Lisa's Lagniappe

Especially NOT when you're headed to Florida for two glorious weeks of sun, surf, snorkeling and seafood! I've been getting ready to go by replacing most of our beach gear and my footwear. I found these glorious flip flops at the Beehive in Ruston. I got brown and blue ones to wear with my new swimsuit.

 

And peace to wear with everything.

 

I couldn't resist the camo sparkly ones even though I have very little to wear with them.

 

I got this great bag to take to the beach when I wear my black swimsuit.

 

Don't 'cha just love the fleur de lis flip flops? I couldn't resist the blue bag and had it monogrammed with a brown B to coordinate with my new blue and brown swimsuit.

 

Tomorrow, hopefully by noon, we'll be headed here:

 

Be back in mid-July! Happy Summer!

Yesterday we went out to Caney...mostly to play on the lake...you know, ski, swim, the usual. What the boys wound up doing was 'noodling'. Basically, you wade out in the water near a boat launch, look (feel around with your feet) for a hole or washed out spot, reach in either bare handed or with a stick and a treble hook and see what you can grab...or what grabs you! Here is what they grabbed:

 

Corey, Pat and Dan grabbed these catfish from under our local boat launches. One weighed 32.5 lbs and the other one was 35 lbs. They were cleaned and fried for supper and were DELICIOUS!!!

 It was a fun way to spend the afternoon and not a bad catch for our first effort. We would have released any other ones we caught because we just can't eat all that in a reasonable period of time and Pat will kill us if he had to clean any more fish!

Today is our 30th anniversary. I dug this pic out of the frame to post.

 

Happy Anniversary Babe! It's been a great ride...looking forward to the next 30 years!

Well...almost. We still have a couple of weeks but I'm getting in the spirit. I seem to have a mild case of food poisoning so I decided to spend the day online shopping for our upcoming vacation at the beach. Our old beach chairs had served us well but have seen better days. Here in North Louisiana, you can't buy beach chairs...guess that's because we have no beaches...go figure. Anyway, after spending quite a bit of time wondering whether to take the chance that I might not find exactly what I wanted when we stop for fishing licenses and supplies in Florida, I found some exactly like I needed.

 

As you can see, they have all the important features...CUP HOLDERS, book holder, multi position recliner, 12" seat height (so I can get my fat butt out) and PADDING...really excited about the padding since our old ones didn't have that.

Much to my dismay, my old swimsuit bit the dust this year. If it would last forever I'd probably never buy another one. But I have had to buy a couple. Here is the one I ordered today...just hope it fits!

 

Naturally, that lead to the need for a new coverup. So I found this one:

 

I think I have hats to match...will just have to wait and see when it gets here. Now if the EZ Up shelter is still in working order we're set. Oops! Except that I need a new beach bag....back later, gotta go shopping!

There's a really nice OHV/Multi use trail near Mena, Arkansas called Wolf Pen Gap. There are about 31 miles of open trails in, around, and through the mountains and woods of the Ouachita National Forest. These trails are nicely maintained by the United States Forest Service. We are most definitely novice riders although we've owned ATV's or motorcycles since we were kids and these trails fit the bill. Corey had left his Rhino in our care so we took it because if its comfortable ride and ability for us to sit side by side. We had been given some good advice about local trails but ultimately decided to just stick to Wolf Pen Gap due to time constraints and lack of knowledge about the local area. Had we been staying or camping in a more populated area, we probably would have discovered more areas to ride and sights to see but, as I mentioned yesterday, we were isolated on top of a hill. The trails are very scenic, usually, but they had been doing a lot of 'control burning' in the previous couple of weeks and much of the area was burned over and a little smelly.

We stayed on the really easy trails for the morning but then graduated to the 'more difficult' trails by noon.

I refused to try these though!

 

 

 

The dogwoods were in full bloom, the butterflies were out in force (once it warmed up a bit) and the wildflowers were fascinating.

 

There are numerous stream crossings. Most now have bridges built over them to prevent damage but there are still a couple that you cross through the water.

 

 

That one was up about 6" in the floor board! Hard to take pictures when you're holding both feet up.

 

 

 

There are interesting things to see along the way like this old abandoned mine (silver I think). The view inside isn't as grand. Why do people have to throw their trash on the ground!?!?

 

As I mentioned before, the butterflies were out. This one was especially fond of dog turds.

 

If I were a beautiful butterfly, I'd probably hang out here on these adorable wild irises.

 

 

 

 

Some of the views were really nice though once you rode to the top.

 

 

But then you had to make your way down again.

 

After all the riding we relaxed by the campfire at the cabin and grilled dinner.

 

Watched the sunset and tried out the hammock. No relaxing in that thing though! It hangs out over the hill...if you fall out you'll be at the bottom before you stop rolling.

 

More from our trip tomorrow! Have a great day!!

 

Pat and I decided to hang around town for Easter weekend since it was raining anyway. We enjoyed visiting with family Easter Sunday and seeing the pics of the new boat his sister and her hubby are buying. Corey and Brittney left for their newest job assignment in Florida Monday morning. after sitting around looking at each other for a couple of hours, we decided to go to Arkansas and ride the Rhino in the mountains. I called and found a cabin to rent for a few days since we really aren't geared up to tow the ATV with the motorhome and off we went! I love impromptu trips.

 

Our litte cabin was rented through Adventure Trails Retreat. It was quiet and secluded but near the mountains atop a hill with a nice view. We enjoyed the outdoor cooking area and the jacuzzi tub!

 

 

 

 

The wood were full of wildflowers! The violets growing along the hillsides were absolutely beautiful!

There were also lots of these

 

and a lot of these in both purple and white

 

as well as a few of these

 

Mena was in better shape than I expected. Most of the tornado damage was residential but some of the roads were still closed when we were there so we probably didn't see the worst of it. I'll cover some of the really neat things we saw while riding the Wolf Pen Gap trails in my next post. Have a great Saturday!

In my last post I mentioned meeting the North Louisiana Geocachers at the Pickle Barrell in West Monroe for lunch on Saturday. What a great group they are! While I was there ‘pickin their brains’ about all things related to geocaching, I mentioned how cool it was to find nice geocoins. LSUFan brought me one of the prettiest coins I’d seen..the Louisiana geocoin from 2006. I took a pic of the front and the back to show you what it looks like but the pictures really don’t do it justice.

 

 

It’s a really pretty coin. I’m so excited to be attending their event (see link in previous post) next weekend. Just wanted to share that with you. Thanks Bobby!  Have a great day!

Due to the extremely nasty weather of late, Pat and I couldn't go fishing this weekend as planned so that just leaves one option open...geocaching! Don't get me wrong, I would generally rather geocache than fish but we pretty much do things as a family. We headed over to the Monroe area because we also knew that the North Louisiana Geocachers would be meeting for lunch at the Pickle Barrell and we thought we might drop by to see what to expect from their "Third Time's a Charm" event next weekend.

Wow! What a totally dedicated group! They have all sorts of very cool things lined up for next weekend. Lots of activities for kids, a group night cache run on Friday night and a bunch of event caches...even a Whereigo! Don't worry that you don't have the equipment...they'll loan you theirs! How cool is that?!? They're cooking for everyone, have a really cool GeoBingo Game planned, and Easter Egg hunt for the kids, as well as goodie bags and door prizes. If you geocache, think you'd like to know more about geocaching, Lake D'Arbonne State Park is the place to be next weekend. Most of the activities are on Saturday but the night caching expedition will meet up at the Visitor's Center at 7pm Friday for those who want to pass a good time Friday night. I've never been to a geocaching event but this one sounds like a good one to start with. Here's the link for more information The Third Times a Charm Event

So, as I mentioned, we did pick up a few caches both before and after the lunch at the PB. I truly don't enjoy city caching much because you have to be so careful not to attract attention to the cache so that it doesn't get 'muggled'. We had to pass on no less that 3 caches yesterday because there were simply too many people around to grab them without being noticed. One of them was here

 

at this pretty lake near West Monroe. We did find one at another park on the lake earlier though.

One of the most fascinating things about geocaching is learning history that you didn't know existed. Like, for instance, that a very famous dog is buried at a school in Monroe.

 

Georgia Tucker is an amazing old elementary school with an interesting history. The story of how the dog came to be buried at this school in Louisiana is in the link to the school.

Geocaching will take you places that you might not have found but for the hunting of the cache...like this sculpture in downtown Monroe.

 

 I knew about the next place but had never been to the Ouachita Riverwalk. There was even someone water skiing even though it was only 50 degrees F out. Beautiful view though.

 

All in all...abandoned geocaches and all...it was a great day. We enjoyed meeting all our fellow geocachers and listening to their amazing stories. I'm looking forward to "picking their brains" at the event and learning more about Whereigo. We plan to place our first hides soon and want to be sure we do it right and that they're interesting for the finders.

I really should get busy scrapping all this activity but there will be plenty of time for that this summer when it's too hot to play outside. Happy camping, scrapping and caching!

Marvelous March has become Messy March. I KNEW I would jinx it by bragging on a great month last week. We've had nonstop rain and cold all weekend. Pat and I are stir-crazy so we decided to head to Monroe yesterday, with a little detour through Ruston to take Taylor some supplies, to do a little shopping and geocaching. Pat picked up a new pair of shoes at Academy and we enjoyed wandering around looking at stuff.

We wanted to do a little geocaching since we couldn't find any travel trailers to look at for Corey and Brittney. We selected a couple in a little-known park called Restoration Park. It is a restored gravel pit? I think. It was restored to a wetland area nestled next to I-20 in West Monroe. It has a nice, graveled walking trail that is 2.5 miles. I think we covered it all! Some places were a little tricky since we'd had so much rain but it was fun. Found both the caches. Here's a shot from one of the overlook areas.

 

After picking up 9 more caches in West Monroe and Monroe we headed to Riverside Coney Island to enjoy some music and crawfish. They were deeeeelicious!

 

The photo is titled "sorry" because I had to apologize for posting it for Corey and Brittney to see. They're working near Austin, Texas and don't have access to these wonderful crustaceans right now. Hopefully, they'll be back home before the end of the season.

Time for us to head to Mass. Have a super Sunday!

March has, at least for the past few years, been a horrible month. It may be on it's way to redeeming itself this year though, although I probably shouldn't speak so soon it will just jinx the rest of my month. Pat had to work this weekend and I found myself home and bored out of my mind so I asked my friend Kathy to come geocaching with me today. She's the person who first told me about geocaching, knowing that I would LOVE it, so it seemed fitting to ask her to help me seek out 10 BRAND SPANKING NEWLY PUBLISHED CACHES very near where she lives. I had one FTF (First to Find) under my belt so we set out with a goal to find 10 more today. Here's a picture of Kathy with her very first FTF,Uhmmm, actually that's me pulling it out of it's hiding spot..guess she didn't send me the one I took of her.

 

We had quite a few navigating adventures on this cache run. Not the least of which was walking at least a mile down a logging road only to discover that we had apparently started on the wrong end and didn't ever get to the cache!

There were some very interesting hiding places.

 

 

 

Some I had to really stretch to reach.

 

 

And some that were no trouble at all.

 

 

But wouldn't you know it...my 100th cache was almost a DNF (did not find) but I was too stubborn to give up. I left an unusual amount of DNA in these bushes locating this cache. Good thing it had a first aid kit in it. I needed it!

 

 

I thought we'd both starve before finding the last cache of the day here at Uncle Earl's monument (although you can plainly tell that I never starve).

 

The butterflies were out and it was a really nice day for caching. Kathy even found a beautiful butterfly that was perfectly preserved to give my boss ( a huge fan of butterflies). When the day ended, I had 101 geocaches logged as found and Kathy and I split the 10 FTF ribbons for the day.

 

 

 

It turned out to be a great weekend even though I had to stay home. Hope yours was too!

 

Yesterday turned out to be an unexpectedly great day! My schedule was a little lighter than usual, my students were cheerful and hard-working and we had a pep rally for the Lady Wolves basketball team as they head into the semi-final game of the state tournament. Great day at school.

As if that weren't enough, I found a cute pair of yellow flip flops, did a little grocery shopping, and then headed home. Corey was hard at work getting ready to make sushi. Everyone here but Pat loves it and Corey wanted to make some. Just as he was getting started and Brittney arrived to help, I got a message on my oh-so-lovely-new Blackberry Storm.

 

 

There was a new geocached posted in our area and we could possibly be FTF (first to find) on this one even though it was 21 miles away. Pat said he was game so we loaded the coordinates into our trusty GPS as well as the coords for another nearby cache and raced out the door. Just as we were driving into the town where the cache was located, the gas gauge on my car warned us that we were running on fumes...but we were only a mile from the cache so I knew we could gas up later. We found the rodeo arena where it was hidden (with some help from a local friend) and pulled the car up to within 100 feet of the cache. As we were getting out of the car I noticed that there was another set of vehicle tracks in the packed dirt and across the clover. Darn! We probably weren't gonna be first. Oh well, we could still catch up with the Tolar 4 who were two caches ahead of us so we tromped off into the woods. Pat spotted it first and that's when I realized that I didn't bring a camera to record this event. I snatched open the ammo box and pulled out the baggie with the log in it and lo and behold, there was this inside:

 

our very first FTF! We signed the log, took the ribbon and a wooden nickel, left some wooden nickels with our caching logo on them as well as a little other swag and hurried off to find the second cache in the area at a little park. I was literally doing the happy dance in the woods when I spotted that ribbon. Silly isn't it? To get so excited about a ten-cent ribbon. We found the second cache, signed the log, got gas and saw a beautiful sunset on the way home.

We arrived to this:

 

I think it's wonderful for a first-attempt at sushi. It was also very delicious with a glass of wine. AND, while I kicked-back and posted our finds, he and Brittney washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen! I'm so gonna miss them!

Corey and Brittney will soon be headed to Texas to work for at least 3 months on a coal-fired power plant start-up. Pat and I are planning a visit during spring break though so we'll see them again in a month.

Today promises to be another lovely spring day...have a good one!