Tuesday, March 28, 2017
We are in Wolf Run State Park, Caldwell, Ohio.
We spent a week with my dad in New Bern, NC. He’s 89 and still living on his own. Here he is with his new hobby, model
trains. He actually painted the mountain
backdrop.
While there we experienced what we hope was our last snow
of the year.
Dad’s looking for another dog. He’d like a female Maltese (white fluffy dog)
but he’s also looked at a Chihuahua. If
you know of any Maltese available, please let us know.
We left Dad’s and headed for Winston Salem, NC, stopping
in Raleigh to have lunch with my niece, Jamie.
She works in IT and seems to be doing well.
Winston Salem has a great county park, Tanglewood. We love staying there. This was the view from our window.
The park has great walking trails, a dog park, horseback
riding, golf, and the campground. Until
this visit, it’s been pretty empty, which isn’t unusual for this time of
year. But this year it was almost
full. There were two different groups
there. One was a group of small
trailers, mostly teardrop trailers.
We stop here because it’s a good halfway point between
New Bern and Johnson City, TN, where friends live. It’s also the home of Steve’s nephew Bryan
and his wife, Katie. We had a nice visit
with them.
In Johnson City, we visited with Molly and Nick and their
kids, Will, Clara, Fritz and Katie Ann. We were there for almost a week and the
only picture I took was one of the water tower near our campground which is
painted to look like a hot air balloon.
But we enjoyed visiting with the kids and getting their
impressions of their trip to China to pick up their sister, Katie Ann. Big conclusion? The great wall is BIG.
Molly said the trip was an eye opener for all the kids
and has changed their perspective of the world.
I’m sure that’s true.
Katie Ann has been with her family for almost 2
years. She’s made great progress in that
time and with the exception of her speech skills, is pretty much a normal 3
year old.
She decided I was okay and we climbed the backyard (it’s
terraced) to swing several times. She
started experimenting using a regular cup during our visit and I don’t think it
will take her long to ditch the “sippy cup”.
We left Johnson City and headed for Milton, West
Virginia. It was a stop on our way to
The Wilds, a conservation project in Ohio.
Milton turned out to be a pleasant stop and we extended our stay a day
to visit a glass factory there.
After gathering molten glass on the blowing rod, the
craftsman shapes it to the rough shape of the item.
In this case, he’s creating a heart shaped jug. The next picture shows him shaping the neck.
Then, with the help of an assistant, he places the molten
glass into a mold, blowing through the rod to push the molten glass into the
crevices of the mold.
Returning to his bench, the craftsman prepares to hand
off the jug to another worker.
The other craftsman has collected some glass on the end
of a rod and attaches that to the bottom of the jug. With a tap in the right spot, the original
craftsman breaks the jug at the neck, releasing it from his rod.
The second craftsman moves the jug into another furnace
to heat the neck of the jug so it can be shaped.
Then the jug is placed in a cooling oven. The glass has to cool VERY slowly or it will
shatter.
I’ve always been fascinated by glass, liquid at high
temperatures, solid at normal temperatures.
We’ve visited glass studios in Colorado, Seattle and Kokomo,
Indiana. This factory, however, had an
additional attraction. In a garden
behind the visitors center were no fewer than 5 species of waterfowl.
I have no idea what kind of bird the one with the red
face is, but he had the oddest waddle!
Time for bed.
Deb
