectedly wonderful and amusing trip with my entire family!

We started off our trip traveling for a couple of days to the 9th annual River Roar in Marietta, OH! We stopped halfway in Memphis, TN where we found a great little chicken place called Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. I don't know what they do to the skin of that chicken, but it was very, very good!! This is a must stop place for you to eat if you are ever in the Memphis area!! Very good chicken!!
Now, on to Ohio!! The speedboats, as always, were exciting and thrilling. Although there were no major crashes, the speed at which these tremendous boats race was still amazing with upwards of 115mph in water no less! This year they ended the races with a spectacular fireworks show over the Ohio River bridge to the ooohs and ahhhs of everyone watching. Although, the first day of the time trials were called due to rain, the next day was quite beautiful and they started early with the time trials and got all of the racing in. Even though I had my SPF 50 on and was sitting under the umbrellas, I still got weird sunburns on my nose, one side of my cheek, my lips and on my knuckles!! I didn't know at that time, but apparently, I was given the wrong type of antibiotics for my Lyme Disease (Doxycycline instead of Monodox) and shouldn't have been out in sunlight at all!

After the finals of the speedboats were over, we all piled into our cars and headed out for Canaan, W. VA! My family in their big SUVS and cars and I in my MINI went up and down the mountains of W. VA! After quickly learning to downshift in the mountains I had a blast on those twisties!! My other family members (and from what I hear, my mom screaming) wanted to brake on all those curves, but I was having FUN!!!!

We had a great house that held all 14 of us very comfortably and without too much of a fuss, we were all settled into the many rooms that the house offered! We were warned about the bears in the area, but we weren't worried. We were no match for no stinking bears! Or, so we thought until my sister went jogging on Day 3 out in the middle of nowhere. She had run about 3 miles when she noticed that a car had stopped on the road. She thought that was odd and then she saw a black bear cross the road between her and the car! A moment passed as the bear went on its merry way. My sister, without her cell phone, did the only thing a normal person would do in this situation. She broke out in tears!! The car on the other side sat there for a bit and then continued on its merry way as well. Did it stop to ask the hysterically crying woman in the middle of the road if she was okay? No. My sister said another car passed her by as well, and they did not stop either. She said she was literally in the middle of the road bawling her eyes out and no one stopped to see if she was okay, like this was an everyday occurrence when you are out in the middle of nowhere on a mountain! Finally another car passed in the opposite direction and my sister flagged down the driver who did stop and ask what was wrong. My sister said she didn't know why she was crying but a bear just crossed the road and she didn't want to jog anymore. The teenager in the back seat said if she saw a bear, she would be crying too! The good Samaritans gave my sister a lift back to our house safe and sound.

During our stay we went fishing, horseback riding and tubing which was a lot of fun. But, you may ask, since I couldn't go out in the sun, just what did I do? Well, my readers, I was smart and figured I needed some zinc oxide to put on my face. But since we were out in the middle of nowhere and there weren't any beaches or lakes nearby, I got the next best thing. Yup, Desitin!! Well, it is zinc oxide and it did work! Although, after having to put it on my lips, cheeks and nose, my family proceeded to tease me and call me names since I had to wear hats and sunglasses and long sleeve shirts to protect myself!! I may have gotten teased, BUT, I didn't get burnt any more! We also went to visit Blackwater Falls which is a beautiful waterfall very near to where we stayed. The country out there is just very gorgeous and so peaceful!

Alas, at the end of our week and a half it was time to make our trek home. It was a rainy Friday and as much as I loved the mountains when we arrived, they were no longer my friend when we left. Mountains and rain do not bode well and it took us forever to leave West Virginia. It took us even longer to get out of Virginia as the rains took their tolls on car accidents which left us in traffic for hours. It took us 13 hours just to get to the border of Virginia and North Carolina when we said we were done driving for the day. The good thing? We found the nice little town of Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Never heard of it? Well, I'm sure you've heard of Andy Griffith! Yup, this is his hometown. Now, start whistling! I know I've got ya with that little ditty in your head! It's a quaint little town and it was a great place to stop for the night. Our next stop was Alpharetta, GA to see an old friend and eat some fantastic sushi. It was great to relax and enjoy a restful evening with friends and then wake up when we wanted and make the push home.

Vacations are always lovely, but afterwards it's still always nice to come home to my great, fluffy, cloud bed and sleep!

Flyin' (Drivin') me back to Memphis.......

It's our annual road trip to see (fight with) my family. You know the one. Everyone gets together, you have the big blowout once you get there and then everyone is all happy! That's how it usually goes with us! Oh, don't get me wrong. We all love each other, but we're just as dysfunctional as the next family is!

This time we're heading to Ohio and then onward to West Virginia! Ten hour days each and eight of them just to get out of Texas! A lot of driving but we have Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy downloaded, we have our towel, we're not going to panic. We're ready to go!

First stop in Memphis was Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken in Colliersville. A little deceiving as it's just a little house on a street, but don't let that fool you. The house is actually on the historic registry and the chicken is very good. Always fresh, never frozen. Although they say it is hot and spicy, this Texas girl needed to put some hot sauce on it, but the taste itself was very good. A very good recommendation from the Food Network and in a very good price range too.

Day two, we are on our way to Ohio. Next post then!

And I’m proud to be an American,

where at least I know I’m free. And I wont forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!!!!!



For today only, I'm having a quick sale!! If you order anything on my site at http://www.zozca.etsy.com Your shipping will be free! This offer expires 12Noon, Sunday, July 5th! So, hurry don't delay!!

To get the free shipping, you MUST put FIREWORKS in the Notes to Seller box upon checkout. I will refund you via Paypal!

Have a Safe and Happy 4th of July!!!!

Sing, Sing A Song - Make it Simple

Well, it seems my contest wasn't a simple one, but it did get a lot of you thinking! I did get a winner and it was Brittany S. from my Facebook! Boy, she was a trooper too!! Her first guess was actually the title of the song, but she came back and did give me the name of the group. She picked up a free bar of soap of Meloncholy Rayne and it went out in the mail today!

Oh, what...you want to know what it is? You sure? Weeeeell, okay. I'll give you one better. I present to you from my very own 1968 album

Greetings, Children of Paradise,

the one, the only:

BEAR

Enjoy!



This contest was a lot of fun!! I'll have to go dig in some more of my old albums and see what other contests I can come up with!

Greetings, Greetings, Greetings.....

Wouldn't you like to go away? Greetings, greetings, greetings. Come and see me don't delay!

The above, including the title are the lyrics to a song I have been singing all morning and playing on my phone.

Because of this, I have decided to have a little contest!!!! Tadah!!!

The first person who can tell me the artist or group of said above lyrics, will get a free bar of one of my delicious and delectable soaps!!! But, put on your thinking caps because it isn't as easy as you think!!!

Have fun!!!!

Let The Good Times Roll

Have you ever felt that you were living the story of Neil Simon's play "God's Favorite"? Or, better known as the story of Job?
The day after Memorial day my husband came home from work at 10am. I said, "Wow, honey, you're home from work early!" He said, "Yup! I'll give you three guesses why and the first two don't count!"

Truthfully, we knew the day was coming that he would be laid off as they told him a year earlier that he was on the short list. At least it lasted longer than we thought it would. So, onward and upward. He's sending out resumes and we're hoping that he won't be out of work for long.

Later that week my daughter's pet rabbit died. It was a cute little bunny, but contrary to what you see on t.v., veggies are really not good for a baby rabbits' diet and it was a hard lesson to learn. Now she has a new bunny and it is thriving wonderfully and growing by leaps and bounds. Her first rabbit's name was Peace and this one is called Puzzle. As she put it, this is a missing Peace to her Puzzle.

A few days after that I noticed some bites on my legs. Didn't think anything of them, but they didn't go away as most bites often do. The following week, the bites were still there followed by funky rashes on my feet and hands. By the end of the weekend, the rashes had spread to my arms and back. I made an appointment with a dermatologist who confirmed........Lyme's Disease! Oh, joy! Could these weeks get any better? The good news? It's not contagious and now I'm loaded with antibiotics for a really long time! At least the horrendous spots on my body are slowly going away so I don't scare young children as I walk down the street!

But wait! There's more! Yesterday, my daughter walked outside towards our pasture to find a strange dog out there and our 6 year old horse dead. We don't know if the dog had anything to do with it or the 103 degree heat that we've had the past few days or a combination of both. After frantically searching for someone with a backhoe to bury him that day and hoping that it wasn't going to cost an arm and a leg, we found that the county will come and do it for free. Well, I guess they may raise my taxes, but they were out there within the hour with a huge Gradall and buried our beautiful horse.

Do, you think the excitement ends there? Oh, of course not my dear readers. I can't let this end on a sad note. I'll let it end on something thrilling! Because we are having an unusual eventful time in our lives we have to have something involving the police, right? Did I get your attention now?

I will try to change the names to protect the innocent! So, my husband was leaving the parking lot of a big store that kind of rhymes with BalCart when he said a guy and a girl ran in front of his car! He didn't think anything of it except that he almost hit them! He said one of them had a bag in their hands and threw it and stuff flew out of it. They took off running. My husband went his usual way to leave when he saw the girl running very fast in his direction towards the gas station. If you want to be inconspicuous, DON'T RUN! So, he decided to turn into the gas station to see what she would do. She ran into some trees to hide. My husband saw what looked like an undercover officer who was looking for her and told him "She's in the trees!". The cop was on the phone apparently calling 911, jumped out of his truck, the girl jumped out of the trees and both took off running. My husband then went to leave again but saw a truck that looked like it was waiting for the girl and the girl was runnning to it, so my husband moved in front of the truck and stopped. The girl jumped in the truck, but since my husband wouldn't move, the officer caught up, grabbed the girl out of the truck and handcuffed her. At that time, police cars from all over converged onto the scene and my husband toodled on home. He did his good deed for the day!

I'm very glad that there were no weapons involved and he came home safely.

Maybe our karma is changing and we will soon be back to normal.

Livin' it up at the Hotel California

I was in Palm Springs, CA last week attending a soapmaking conference (yes, they do have those) I had a blast and when it was over me and three of the attendees, Georgia, Eleanor and Gili headed out to take the Palm Springs Tram tour. I recommend it highly for anyone going to that area. As we headed out to the base of the mountain at 2,600 feet above sea level our car just decided it didn’t like the grade of the mountain. The speed limit said 15mph and by golly our car wasn’t going to go any higher. After parking and getting out of the car, we didn’t know if we were even going to make it up the parking lot to the entrance!! People all around us had hiking boots, walking sticks, walking poles, etc. Yes, we were in trouble! As we were walking up the hill we hear “Helloooo my ladies!” It was a jolly man from Austria now living in California. Apparently, he had a season pass and walked the mountain every day. He called us his little girls and encouraged us to keep walking that we would enjoy the beauty of the squirrels and other wildlife that we might see once we took the tram up. According to Frank (our Austrian friend), the tram is Swiss made making it one of the best. Everyone piles in and as you go up the 4 mile rail, the tram rotates 360°. It takes about 10 minutes to get up to the top of the mountain, but once you are up their the temperature drops to around 62° and it is just fresh, clean air. There are a couple of nature trails that you can hike. One is very gentle and the other has a couple of hills and is about a mile and a half long. Georgia chose the gentle path whereas Gili, Eleanor and I chose the latter. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous and we stopped and took many pictures as we walked about. As we came back around we heard weird squawking sounds. Lo and behold, it was our friend Frank. He was calling to his lovely animal friends as he called it and was tossing them bits of food. He had Stellar Jays, a raven
and a very brave Ground Squirrel
that kept running up to him and grabbing a cracker out of his hand. We took a few photos of this and made our way back up to the main building as we had now built up quite an appetite. Inside, there is a really nice restaurant with floor to ceiling windows so that you can look out all around at the mountains and what’s below. We're seated near the back end of the restaurant. We’re enjoying our lunch and our company when a fly lands in my meal. I'm thinking the thing that has landed in my food will just fly off, but it doesn't!! I think, my gosh! It died!!! I had to scoop it out with my spoon and stick it on the napkin!! Uh,,,,waiter? Then, Georgia says Nikie what's on your jacket? I look and I have a moth on my jacket so I brush it off. I go back to enjoying my meal sans fly and I see something down on my right hand side. I look and jump! It's a squirrel!!! There is a squirrel in the restaurant and it's looking up at me like it's going to jump in my lap!!! Gili jumps up and screams, which startles the squirrel and it scampers off. My friend Georgia is trying to get her camera and I'm grabbing mine cause we think it's hilarious that there's this squirrel IN a restaurant!! How the heck did it get in there!!! So, we can't find it and go back to eating. Next thing we see is the waiter shooing the squirrel down the carpet!!! We said, wait, we want a picture of it. So, he calls it! He gets down on his knee and acts like he has food and the squirrel comes running back to him! Eleanor takes one of her French fries and lowers her hand to the floor and the squirrel runs towards her and jumps on her purse. It then proceeds to climb up the chair and jump in her lap!!! She now has a squirrel in her lap getting a french fry!! At this point we are now the paparazzi and taking pictures of this animal just enjoying itself. The squirrel jumps down, eats the french fry on her purse and proceeds to scamper it's way out of the restaurant. At this point we can't stop laughing because we think this is the funniest thing ever. We look outside the window and there on the sidewalk we see this squirrel walking towards where we are sitting, but it's outside. I raise my hand and do a sideways wave and say Hello little buddy and I swear, cross my heart that the squirrel stopped walking and raised its paw up and waved back! Georgia and Gili saw it too!!! We all shouted that the squirrel waved back, and no Georgia said there is no way that that squirrel just waved at you. It then went along it's merry way down the mountain!!! Needless to say after that nothing else could be topped so we headed back on the tram down the mountain. But, if you ever go to Palm Springs and take the Tram Tour be sure and stop in their restaurant and say hello to our Little Buddy! She just might be there waiting to jump in your lap!