Sunshine and Fish!

 Trish and I have been at Atlantis for two weeks and we have one more week to go.

One of the reasons we love to come here is the gigantic aquarium that runs under and outside of the main building.

Each day we walk through the underground tunnels and visit all the creatures that live here.  It’s a place to cool off if you are hot or just to be amazed at what lives under the sea.

We also love to visit the dolphin cay.  They now have 38 dolphins here, many of which are rescue animals. There are also babies.  It is amazing to watch them work with their humans! All of the people we met here talk about how much they love to work with the dolphins. They are beautiful.

We love every day!

To Warm Weather

Trish and I got tired of the winter cold, so, a week ago we flew to the Bahamas to enjoy warm weather for three weeks!

 We love staying at the Atlantis Bahamas Resort. Besides nice rooms, there are a half-dozen different swimming pools, a rapid river ride, a huge aquarium, a dolphin rehab lagoon, and a selection of great restaurants.

This property is immaculately maintained and has more than everything we might possibly need without going anywhere else.

Our pattern each day is: sleep late and get up later, have a bite and go out to a different pool spot each day, sun and read until we are well roasted, have dinner and go to bed early. Then, do it again!

Today our friends, Sandy and Terry Countermine, arrive for a week. Now we will double our fun!

The Snow Won’t Go!

 After five days the snow looks almost like it did when it first finished falling!

When our frozen pipes thawed, it turned out that we had a burst pipe at one of our outside showers.  Our neighbor spotted it and turned our water off, then our other neighbor, Javier, went over and fixed it without our even asking.  Ocracoke is always the best place to live!

The flower beds were all prepped at Christmas time, so, they were really happy for the snow to come.  I fed them as the snow came, then the melting snow will take the food down to where it needs to be.

The best thing about being home was this:  Josh Goforth came for the week at our house and we had a great snow time visit.  We were supposed to leave on Wednesday and would have missed his performances.  Since we were stuck at home, we got to still be on the island for a wonderful Friday evening show with Josh playing with our own Martin Garrish and magical twelve-year-old Dallas Mason.  It was an evening of magic in the middle of winter.

Another reason to live where we live!

We love the way this community all works together.

Snow Birds!

 More snow fell yesterday afternoon and we started worrying about the songbirds.  The entire world was under deep snow and there was nothing natural exposed for them to eat. So, Trish filled two of our larger bird feeders and put them right on our decks where we could watch them from the windows…in normal times the birds would never come this close and it might take them several days to find the feeders when we first out them up.  Not so yesterday!

In no time the mourning doves located the feeders and they seemed to call all the other birds to join them!

We had brown catbirds, purple finches, house finches, and multiple small songbirds.  Then the cardinals arrived.

First one female, then another female, them another female.  It is unusual for cardinals to feed near one another, so, three females in one spot  was a treasure.

Then the males arrived. First one and then a second.  We never saw three males at once, but they really worked the feeders up until the edge of darkness.  It was beautiful.

Today they have not been back yet.  Maybe they found other food or maybe they will come this afternoon.  Whatever, we hope they are well fed. 

Ocracoke Snow!

 I have lived in the island more than thirty years, and, this is the biggest snowfall in that whole period of time.

It started snowing about eight pm last night and didn’t stop until noon today.  The accumulated total this morning was ten inches and by the time it stopped we had a good eleven inches on our decks.

Josh Goforth is with us this week.  We couldn’t get out of the house until Josh, who is staying in our guest house next door, shoveled a way for us!  In no time the path was again filling with snow.

We rode all around the village looking at the beauty everywhere.  It is almost unbelievable!

When we drove out to the beach, the wind was bone-chilling, but, we had to take a look at snow down to the ocean.  The strong winds not only blew the snow, it sent us all back home in a hurry!  What a fine day!

Christmas at Biltmore

 Every couple of years Trish and I spend a few days at the Biltmore Estate during the Christmas season.

Following the terrible damage suffered from Hurricane Helene on September 27, it was important for us to go this year to help support the tourism industry in Asheville where so much destruction happened.  We were so glad that we made the effort.

We went to wine tasting in the late afternoon and then visited the house just at the edge of sunset.  It was a magical time to be there.

The Palm Court was especially beautiful this year.  There were lots of beautiful plants there.

As always the Grand Dining Room was a centerpiece of wonder.  The triple fireplaces, the table set for 36 guests, the forty foot Christmas tree.  It all goes together to form a wonder of sight, smell, and color.

This year the weather was warm and the doors to the porch was open off he Music Room.  We got to take a walking break on the porch and watch the sun move toward setting toward Mount Pisgah.

Growing up only 27 miles away in Waynesville, I never got to visit the Biltmore Estate.  My mother was just not comfortable even visiting a place so grand.  I came here first on my own in adulthood.  And, I shall come again and again.  I admire this family so much for their preservation and deep commitment to the culture and economy of Western North Carolina.

Chiluly at Biltmore

 The year ends up with four final performances, two in Georgia and two in North Carolina.

Trish and I had a couple of days in between, so, we decided to stop over in Asheville to visit the Chihuly glass exhibit in residence now at the Biltmore Estate.

The photos of Dale Chihuly’s work can only give a hint of the wonder of color and shape that he creates.

At the beginning of the exhibit you see a number of different sets of individual pieces. These are called “soft cylinders” and all I did is want to touch them.  How can someone do this?

Then suddenly we entered the room where the entire ceiling is glass above which the work explodes in color and shape to make us feel like we were under the sea.  We could have spent hours picking out individual shapes in this part of the exhibit.

Next came the chandelier room.  Part of the wonder here is about how the these massive works are assembled once the individual components have been created, and, how did they transport them here from his workshop in Seattle without breaking everything.

When you think you can’t be surprised any more, you turn a corner into the garden room to meet a glass flower garden of spectacular proportion. 

The final room was a sublime display in subdued lighting of glass and wood.  What a calming finish. Pieces like this surround you and produce the only light in the room.

Layer in the day we will visit the Biltmore House itself to finish a splendid pre-Christmas adventure.