POUNDS OF VEGGIES AND TONS OF ROCKS

Well I took my grandboys to my ex's house in OK on Friday morning and then went on a road trip. A friend was close to town and asked me to come visit him for the 4th weekend. I accepted the offer.

While in OK I picked up my first of many truckloads of rock from my ex's property. I am very excited about this as it will be used to line flower beds and build raised bed gardens.

What an upper body workout loading and unloading this.

Then off to my friends hotel. He is in the area on business and because if his type of business, he lives in hotels a lot and hated to spend the 4th alone.

This was the coolest weekend. I made good time getting there and we hadn't seen each other since fall so it was really good to see him. After a brief rest we were trying to decide were to go eat. We found a very cool little cuban restaurant that specialized in mojitos and homemade cuban flan! It almost made me cry! It was on a hidden little river walk. The night was hot but not too. I loved the atmosphere. Our table was outside by the riverwalk.

I slept like a baby, and got up and we went to a local place and got the most wonderful breakfast burritos I have ever had in my life. Then off we went to see another city that had wineries and a very good restaurant which we planned on going to at lunch. After that breakfast though we knew it would be dinner before we were hungry. So we decided to go west on country roads to see where they would take us.

Well eventually they took us right to that little city with the winery. We got to sample strawberry wine, chocolate cherry wine and a bubbly honey mead. We bought all of them, a cork screw and some plastic cups and thought we would try to find a place to sit by the local river.

It was crowded around the winery so we decided to go drive around. We ran into a dead end after going through a neighborhood at an open gate. He had a large suv and decided to go off roading a little. What we found really amazes me. After driving around out in the fields we came to a quiet shaded little camp site on the edge of a cool slow moving river!

Huge cypress trees graced the far bank, the sun was hot and the water was very cool. We could not resist. We went swimming. Floating in the cool water with our platic cups of honey mead was amazingly relaxing. We did see a turtle that was big enough to eat us but my friend assured me that he would not.

While in the water I made a friend.

The flowers growing along the rivers edge were beautiful.

The wildlife was beautiful.

After hours of floating it was time for dinner. We had a lot left over because of the heat.

After dinner we drove back to the hotel for a shower and rest and then it was time to find a spot and watch fireworks.

The same blessings that followed us at the river found us an amazing spot to watch the fireworks. We were on top of a parking garage right when they started going off over the city. I could not think of a better way to watch the 4th than with an amazing friend.

After the show we decided ice cream would be a nice way to end the day.

Today I drove home today and upon arrival had to unload the tons of wonderful rock that I collected in Oklahoma.

Then I harvested some squash...6.5 pounds to be exact.

Plus a 12 pound pumpkin. Lighter than I expected. I should have harvested it last week.

Now I am resting and will go to bed shortly. My thoughts and prayers are with our military men and women stationed around the world away from their families.