June 19, 2012 ~~~  Going to try to do a little catching up here!  I had put the blog thing on, typed in all kinds of (probably boring) information stuff about what we were doing, along with a few witty comments, uploaded photos, etc..... then accidentally erased the whole dang thing!  Aaarrrgh!!  The only GOOD thing about that, is usually the re-write is better than the first one ... or so I keep telling myself!   Okay... so on with the updates since I haven't posted anything since Saturday.  I'll go a little backward this time because Sunday was the only day we really did anything to write home about!

We decided to stay an extra day because we were at the Greenbrier County courthouse all day yesterday (June 18th) looking up ancestors in the Thompson side of the family, the court clerk would NOT make copies, so we were hand-copying everything in sight!  And totally BEAT when we got back to the camper after being on our feet all day.

Sunday June 17th was much more fun.  It was a total "relax" day... we spent some time in the morning on the computer updating genealogy information we found on Saturday at the Historical Society, then went for a drive.  Made a good size loop through the hills and enjoyed the heck out of the mountainous ride.  We explored a state park dedicated to a Union/Confederate battle that took place there, where you can still see the old "soldier's road" where the Union army marched on Lewisburg near the beginning of the Civil War.
AND we saw Pearl S Buck's birthplace.  Before she was born, it was owned and occupied by her aunt and uncle... and part of that same North/South battle was fought right in their front yard (more like a meadow of several acres!).  Photos of those:

The right single-story side of Pearl S Buck's birthplace has unfortunately been "updated" and new siding put on some time in the past.  The two-story side on the left is still the original.  That isn't all that unusual around here... we've found homes that were built in 1750's along these same lines.... big hand hewn timbers (roughly squared off logs) or slabs/planks for the walls of the house and the houses are still in use!  I'm not talking about  "restored" homes ... they are just very solid and still standing, so they are still in use.  The white between the slab/plank boards (think very rough 2 x 12's) is where they have filled the inevitable cracks with mud, clay, or cement like stuff to keep out the cold and wet as the wood shrinks.  The houses still in use and actually paint the "filler" white to make it look nice, and leave the old planks or timbers unpainted, except sometimes a wood perservative, and sometimes not!  Here is a church alongside the road that is still using the old building, but has replaced or re-sided the upper level.

Anyway, after the Sunday drive, I decided to treat Darrell to a nice buffet dinner at Shoney's in Lewisburg.  What a FLOP that was!  Little skinny rubbery slices of turkey or ham (and the ham was liberally sauced with apples and cinnamon...ugh!), watery instant mashed potatoes, some nasty tasting turkey dressing, dried up baked salmon over rice, very dried up fried chicken, and no beef or pork at all.  And they were filling the meat trays when we got there, so it's not like the chicken and salmon had sat on the steam tables too long.  Disasterous!  Oh well.... it's not likely Darrell will forget THIS Father's Day dinner!  Needless to say we probably won't go to another Shoney's!

Here's an interesting business we saw... Darrell thought of a business "slogan" for them:  "Get yourself and your car sloshed all in one stop!"

We've never seen a liquor store/car wash before!

And here is a photo of a couple of our neighbors in the RV park.

We're thinkin' the guy in the second photo may have celebrated a bit too much around the old bonfire the night before.  They do have pretty EMS rigs here... dark green with gold lettering. 

And that's it for now!  Tomorrow, Wednesday, for sure we are pulling out of here and heading south and west again.