The Day Michael Jackson Died

It was a typical day in most aspects except that I had been extremely tired. It was another hot, humid, South Carolina day and I had spent most of it inside where it is air conditioned. Normally I have my TV on all day, listening to the 24hour news channels and occasionally watching something on NAT GEO, Discovery, HGTV, or the Travel Channel. I like to be kept up to date on the news of the world so it is always my background noise while I get other things done throughout the day. On Thursday afternoon I had made a trip to the bank and post office and stopped by Pet Smart to get a refill on Millenni's thyroid medication. Upon arriving home I opted not to turn the TV back on. Instead I washed some dishes and then decided to check my email and Facebook postings then for some reason I decided to sign on to Twitter and see if any new postings had been made by the people I am following. For some reason I have not been very active on Twitter... I go several times a week and check it out but this particular afternoon I felt compelled to check it out. What I saw shocked me and I will forever remember how I found out that Michael Jackson had died. It was Martha Stewart who told me! Yes, that is right, Martha Stewart. She had just tweeted that she hoped the rumor that Michael Jackson had died was not true. I immediately turned on the TV and sure enough, it was on every channel. At that time the death had not been confirmed but it was imminent. We always remember when a person of fame dies just where we were and how we found out the news. I have always liked Michael Jackson. From the days when we were kids, watching him on the Ed Sullivan Show and American Bandstand and even the Jackson 5 cartoon show up to present day. I never bought even one of his albums, never attended any of his concerts, so it was not that I was a die-hard fan, but still I enjoyed his music, his videos and his dancing. During the rough times when he was accused of horrible things I stood by him and hoped he was innocent. To this day I don't know if he was guilty or innocent but I still liked him nonetheless. He was a musical genius, the likes that we've never seen. Now he's gone from this world. May he rest in peace.

update: Well this afternoon I broke down and bought my very first Michael Jackson recording... I bought a song I have always loved called "Will You Be There". It has a gospel sound to it and I recall seeing him perform this on TV one time with an angel that folded its wings around him... very touching. You can view the video here:
Will You Be There

The Blue Ridge Parkway

As I have mentioned already, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway on our trip to the mountains. I was surprised to see how poor the roads were these days. Wow! Talk about potholes! Very, very poor surface on most of the drive. Quite a few of the scenic overlooks were closed for construction repairs so that was a bummer. Another problem I had was the fact that there were numerous cyclists on the road. For those that have never traveled on the Parkway before, this is a 2-lane road with a max speed limit of 45mph. It is quite curvy with breath-taking scenery of the mountains. On Saturday we encountered a ton of bicycles and finally decided to make a game of counting them. We estimate that we passed somewhere around 50-100 cyclists BEFORE we started counting. We then counted 26 before reaching our destination. On the ride home we passed 34 cyclists. Having so many on the road and having to share the lanes with all the car traffic made for dangerous situations. I really feel that there needs to be bike lanes or they need to be banned from riding there. It is entirely too dangerous to try to pass them with all the traffic on the road. I understand that it is a popular ride for cyclists but still... got to consider safety first! Just my opinion...

The Gems

These are the gems that David and I found. Hannah took her large bag home with her. I put our finds together and tried to separate them into piles of color. Hannah had mostly large stones in her bag. The purple amethyst were the dominate stones we found. Now I want to buy a rock tumbler and polish these stones. The man at the mine who looked thru my stones told me that they look beautiful if you put all the small ones in a glass jar and fill it with baby oil and set it in a window for the sun to hit it. I can't wait to do that! Here are a couple of photos for you to see just how many gems we actually found.

Beautiful Scenery

I wanted to share some of my favorite scenic photos that I took while on the trip. This is such an amazingly beautiful part of the world and some parts are simply breathtaking. Enjoy!