Beware, Pyromaniac on Site

    All Summer long, and into the Fall, I have been piling up downed limbs and brush from tree work around the property. 

   Now it is the last of October, and the Hamilton County Air Pollution Control has given us a permit to burn from October 7, 2022 through April 30, 2023. 

   All I need to do is check in on any day of this time period to make sure the conditions are ok to burn.

   My brush pile is plenty dry because of the scarcity of rain this late Summer and early Fall, so the fun day has arrived.

   Not much preparation is needed to get this baby lit, a few newspapers to get it started, a little diesel gas sprinkled around where the paper has been placed, strike the match and apply to the paper.

   Pyromaniac's Delight

   And It Looked and Felt So Good!

Up Faith and Family

    There is an add-on streaming service that Carolyn and I subscribe to. This service specializes in movies, TV shows and series, and family productions, and we watch this particular  channel a lot. 

   Looking back over our latest auto adventure, I realize that it can be categorized using the title of this streaming outfit. Breaking our week-long car trip into 3 parts, it could be named Family, Faith and Family.

   We began on a Sunday afternoon with a 2 and 1/2 hour trip up into Middle Tennessee where we stayed with our Nashville family for the night. Nashville is always a multigenerational stop as we get Rush, Carolyn's youngest and his wife Joan. Add on the next layer with Matt and Clark, Carolyn's grandsons, and top the experience off with the "Greats", great grandchildren, William, Rush, and Darden. 

   This stop off is a sleeping and eating home visit, and for us a B&B. I give you the home and the view from our second floor room.

   Definitely the "place to stay" when night falls in this area. We missed Matt's wife Macy, and Clark's wife Sarah, along with "little Rush", who had the sniffles. (Just Rush had the runny nose.)

   Next stop Louisville, KY. Carolyn and I had been invited to Heritage Week at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. But first, before the event began on Tuesday night at the Seminary, we got to spend the night with Don's brother Bill, who lived close by. 

   Bill, wife Linda, and canine house ruler, Sebastian, welcomed us to Louisville and opened their home to be used as another B&B. A free bed and breakfast for family travelers. 

   Tuesday we got up pretty early. Needing to get out of the way, Bill and Linda were flying out to Scottsdale, AZ the next morning, we made an early afternoon trip over to the Seminary, just 5 minutes away from the B&B. Staying on campus in the Legacy Hotel, we were treated to one full day and 2 half days of food, fellowship and faith.

   Southern Seminary is the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention. With its sister institution, Boyce College, these two schools educate men and women for Christian ministry and secular placements. The students we had a chance to talk with seemed ready and motivated to go out and change the world. We were impressed with, not only the students, but the faculty and staff, all of whom were top notch.

   The highlight of our stay on campus was the Chapel Service that takes place each Tuesday and Thursday at 10AM. The whole campus joins together for a time of The Word spoken and sung. It was special to be included.

   Our stay in Kentucky had ended, and we headed east toward Virginia. But we got to spend awhile in West Virginia. We had been watching the Fall colors on God's creations, but we found some good roads in this state, roads that were full of color. Maybe some of the best were in a Rest Area off I-64.

   And one of the more picturesque roads, VA State Route 12 down the middle of the state near Hinton. A scenic route that calls for another visit in the future.

   After a 6 hour car ride, Blacksburg, VA came into view. Doug, Dawn, Lucy, Drew, Katie (Drew's girlfriend), Laken and David were all eagerly awaiting us. They were hungry and tired of waiting dinner.

   One of the reasons for our trip there was to see Lucy ride in a bike race at Woodberry School near Charlottesville. Lucy is a senior at Blacksburg High and the only girl on the Varsity bike team. 

   Lucy is a good cyclist and looks good on her mountain bike. Her only problem is her speed. She moves too fast for the camera. She does have her own fan club.

   One of the highlights of our trip was watching Tennessee beat Alabama. With Doug able to put the game on the screen in the backseat area, we watched the winning field goal and the subsequent rushing of the field by the fans in Knoxville, after a 15 year drought playing the Crimson Tide.

   Sunday found us back on the road heading home. 

   It was a good trip, no problems, plenty of family, food, and fellowship. 

   But the birdies were missing the daily fresh water in the bird baths.

   and we missed our bed

A Possible Rethinking

 Spoiler Alert: Another Pickleball Tournament

   After so much success on the tournament trail, my partner in crime, Jack Painter, and I decided to enter a local P/b event held at the Tennis Center this past weekend. It was a different format, but we thought we might find out how we fared with competition in other age groups. Chances were that we would be the old age group in attendance, and these matches would be filled with men from the younger age groups.

   We DID find out something!

   Since all the players were ranked by skill level, which are pretty broad categories, and the rankings are self generated, Jack and I were grouped with 5 other teams in the Intermediate Division. This meant that we would play 5 matches with the other teams in a round-robin format. We were the old team.

   They used several outside courts at the Center, and 2 or 3 inside. Some of our Division played outside, but all our matches were played on one of the inside courts. 

   We DID find out something, and it was not good!

   This old team played 5 matches in the round robin, and our record was 0-5. Some games were close and we were competitive, but we did not win a single game in any of the matches.

   Having won our age group in the Senior Olympics 85-89 age group, and having beaten the teams in the 80-84 group, we're talking about seeing how we might fare in the 2023 National Senior Games in Pittsburgh, for which we had qualified by winning the Tennessee Tournament.

   Now rethinking, just how good are we?

   More practice is an option, but also is staying home.