During all the years I have been employed in the Boone, North Carolina area I have never taken a vacation at home. A few days off here and there but an entended period of time called vacation time—never. Until this year. Some friends of ours from Michigan were planning to come to our sons wedding this past weekend and spend the rest of the week with us so I had budgeted the week off and we were going to be the tourists in our own backyard. But due to many circumstances, the plans we had didn’t work out and since I had set the time aside, I figured I would take it anyway and see what happened.

On Monday I goofed off most of the morning, read a bit and then went to the Wellness Center and swan laps for the first time in a couple of weeks. It felt good to get in the pool and exercise. After that I grabbed some lunch, came home and sat in the sun for a while and was reminded by a phone call that some friends of mine were gatahering some hay that afternnoon. Now my idea of fun is not really throwing 40 plus pounds of baled grass up into a waiting truck but since they are friends and the field was only a mile or two away I thought I would check it out.

Talk about an upper body workout. They had already started so I took my place behind the truck they had rented for the ocassion and helped fill that truck and another small trailer with freshly baled hay. Having baled hay before I knew to wear a long sleve shirt and a hat but forgot my little white mask—you know the one that keeps you from inhaling all that pollen and stuff. But my friend had brought a few for us to use and as it really does work you forget what it must look like and just put it on.

When we finished that load I said goodbye and went home knowing that they would be trying to get some more hay before it rained. I sat in the backyard and read the paper and an hour later called them and asked if they needed some more help. They had rounded up a young fellow from our church to help and so we toted and baled about 99 more of those little 40 pound treasures before calling it quits and heading home. That’s what I call a good workout.

We then got a call from some friends who were going to walk the greenway and we met them and walked and talked and by the time we were fiinished I felt like I had participated in the local version of an ironman marathon. I was walking around on a few fumes of energy I had left from somewhere.

As you can well imagine the next day was a little sore and iffy due to the workout the day before. I even think that it rained most of the day so I read and hung out some more and cleaned up the bookshelves and threw away all the junk mail that seems to pile up over the course of a week or two of neglect. Sandi and I even took a walk and talked for a while as well.

Then it was up early on Wednesday for a trip to Asheville to celebrate my daughter Laura’s 14th birthday. Asheville is an interesting town where author Thomas Wolfe was born. It is an entire blog entry on it’s own and I will probably comment on it later in the week.

Asheville has a lot of “hippy” type stores and a very big bead shop and Laura was able to find a few things that she needed and after walking around and shopping for a couple of hours, it started to rain and we headed home after a successful trip.

Our local weatherman has downgraded the day to three golfballs with mostly cloudy conditions and some thundershowers later in the day. So I will hang out some more—maybe take a walk and a swim before joining a friend for lunch at the local burrito place. I might get a bike ride in or I might not—but I am going to enjoy the next couple of days and not worry about to much. Until next time, you do the same.