Sign Done!

Monday, June 29, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

This morning Mike headed for church again to put a second coat of paint on the wood letters.  When he got back he finished waxing on the truck, or at least all he wanted to get done for now.  :)  The truck really looks nice!  Then he started putting things away.  We will be leaving Big Stone Gap in the morning.

Once I finished my work day we headed for the church one more time to finish putting the sign back together.  It really turned out nice.

Then we walked around front of the church and I took a picture of Mike's handy work on planting new grass.  :)

When we got back to the trailer we ate dinner, then worked on packing things up.  In the meantime the rain came.  Hopefully the letters on the sign were dry enough. 

It was another wonderful day!

Part of Sign Up

Sunday, June 28, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

We got up early this morning so we could get at least the top 2 boards of the sign back up before 11:30am Mass.  Before heading for the church I took Gracie for a walk and took a couple of pictures of the trees that fell into the river.  The river is down a little bit from yesterday, but it is still up.

We made it to the church and got top 2 boards up.  They look really nice, if I do say so myself.  :)

At the end of Mass Fr. Tim announced that we have been busy working around the church.  Everyone thanked us for what we had done.  We let them know we still needed to finish the last board and thanked them for being so kind.  :)

After Mass we changed clothes and went to the basement to put the first coat of paint on the top of the wood letters.  Then we went outside and took the 2 boards back down to stain the backside of the boards.  When we were finished before getting back to the trailer we stopped by Dairy Queen for a quick bite to eat.  :)

We had to take Gracie for another walk, then we just relaxed for a while.  Mike worked on waxing the truck and it is looking really nice.  Before eating dinner we headed back to church to put a coat of paint on the back side of the wooden letters.

It was another wonderful day!

Paint Letters

Saturday, June 27, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

The letters on the top 2 boards are metal, but the bottom board are wood and they are in bad shape.  We ran up to Wise to Lowe's to see if they had 6" wood letters.  The had nice metal numbers, but did not have any letters.  The gentleman told us to try either Wal-Mart or Magic Mart.  We tried both.  Wal-Mart had fiber board letters, but we did not think they would hold up to the weather, so we did not get them.  We decided we would just make the existing letters work.


Once we got back to Big Stone Gap we stopped by Dari Delite for lunch.  Mike had a chef salad and I had crispy chicken salad.  Both were very good.

Since it was raining and supposed to rain all day, we called Fr. Tim to ask if we could paint the letters in the basement of the church.  He told us it would be fine, so we headed for the church.  By the time we got to the church the rain had stopped for a short period of time and we brought all of the letters and boards inside.  The wood letters were to wet to paint, but the metal letters we got sanded and the first coat of paint on.  We did sand the wood letters.

I put a second coat of stain the boards, then we headed home to take Gracie for a walk and eat dinner.  While walking Gracie I walked down by the river and it is really up due to all of the rain we have had today.  Part of the bank on the river has been washed away and a couple of trees have fallen over.  The level of the river is almost up to the bridge.

After dinner we headed back to the church, so we could get a second coat on the metal letters.  I really want to get at the least the top two boards back up in the morning before Mass at 11:30am.  The letters and the boards are really looking good.

It is going to be an early morning tomorrow.

It was another wonderful day!

Sign at Church

Friday, June 26, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

Just before dinner Mike mentioned he wanted to go over to church this evening and start repainting the sign at church.  So after dinner we headed for Sacred Heart to take to the letters off the sign and get the first coat of paint on as much as possible before dark.  I did not think about taking a before picture of the sign until after we had the top two boards already off and I had started staining them.  :)

While we were working Gracie was tied up over by the Suburban and finally got bored with us and climbed into the Suburban and into her bed.  :)

About 30 minutes after we finished up on the sign it started to rain.  The boards for the sign were under the roof above the benches I was painting on, but the sign posts were not.  We are just hoping the had enough time to dry.

It was another wonderful day!

Mr. Fix It

Monday, June 22, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

Mike headed to the church to water the grass he planted a couple weeks.  Once again giving him something to do.  :)  In the short period of time he was gone 2 different people stopped by to ask him to help them repair their washing machine.  Dick heard from Charlie that Mike is a handy man.  His washing machine is under warranty and there is not a service center near here, so if Mike could install the new motor they sent he would get paid by the warranty company.  I told Dick he would be back shortly.

When he got back he went over to Dick's RV to see what needed to be done.  He got the new motor installed.  Then on to Tracy's RV to help him with his machine.  :)

It was another wonderful day!

Break Interstate Park

Sunday, June 21, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

Happy Father's Day!!

This morning we went to an earlier Mass at St. Anthony's in Norton, because we were planning on going to Breaks Interstate Park.  The park is about 1.5 hours from here.

We headed out, just before we got to the park there was a beautiful overlook.

We finally got to the park.

We stopped by the visitor center to find out the best trail to take.  They suggested the Geological and Ridge trails.  They gave us a pamphlet with information about each of the markers along the trail.  The total length of the trail was 1 mile.  It was a very nice trail.

One of the markers was for a cave.  We did not think the cave would be as deep as it was.  It also had that natural air conditioning.  :)

 Then we continued down the trail.

As we were walking we could hear thunder off in the distance.  We started walking a little faster to hope that we would make it back to the car before it started raining.  But I first took a picture of this flower.  We saw several of these flowers and I thought they were very beautiful.  :)

We made it back to the parking lot before the rain came, so I took a quick picture of the sign at the trail head.

We drove around the park just to check it out.  It is a very nice park!

On the way back we decided we would drive up to Birch Knob.  Mitch and Sandy told us you could see 5 states from this outlook.  When we got about 5 miles away we decided to turn around.  We knew today we would not be able to see much of anything.  It was getting foggy from all of the rain.  Since it was getting late we did not want to drive in the fog in the dark.  :)

It was another wonderful day!

Clean our rig

Saturday, June 20, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

On our morning walk it was raining and Mike and I both had umbrella.  Gracie was not happy about walking in the rain.  It started to rain harder and as we passed a big tree Gracie got up close to the trunk of the tree and sat down.  She just looked at us like if you want to walk in the rain that is fine, but I am waiting here until the rain stops.  :)  I had to tug on the leash to get her to come with us.  :)

Since it was a rainy day, so we thought it would be a good day to go out to breakfast, so we headed for That Flippin' Egg.  It is a nice little restaurant. 

When we got back I got busy cleaning the inside of the trailer, while Mike cleaned the outside.  The rain did all of the rinsing.  :)  The trailer looks real nice now!

It was another wonderful day!

Rain on the way!

Friday, June 19, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

The rain was headed our way when I took this picture. You can see it coming!  Several days ago we went to take Gracie for a quick walk when we saw the rain come over the mountain.  That time we did not make it back to the trailer before getting very wet!  :)

It was another wonderful day!

Walking Trail

Thursday, June 18, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

Every morning we take Gracie on a walk down the walking trail.  This part of the trail there are usually 2 to 4 gentlemen seating here feeding the squirrels.   Today there were only 2.  This is Gracie's favorite area.  She really enjoys stalking all of the squirrels. :)

Behind them are the tennis courts and behind that are the baseball field, football and track field.  Next to the football field it a playground area.  This spring they remodeled the playground area.  It is a very nice park for the kids.

This evening we went to Pennington Gap, VA to eat dinner at Rooster's Pub.  Johnny told us this was a good place to eat.  Mike checked out the reviews and all of the reviews agreed, so we wanted to try it out.  It was very good!  :)

It was another wonderful day.

Cave Springs

Sunday, June 14, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

We thought we would try again to find the Cave Springs Park.  This time we were successful!  Thank you very much to Mitch and Sandy for the directions.  There is not a sign for the turn next turn, but if you turn left at the road by all of the recycle bins you will start seeing signs again.  It is several miles after that turn before you get to the park.  It is not a very big park, but it is very nice. We took the trail up to the cave and the overlook.  We felt the air cool down and realized we were at the cave.  Natural air conditioning!

Then we went on up to the overlook, which was very nice!

It was not a long trail, but it was very nice.  At the trail head there was a watering hole where lots of people were swimming. 

It was another wonderful day!

Portal 31 Mine Tour

Saturday, June 13, 2015 - Big Stone Gap, VA

We were not real sure what we were going to do today.  We stopped by the H.W. Meador Coal Museum, but it was not open.  They recently changed their Saturday hours to 8am - 10am.  Not open very long.  :) 

So we headed for Dari Delight for a peach milk shake.  We had been told we needed to try one, so we did.  They were very good!  :)

Mitch and Sandy told us about the highest point in Kentucky, which just happens to be on the next mountain top over.  They also said that there is a mine tour over in Lynch, Kentucky.  So we decided we would head there, just to check it out.

On the way up the mountain we saw a mother bear with her 2 cubs.  The second cub is hard to see in the picture, but he is there.  :)

Once we made it to the top of the mountain we saw a sign for an FAA Radar, so we drove up there to check it out.  The sign is very obscure and old.

The road became a gravel road.  No surprise there. 

It was about a mile up the road.

Here is the sign for showing this is the highest mountain in Kentucky. 

 It is only a short distance from Virginia.  There is a brown sign that is hard to see in the picture that says Welcome to Virginia.

We continued down the mountain to Lynch, KY and arrived at the Portal 31 Mine.  We got there about 15 minutes before the next tour was due to start, cool.  We found out we needed to pay for the tour at the museum, which is in the town of Benham, KY, which is the next town down.  They let us go on the tour and asked us to go to the museum after the tour and pay.  Tour took us into the mine.

They have set up several exhibits of animated figures telling you the story of mining from 1912 when the mine opened to 1963 when the mine closed.

After the tour we checked out the other exhibits at the entrance of the mine.  This is the one that I found the most interesting.  Some of these horses at the mine never saw the light of day.

We also found out the town of Lynch and Benham were both built by companies.  Lynch by US Steel and Benham by International Harvester.  Just before the mine closed the houses were sold to the miners for a very good price.  We drove on down the road to Benham to go to the museum to pay for the tour.  The museum was going to be closing soon, so we just walked around the town.  The was a Coal Miners Memorial Park.

While at the museum we did ask them about places to eat around the area.  They suggested we go to Cumberland, which is the next town down the road and eat at Charlotte's Hoagie Shop.  It was very good.

When we arrived there was an accident right out front and the police from Cumberland, Benham and Lynch were all there.  The waitress told us there is not much going on in theses towns, so they always show up at any accident in any of the towns.  :)

On our way back we stopped at the top of the mountain again and took a couple of pictures at the scenic overlook.  :)

It was another wonderful day!