Rocky Point – Page 5 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

February This n That

Home in Rocky Point, Oregon Sunshine and 49 degrees, low tonight 27

We returned home from our January travels just in time to get the last of the Christmas lights down and the Valentine decorations up. I know, I am a little bit crazy that way. I love to do seasonal decorations.
Besides, it gave me a chance to get out my first little quilt table topper
that I made last year as a very tentative, brand new quilter. Funny how the imperfections become a bit endearing after a bit of time has passed. No one really cares but me anyway, and it is fun to see my progress.

Leaving sunny California behind, we drove once again into another cloudy inversion over the Rogue Valley. The little cottage was waiting, all proud and excited to show off her brand new hat. The roofing job was completed with just a few glitches and a little bit over bid, but Mo is happy with it. There was a lot of repair involved, and several layers of roofing, dating all the way back to 1926 had to be removed. Someone asked me to show a photo of the cottage, so here it is again, with the new roof of course.
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We put the MoHo to bed and traveled back over the pass to Rocky Point, relieved that there wasn’t much new snow since we left in mid January. Everything was in good order, with the driveway accessible, the house warmed to a balmy 55 degrees by the backup electric heaters, and everything in good shape.

It is good to be home, but February is really my least favorite month of winter, and if I didn’t have to be working for a couple of weeks, I think we would have just gone back over the mountain and right on over to the coast! Ah well, that will come next month when I return from Florida in early March.
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In the mean time, the sun has been shining daily and the nights are cold. The snow is still very deep and the driveway is completely frozen into a sheet of solid ice. I can’t stand up on it, and when I tried to move the truck it just slid sideways for a bit before deciding to go forward. The only way to get outside and enjoy the sunshine is in the mid afternoon, when I put on the snow pac’s and trudge up an old side road by our place that isn’t completely iced over. I leave it to Mo to get the mail, which entails walking down the glare ice driveway to the sheet ice road to get to Rocky Point Road, completely bare and dry.

Speaking of mail…it doesn’t seem like there is ever anything in there at all except advertising. Not sure I would miss it if I didn’t have it at all, but I know I won’t miss Saturday mail. We don’t put anything in the box that is worrisome, mailing from town if we need to, and we don’t get anything troubling either, choosing instead to receive almost everything electronically. Packages are usually delivered via FedEx or UPS. Lots safer that way, I guess, unless of course everything gets hacked. UhOh. I hear the mood of February sifting into this journal. I have no right to complain at all, I am sitting here with the glare of brilliant sunshine on snow coming through my window and lighting up this room.

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Lots of RV’rs have been talking about mice lately, so I thought I would add my little story to the conversation. I store bird seed in a big, strong, heavy plastic garbage can. We seem to only have ground feeders around in the winter, so I thought that maybe they would appreciate a bit of seed scattered over the snow. Opened the bin to find several very fat, very dead mice in the bottom of the container. Seems as though they figured out how to chew through the plastic, but then couldn’t get back out of the bin. ugh. I don’t do dead things, so whined for Mo to come and fix it. I would hate to live alone at moments like this. I guess we will have to find something stronger to hold the bird seed when those little guys are winter hungry.

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Within a few days of arriving home, I got a call from Heart to Heart Quilters in Merrill letting me know that my first big project, a queen sized quilt, was ready for pick-up. My daughter Melody had the day off, so I picked her up and we drove the half hour south to Merrill together. In addition to picking up the quilt, which was quilted beautifully, we spent a long time in the quilt shop looking at fabric and patterns and day dreaming about the day when I will again tackle a big project and make a bed quilt for her. She let me know that a lap quilt would be nice…but gee Mom, I would really love a big one. I told her she would be lucky to get it in the next ten years. This last big one only took me a few months to finish, and in all fairness, I certainly wasn’t working on it all the time.

I also managed to finish the quilting and binding on the baby quilt for Alison’s newborn little boy. Alison is the wonderful soil scientist who worked for me in California who moved to Florida. I am tickled about the chance to visit her next week while I am in Ocala with my friend Bel, and to deliver the quilt in person. I thought frogs and bugs and blue and green would be a great theme for a little boy who lives in Florida, right?

I will manage to get in a good 80 hours of work before I leave next Thursday for the Sunshine State. Of course, the weather there has been fabulous, with temperatures in the 80’s, and as soon as I get there the highs will be 60 or something. I have no idea why that happens to me when I go to Florida, probably it is because I just don’t get to stay long enough. Mo and I are still having the conversation about next year and my wish for a Florida winter. We will see. In the mean time, we are going to focus this year on getting the cottage in shape and keeping our getaways fairly close to home.
Just thought I would throw in a shot of Jeremy enjoying the lovely new wool hearth rug in front of the fire. I know he is completely sure that I bought it just for him. He is getting so skinny, and of course it shows in the photo. At his prime he was 13 pounds of long limbed lithe beauty and now he is down to less than 8 pounds. He is on special vet food, limited ingredient diet, with a bit of tuna and fresh meat now and then. He is such a sweetie, so personable and loving. At nearly 17, though, it seems that he gets a touch of kitty Alzheimer’s now and then. I read recently about some of the challenges involved with having an “elderly” cat, kind of a bit like an elderly human, I guess. He gets anxious if he can’t see us and they say that is because old cats lose their vision and hearing and that makes them more fearful.
He still loves nothing more than riding on the dash in the MoHo, and waking me up at 4:30 am with a loud purr and that sneaky cat claw chin slap that most cat owners will recognize.
I am excited about my upcoming trip, looking forward to seeing how Bel is doing in person, and most of all looking forward to seeing my daughter Deborah in San Antonio on the way home! I booked a jump flight so I could do both at once, just couldn’t stand the idea of flying over Texas and not getting to see my girl!

A snowy, happy day in Rocky Point

When they say White Christmas, I think this is what they mean. Not only was the ground covered in deep snow, it was coming down in big fat, thick flakes, frosting hats and fur and eyelashes with cold white stuff.

I think the daily hours of shoveling and lifting have been good for me. Kinda like the gym without the boring weights. I lost almost five pounds in the two weeks before Christmas, in spite of the baking. I don’t think I can remember that happening ever. Go figure. Kevin was incredibly tickled that I managed to keep some beer from the Deschutes Brewery for an entire year. Something called the Abyss that was intense enough that I poured my glass full right back into Kevin’s glass. Whew!

Do you think that maybe cash was a good choice for the grandchildren this year? the propert response

I do think that Jeremy and Abby know an animal lover when they see one. My granddaughter Axel is amazing with both of them.

Xavier loves Mo’s rug, ever since he was very little he would immediately head for the rug to hang out. Is he actually napping with that cash in his hand?

I am pretty sure Kevin liked his fancy probe BBQ fork, in spite of the face, and you can see that Jeremy really loves having company, all those great laps to try out! I am pretty sure he likes it

Melody got a kick out her giraffes, a sweet little treasure I found at the jewelry store where she works, of course she was in on the surprise because I let her pick her favorites.

This time I set the table and was actually able to hang around and enjoy it, unlike the previous time I set a Christmas table at the Rocky Point luncheon and lasted less than five minutes before running back home sick. Soooo glad that is over, and in answer to a commenter’s question, the vertigo really has passed for now.

Sledding with the family is a tradition, so it was good that mother nature cooperated. Sledding on gravel would be uncomfortable.

We have an old sled with runners, a cheapy plastic thingy that is close to worthless, and another cheapy foamy thingy with fluorescent green something or other on it that I bought for kid sledding last year. I think I used the green thingy more than anyone. The big plastic yellow inner tubes we use for the water just don’t move on snow, so we no longer try them.

Favorite memories include big black inner tubes going down Tubbs Hill in Couer d Alene sliding into the baseball field from the steep mountain and getting bounced off those inner tubes some rather impressive distances. Too many trees on this little sledding hill to try that even if we DID have inner tubes.

Managed to sneak this photo of Melody and Kevin out in the hot tub, soaking away any kind of sledding muscle aches. Oh wait, Kevin was taking photos, not sledding. Still, not a bad way to end a family Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas

In spite of our slow start to the season this year, Christmas has arrived in full force and I am all the way in the mood. Something about deep snows and bright bluebird skies does a lot toward making things seem all as they should. Mo is finally over her cold and I am over the dizzies for the most part. I decorated the house, put up the outside lights and the snow started falling ten days ago and hasn’t stopped since. We get a little break now and then, but Mo has plowed every single day but one and we have been shoveling the driveway and snow-blowing the pathways every day as well.

Somehow the snows make me feel all is right with the world. Climate change is real. Call it global warming, global weirding, blame it on whatever makes you happy, (I have no idea why this science is colored by politics, but that is another story and I’ll save the arguments for elsewhere) but the real part about climate change is that things will get weird. Things are weird. We didn’t have any snow at Rocky Point for most of December, and it just felt weird. Now, finally, on schedule, the big snows have arrived. And somehow it makes me feel that the climate is giving me a bit of a reprieve. Things are normal. It is cold. It is snowing. I am shoveling and Mo is plowing. It is a good thing. The weather, at least for the moment, and at least here in the West, is doing what it is supposed to be doing.

I worked last week, and still managed to get presents ordered and shipped for the great grandchildren scattered around the country. Presents for my daughters were already taken care of in Prague, gifts to kids and grandkids in the mail. I don’t do as much as I would like to to, but as much as I can manage, and it is enough. This week I started cooking and baking, with a few treasures that Mo and I will never be able to eat, so of course we will share with kids and neighbors. The smell of baking makes things seem all right with the world as well. It has been a quiet time, and a good time.

Daughter Deborah sent oranges and lemons from Texas to brighten my winter days. Daughter number two and her husband are doing Christmas in Mazatlan this year, a last minute decision for a much needed vacation. Son John in Missouri is enjoying his extended family there and we had a nice long conversation the other day. Thank goodness for telephones and email with family scattered all over the country. I hope that someday I can get everyone together in one place at one time, but for now I’ll be grateful for what I have.

Mo gets dozens and dozens of cards from old friends and family. I know I have friends, I know I do. But I think I get about 4 cards. My friend Jeanne never lets me down and always sends an amazing photo of herself somewhere in the world. This year her photo was lovely and full of tropical flowers, even though she is now back home in Vermont. Some of the young soil scientists I have had on my crews are now having families of their own, and I get a few lovely cards with wonderful photos of their babies and families. I really treasure them.

The rest of my friends are just as wonderful as Mo’s friends, but they are all on the internet, hooked up to facebook, and GPlus, and Christmas cards seem to have gone the way of the handwritten letter. I gave up this year and only sent cards to the folks who sent them to me. Is that petty or what?! I had an excuse. I was dizzy. I didn’t even send out the Christmas letter. I resort to the new standby…”want to know what I have been doing? Go read my blog.”

It is Christmas Eve. Tomorrow Melody and her family will be here to spend the day eating, laughing, and sledding in all the wonderful snow. Last year we went for a walk in the woods without a speck of snow to play in, so we are all looking forward to it. I’ll have ham, a great one from the local “real” meat store, and I made a luscious peach pie from the Sunset peaches I froze late last summer.

Mo has been building a big fire in the cabin to try to get the snow to slide off the roof. Tonight we decided to “go to the cabin” for our Christmas Eve traditional clam chowder supper. Instead of a long drive to the mountains, we just had to walk down the steps and across the driveway. I carried our little back porch fiber optic Christmas tree and we opened a great bottle of dry Riesling to accompany our meal. The cabin was so warm we had to leave the door open. Turned on the radio for some Christmas music and reminisced about the past year. It has been a good one with lots of travels and friends, and projects started and finished. Another year gone by. I am truly truly blessed.

September – a Chatty Catch-up

Being the month of my birth, I am somewhat partial to September. Here in Rocky Point, and in this part of Oregon in general, September can be the very best time of year in so many ways. The mosquito population has finally decided to disappear to wherever they go, the midges are at least confined to places you don’t want to be anyway, the skies are blue and bright, the days warm, the nights cool. Several bloggers that I read regularly have found out just how delightful this part of Oregon can be, with RV Sue hanging around just over our hill on the Rogue River, and Paul and Nina up at Diamond Lake.

Mo and I have spent some quality camping time in both those places and it’s fun to read about folks finding out just how wonderful this part of Oregon can be. Everyone seems to know the coast part, and lots of folks travel there, but fewer have found the wonders of the Cascades waterfalls, magical lakes, beautiful forests and SUNSHINE. Welcome to my world.

Once again, Mo and I planned to travel a couple of hours south to camp at our favorite Medicine Lake, and once again we were thwarted. In the midst of extra work hours for me, some other business needs for two of us, and the smoky skies from California fires, we put off our planned mid-month camping trip for another time. The month was anything but quiet however, with visiting friends, Rocky Point get-togethers, and of course, my birthday!

It started off with a visit from Jeanne, long time friend I once worked with here in the basin who has returned to her native New England for good. Everyone needs a friend like Jeanne, probably the most amazing athletic woman I have had the pleasure of knowing. Jeanne treks Nepal, climbs the second highest mountain in the word, does back country skiing down the cliffs at Crater Lake, jumps out of helicopters to ski in British Columbia back country, launches her tiny white water kayak over 23 foot waterfalls in Costa Rica. Yeah, I could go on and on. She runs and rides her bikes for hundreds of miles and travels the world. How did I get a friend like Jeanne, you might ask?

I almost didn’t. Anyone from New England knows there is a special New England persona. Anyone from California knows there is also a definite West Coast Persona. Jeanne and I were complete opposites, and on my first day of work in 2002 in Klamath Falls, I met Jeanne, who instantly disliked me. I was all gushy and open and “chattery”, and Jeanne of course, being from New England, was all reserved and “don’t touch me” and would you please just shut up!? I disliked her almost as much as she disliked me! All it took was a long day in the field to discover that even with our different ways of being in the world, we had the makings of something deeper that grew into a great, strong friendship. Of course, I can’t even come close to keeping up with her, but she has a great batch of friends who do that very well.

Jeanne came “home” to Klamath for a long visit with all of us, spending time biking, and hiking, and kayaking, and then came out to Rocky Point for a couple of days. We went kayaking on Recreation Creek, a far cry from the adrenaline pumping kinds of boating she and her friends are used to, but we still had a good time, at least Jeanne and I did. Some of the other friends thought it was great for a one time thing, but too dang boring to do again. Me, I love the slowing down part, I love seeing the birds and the wildlife and the reflections. Adrenaline is not one of my favorite things, and I will avoid it if at all possible!

In between visits and work time, I managed a bit of quilting, working on my queen sized quilt that got started from a single jelly roll of fabric my sister picked up for me because I thought it was pretty. It is kinda scary how a $39.00 jelly roll can morph into a LOT more money by the time all is said and done. I took a break from the big quilt by piecing a bright little table topper that I have yet to actually quilt because I can’t decide just how I want to do it.

Another fun project was completed when Mo and I worked together removing a bazillion staples from my ten year old dining chairs and recovered them with a gorgeous fabric I found after two years of looking for just the right thing.

The greenhouse is a bit later this year, with our tomatoes just barely ripening toward the end of the month, but we have had cute little peppers, lemon cucumbers, lots of green beans and of course lots of good lettuces and greens. I made a trip over the mountain to Medford to buy some gorgeous sweet tree ripened peaches from the local orchards and made peach jam, froze some peach pie filling and experimented with some hot pepper jellies. The Peach Habanero is good but the Pineapple Habanero is fabulous. Some of the Peach Bourbon jam didn’t set up and it is now a quite delicious Peach Bourbon Sauce, ready for waffles or ice cream on a cold winter day.

The very next week I got a call from Maryruth, saying, “Hey, are you and Mo around? I want to come up for a few days for your birthday.” What a treat! She left her husband Gerald at home to take care of everything while she drove the 6 hours north from Oroville for some very much wanted “girl time”. We usually manage this once or twice a year but this one was an unexpected surprise. We filled up three days with lots of laughter, lots of “hand and foot” (a game I can’t get Mo to play with me), and good food. Well almost good food. Sadly the Rocky Point Resort has changed hands since we were there and I would definitely suggest that folks visiting this area avoid the restaurant if at all possible. Or maybe just go in for a drink. The view is gorgeous, the place is historic and charming, it is just the food that is probably the worst I have ever actually paid for.

Maryruth was barely gone when it was time for my ‘real’ birthday. Seems as though I celebrated this one for a very long time and it wasn’t even a biggie. I still have three years to go before I think a birthday is really worth paying attention. Seventy even sounds scary to me, but I have a bit of time yet. On this minor birthday, however, I went off to town to have breakfast with my sister, visited with Melody and the jewelry store where I got a FREE bead for my Pandora bracelet, and came home for a nice bit of quilting time before Mo said, “Let’s go out to dinner at Lake of the Woods”. Whew! Birthday breakfast, and dinner on the same day? Thankfully, our dinner up at the lake was incredible, with the gorgeous view, great service and wonderful food. It may be a 15 minute drive rather than 5, but oh so worth it. Thank you, Mo!!

Then on Sunday, Melody, Kevin and grandson Xavier came out for an afternoon visit bringing even more wondrous presents. I am the lucky beneficiary of a daughter who works in a jewelry store, so I am sure the “giftie bits” she brought to me are something I never would otherwise have. Of course, everyone keeps saying no jewelry when traveling, but this pendant is definitely going on my November cruise even if I can’t wear it to Europe! The diamond hoop earrings however, are small and tasteful, and don’t scream “steal me”! I AM wearing them.

What I didn’t even know yet was that the plant and twist movement I made jumping out of bed that morning had torn my knee cartilage. In the next couple of days the pain got worse and worse until I couldn’t walk at all, even with a walking stick. Sigh. A trip to the doctor, xrays, MRI, another trip to the orthopedist all confirmed my worst fear. Torn meniscus and a long healing time. Actually it was my second worst fear. Surgery was my worst fear, and so far that one has been avoided. I can’t take pain pills or medication, so surgery isn’t a lot of fun. Anyway, I have been hobbling around on crutches, and graduated to the walking stick and even a bit of hobbling without anything this morning, so am encouraged.

Mo is dealing with yard work and house work all alone right now while I gimp around like a useless piece of moving furniture. Sigh. It is not fun feeling completely useless around here. I can’t even quilt since that requires lots of jumping up and down from the machine to the iron, so instead I got back to knitting. I even finished Deanna’s sweater and have it all wrapped up to mail. Yippee, at last!! I started it back in December of last year. Guess you could say I am not a fast knitter.

A week from Thursday my daughter Melody and I will drive to Portland to board our overnight flight to Amsterdam and then on to Budapest. I have been planning this trip and looking forward to it for soo sooo long, and am excited to see this part of Europe, but even more excited to see it through the eyes of my daughter. It will be her first overseas trip, and I remember how incredible I felt on my first such trip with Mo back in 2005. Everything was so new and exciting for me, as I am sure it will be for Melody. She is beside herself excited right now.

I sent an email to a great photographer (Mark) from Mark and Chris’s Phaeton Place, who knows a LOT about techie stuff and traveling and he kindly wrote some very detailed answers and I learned a lot about traveling with technology. Thank you Mark! I bought an iPad, and ordered the global data features for both the iPad and the iPhone, bought the photo transfer doohickey for the iPad and the camera (no usb on an iPad), and hopefully I’ll be able to carry all this stuff along with my walking sticks which will be going on the trip for sure! Once again, the Cotton Carrier I bought for the camera will likely be a lifesaver when I need both hands to manage the sticks. I will never never never measure up to Erin’s photos, but hopefully I’ll get shots that at least won’t embarrass me. I have learned so much from Erin, from Two to Travel and Two to Travel’s Phaeton Journey about blogging and photography. Thank you, Erin!

And on a final note, I just have to really thank all the blogging friends who saw my post on FaceBook about my knee and sent good wishes. It is amazing to me that people take the time to pay attention and care. So many are dealing with really difficult health issues that are about the internal operating system and mine is merely mechanical. Mechanical issues are a pain but it isn’t life threatening, so I consider myself pretty lucky. Does everyone have to get all silly when they first discover Apple’s crazy photo stuff?

May at Home in Rocky Point

(Remember to hover your mouse over photos for captions or click on them for the larger version)

I love May. It seems that no matter where I live, or where I am, May is the month that brings out the best in me. October is probably a close second. When I make travel plans for the best time to be just about anywhere, it is usually May or October. Sometimes, though, here in the Klamath Basin, May can be a mixed blessing. This year we had beautiful days early in the month, and of course, when Memorial Day rolled around, it decided to snow. I laughed and thought, “What’s new?” Snow in the basin on Memorial Day is only a touch more predictable than snow on the Fourth of July.

Once we arrived home with the MoHo after our meandering Covered Bridge Tour, life just settled in to a daily routine of gardening, cleaning up “stuff”, and working at my “real” job. (I may not have that real job much longer after the end of the fiscal year September 30, so I am trying to appreciate it instead of complaining about having to go to work all the time). How dare I complain anyway!? The job is something I love to do and I get to do it from home in my jammies if I want to most of the time.

I think it took the two of us the better part of a week to get the MoHo completely cleaned up after all our winter travels. It was nice to get her back home where I could really vacuum and scrub and clean the cupboards out, while Mo washed and shined the outside. She looks beautiful, (the MoHo) although now the spring pollen is coming and I see a light film of yellow on that shiny exterior, even with her tucked away in her shed.

In spite of the sketchy weather, May is the month when Mo and I spend most of our time cleaning up what is left of winter and getting ready for the prettiest time of year. We live in a beautiful forest, and that beautiful forest means we have beautiful (or not so beautiful) pine needles everywhere. Lots of them. It seems we are raking pine needles year round and my least favorite job is picking pine needles out of the rocky paths that meander around the property under the trees.

In the midst of chores, we took some time off for a little Mom’s day celebration at my daughter’s home. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday and it was wonderful to be treated to a lovely brunch and some delightful family time. The following weekend we attended the annual Taste of Klamath celebration. Our little town has a lovely theater, and each year the “Taste” benefits the Ross Ragland and we get to amble around eating amazing little bites of various restaurant tastings and drinking our ten tickets worth of wine. It is always fun, and as often happens, the sun left and the skies clouded up for the event. Thankfully, most of the food is now inside the theater and under big tents.

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The days flew by, faster than we could track, with lots of time spent each day working away in the gardens, raking, digging, planting, cleaning, more raking and more cleaning. In between, when the skies were rainy, I took some time to quilt and to knit, and even managed to finish a little blanket for an as yet unborn baby girl coming to Mo’s family.

We traveled back over to Grants Pass one day to look around at some ideas for winter storage for the MoHo and pick up some plants from my favorite nursery, and discovered a magnificent restaurant on the banks of the Rogue River. The morning we left, the snow was coming down at home, but Grants Pass was sunny and gorgeous and it was a great respite from the cold. I had no idea there was such a beautiful park right on the north bank of the river and the Taprock Northwest Grill was incredibly beautiful. I could see why the town is touted as the “Best River Town in America”.

Finally, as the month drew to a close, the weather started to warm up for real, and on June 1st, the morning dawned sunny and bright with daytime temperatures expected to be in the 80’s. Plants were waiting to be planted, mulch was waiting to be spread, more needles were waiting to be picked out of the rocks and instead we just said, “It is TIME!”

There is nothing quite as wonderful as getting out on the water so close to home. So little effort, really, just the ability to walk away from the chores and take advantage of our beautiful location minutes from Pelican Bay on Klamath Lake. The snow on Mt McLoughlin was brilliant, the water was clear and the lake is up and the wocus had just started to bloom.

We heard more birds than we saw, with blue herons, great egrets, and sandhill cranes all calling in the tall bulrushes but staying well hidden except for a single heron feeding along the edge of the marsh. I saw at least 50 white pelicans soaring high in the distance toward the north but none where we were paddling on this sunny morning. It was a perfect time on the water and once back home I happily finished up a few garden chores before relaxing into the evening.

This morning we woke to weather alerts saying that the snow level is dropping to 4500 feet on Tuesday morning and the temperatures are dropping to 28 degrees. Sigh. I have just finished planting a ridiculous number of tender annuals in my flower beds and tomatoes and beans are in the greenhouse. The hot tub needed her bi annual cleaning and we thought it might be nice to get it done before the snow hits again. Mo repaired and painted the garden furniture while I finished scrubbing out the tub.

It seems as though I have traveled to town entirely too many times this month, especially with gasoline still running 4.29 per gallon for regular here in Klamath. What’s with that?!? Only in the east has the price actually been falling but the news keeps saying how great it is that gas is going down. Down? not here! I still have been driving in to work a couple of times a week, and then having to make a few additional trips with the small trailer to pick up loads of nice fine bark mulch for the flower beds.

On the way home yesterday, I stopped to check out the new interpretive signs installed along Highway 140 on Doak Mountain, my route to and from town. We do live in a magical area, and the signs reminded me again how special this part of the world really is. When driving that route so often, sometimes I just wish I lived closer to town and forget just how many folks would come to drive the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway for recreation. Even as many times as I drive this road, every time I come over Doak Mountain and look out over the lake, I feel a tug on my heart. It is home, it is beautiful, I am so lucky to live here.

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