Eastward...to Durham!

Originally when we decided to go to Durham, the weekend trip had coincided with family portraits to be taken in Chapel Hill at the Old Well. The picture date was changed, but we decided to go on anyway. We got to see Papaw, Uncle Bobby, Aunt Dot-Dot, and Anne. Thank goodness we were in Durham --more on that later.

We stayed with Anne and visited with her for a while. Horace (her friend-smoochy, smoochy, kiss, kiss) was also visiting with his cool little ride sitting outside.

Horace, Anne, Brooke and Cammie

Anne has very young grand children and toys to boot. Cammie and Brooke reverted back to their 3 and 4 year old days. They chased each other around the house on these.

Zoom! Zoom!

And meanwhile, as the weather gets cooler, I can't seem to get warm. Normal people would put a jacket or sweatshirt on, but this barefoot mountain girl felt the need to go outside and warm up in the sun like a snake!

Saturday evening, we went to see Papaw out at his shop. He's got pecan trees, apple trees, persimmon trees, pear trees, Catawba trees, black walnut trees, beautiful gardens in the summer, and grape vines galore. We wouldn't starve if we had to live there!

Papaw gets his lovin' from the girls.

Pear Tree...

Grape arbor...

Not one fishing boat...

But two.

And not one RED truck, but two! And not one old toy truck to tinker with, but...SIX!!

We also visited with Dot Dot (Aunt Dorothy), who is as sassy as they come. She has got it going on at 86 years old. She is somethin'!

We saw Uncle Bobby too. Thomas is very close to Bobby. And, here's where it gets interesting. Six weeks ago, Bobby was mugged and beaten up by three Durham boys. After that, they broke into his house because they had his address. That made three times his house has been broken into. Lovely Durham. So far, the Durham police have done nothing. Anyway, he has had sinus problems, head problems, and other health issues due to the trauma. When we saw him yesterday, he looked awful - and that is putting it mildly. He was favoring his left side, his eyes were glazy, and he just wasn't acting right. To make a long story short, we decided that Thomas would take him to the hospital and that's after he was seen by a doctor on Thursday. They had to do emergency surgery last night on his brain. He had a blood clot that was the size of the palm of an adult's hand and was two centimeters thick. Unbelievable. He's doing okay now. What a weekend. Thomas is back there now with him as he's the only one that is capable of helping him - very little family left. My weekends are interesting these days. Hope it's calm next weekend in Marion.

This was taken about five yesterday.