What I did on my Florida vacation.

I am a snowbird. I spend my winters in beautiful sunny Sarasota Florida, but after 5 months I am home sick for my little town of Luray and the scenic Page Valley Virginia. We are packed and ready to leave here in the morning and head north. It should take 2 days to get to Luray unless we break down or blow a tire, which always happens. I had a lot of fun here this winter. Some of the things I did were: fishing, eating out earlybird, flea marketing, yardsales, Greek Festival, Scottish Festival, State Fair, County Fair, library time, Pioneer Park Festival/flea market, Strawberry festival, Mall walked, ate breakfast out, picnic on the beach, Arcadia Antique street festival, visited with a new cousin from West Virginia, put new windows in RV, took RV to shop 3 times, shopped at Michaels, Jo-ann's and Walmart.
Here are some pictures of me fishing on the Miakka River. There were lots of alligators hanging around so I kept an eye on them while catching tilapia.
I won't be on line again till we get home and hooked up so have a nice weekend, I will be on the road.

Peregrine Falcon on the mountain

I was checking out the web page of the Shenandoah National Park and found the Peregrine Falcon web cam. I've checked it out before just to see the Page Valley in the back ground. It looks just like a rocky ledge with a bunch of little rock laying around. You can imagine my surprise when yesterday morning I saw a falcon and what looked like an egg. I couldn't believe a bird would use that rocky ledge for a nest let alone lay an egg in the cold weather. The Rangers acknowledged the egg and bird were there March 13. When I went to the web cam today the egg and bird were gone. Where did they go? I emailed the rangers for information as to what happened to the egg. Maybe they lay eggs at any time not knowing it was going down to 21 degrees in the next 2 day. If I hear back from the ranger I will let you know. Please check out the web site and see the parks cams. I watch the Big Meadows cam and one day saw a wild fire spread across the meadow and then burn out. The Big Meadows cam was turned off the day President Bush arrived there in his helicopter. Too bad, I would have liked to see that. http://www.nps.gov/shen/photosmultimedia/falconcam.htm

Luray in Page county

I did some research in Google blogs for 'Luray'. It was nice to see the photos of my favorite town since I am so far from there. Yes, I do feel home sick but Spring is coming soon and I will fly north. One blog was by a young man that flew his plane over the mountains and landed at Luray's air port. The pictures he took of the mountains in December were beautiful. He had a nice time and visited the caverns and had a picnic. Another was a not so nice young man that kept commenting about all the bars in Luray. There are no bars in all of Page county. I don't know what he was looking at to think they were bars. There are some small seedy looking restaurants but most of them don't serve liquor. Most beer and wine can be bought at Wal-mart but there are no bars or road houses in our valley. Another person wrote a nice description about the Maze up by the caverns. He said it took him 45 minutes to find his way out. It sounds like fun and I may have to take my grandkids there the next time they visit. One woman wrote and had pictures of her visit to the Luray Zoo. I thought it was just snakes but she talked about the other reptiles and animals there. I should go and check it out too. When are all those grandkids coming to visit? There is lots to do in Luray including the upcoming Spring Street Festival in May. So plan a visit to to our beautiful valley.

News from Luray

If you read the Page County newspaper, you would see they are still arguing over the location of the new area wide jail. I know our Sheriff needs a larger jail but I hope they don't win the new area jail and it goes to Warren County up in Front Royal. I would love for Luray to stay just the way it is but development is coming and with it crowded roads and crime. Another story in the paper is the development of a 300 unit apartment project in Stanley. Page county doesn't have a lot of job opportunities so all the new residents will have to commute out of the county for jobs. That's thousands of more cars on our narrow windy roads. There's nothing I can do about it. And that's all I have to say about that.
I can't wait for spring in the valley, It's beautiful to watch spring creep up the mountain with the tops the last to turn green. I dream of hikes and picnics we will enjoy this summer. For now I will just enjoy the sunshine in Florida. It was raining in Luray today with snow expected on Saturday. While here I am determined to learn something new each day. I just learned how to knit and am making lots of dish cloths. Next I will learn the different techniques of knitting like adding other colors of yarn. Maybe I can make a sweater. I found lots of free knitting patterns on the Internet and can't wait to expand my talents.