Back to Normal

We caught a large part of the Dec. 14-15 ice storm -- the first ice storm we've seen since we left Michigan for Florida in 1986.




This is what it looked like about 10 a.m. The weather warmed during the day then fell below freezing again that night, creating a real mess.



Click here to read what the local newspaper had to say about the storm.


We were without power at Green Homestead from 7:30 a.m. Dec. 15 until about 6 p.m. Dec. 17. Fortunately we have a fireplace and plenty of firewood. But this made the decision to buy a permanently installed generator out here much easier. The vendor promises installation by the end of December. We toughed it out in a motel, checking out each morning and returning home for the day, praying for electricity.

Here are some more views. Click on the image for a larger view.

Green River

A dam on the Green River formed Lake Adger in the previous century but the fishing remains good.

These Green River scenes are at a public access spot a few miles from the Green family homestead. The fish are trout and the rules are catch and release.



We used fish this size as bait when trolling for sailfish in the Atlantic but judging from the action these two young men were making up size with numbers. Their lures brought in five fish in about 15 minutes.


A creek flows into the Green River at this point.

The river is stocked by the state every year.

Only the Start

Sylvia points at the starting point of her thousand foot hike. Four hours and weary toes later she was back on moderately level ground. 

Frost on the Pumpkin

Jack Frost has finally arrived here. We have frosty patterns on everything except ourselves!
Big, comfy living room furniture arrived yesterday. Anybody that comes to visit us will enjoy sitting on the sofa or easy chairs. We did realize though that the furniture show room is much larger than our living room.
We are in the midst of Thanksgiving preparations and giving thanks while we do it.

News from Lake Adger

Cathy at Christmas, 1965




Buck Fever
As I sat at my desk this morning I saw a white-tail buck cross the mid-reaches of our property, between the house and the road. He walked with a limp, favoring his right foreleg. No outward sign of injury and hunting season has not opened yet so I assume he was grazed by a car.

I saw a buck and three does while I was driving in from town on Wednesday. We see deer beside the road or crossing it almost every time we venture out.

We await the first real cold snap of the winter. The weather people predict a low of 27 for Thursday night-Friday morning.

But that is not the big news. I have buried the lead. That's what professionals say when they bury the most important part of a story somewhere down around the sixth paragraph.

We have been told that our living room furniture will be delivered Friday, Nov. 18, Tomorrow! That is 115 days after we placed the order at the Hickory Furniture Mart. After it arrives and we determine it is perfect I will post pictures of the beautiful hand-rubbed leather chairs and sleeper sofa. I will not post pictures of my happy butt after it is freed from the hard wood bottom of my current chair.

Fall leaves

Where do all these leaves come from? And why don't they stay on the trees where they belong, instead of on my driveway and deck? Four hours spent cleaning and mulching leaves, only to see twice as many gathering again. Lots of work but they sure are pretty.

This has been an easy Saturday -- about 33 degrees at dawn, warming up to 68 this afternoon. Sylvia went to a meeting of her hiking club while I continued work in the garage. One of these days I will have the house squared away, the garage organized, the basement finished and then will wonder what to do with my time. I know. I can write.

Fall in the Mountains

Fall in the Blue Ridge Mountains is just glorious.

Sunrise on Lake Adger

Sunrise over the lake on Oct. 25, 2005 -- the first cold fall morning. Temperature 35 degrees. Snow and ice close the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Diving Paul

Paul Huebner takes a terrifying August plunge from the exteme height of Frog Rock on Lake Adger near Mill Spring, NC. He is followed by Goalie Tyler Rausch.

States in which we have ridden.

We have been on a motorcycle in almost all the red states. Soon we will cover them all.

Countries we have visited

We have ridden a motorcycle in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama. The other countries in red we have visited for work or for pleasure.

Lake Adger

Chuck and Sylvia at the headwaters of the Mississippi River during the 2004 magical tour of the United States.

The Pacific Coast Highway

Self Portrait

Preparing to Leave Portland, OR for Miami

Miles and Smiles on God's Gift

It amazes us all the time. Where ever we go -- and we have ridden God's Gift more than 32,000 miles -- people want to talk about the motorcycle. Old people. Young people. Male people and female people. Maybe it is seeing two senior citizens having so much fun on a motorcycle. Or, more likely, they are drawn to it by the Holy Spirit.This 2003 Honda GL1800 Gold Wing is a tool used by Shalav Ministries to tell people how much God loves them. That's why we ride it. To tell people about God's love.And just because riding it is great fun.

In the Beginning

Wayne Cochran, senior pastor at Voice for Jesus Church in Miami, bought a Harley Davidson in 2002 with author's royalties from his hit song "Last Kiss." Seeing him on that bike brought back memories of Sylvia and I riding a Honda and then a Harley all over Mexico and Central America when I was a foreign correspondent in Mexico City.
The urge to ride again was strong. I started saving toward a motorcycle.

• I saved $12,000. And had to put a new roof on the house. Cost: $13,000.
• I saved some more. Got it up to $10,000. And had to replace a sewer line that backed up into the house. Cost: $9,200.
• I started again. I had $6,500 set aside but another emergency took away that.

In February 2003 Jerry Savelle brought his Chariots of Light Christian Bikers Club to Voice for Jesus Church in Miami as part of the Chariots' first Florida tour. The sight of all those motorcycles parked outside our church was almost more than I could take.
Sylvia and I firmly believe in the Biblical principle of sowing and reaping. As we left for church a Sunday not long after the Chariots’ visit I told Sylvia that I wished I could sow motorcycles into people’s lives.
“So do it,” she said. “Just sow as much as you can to people who are praying for motorcycles.” The first $100 – all I could afford – went to a guy at church I knew was standing for a motorcycle. Then another $50 went to someone else. Then another $100. Now the die was cast. I started fixating on motorcycles, the way guys do when they are bitten by the new vehicle bug. I dreamed motorcycles. I talked motorcycles. I went to the end of the Internet looking at motorcycles. It began to seem to me (wishful thinking?) that God would use us and a motorcycle as a tool to show people how much He loves them.
“If that’s true then you better join Chariots right away,” Sylvia said. I scoffed. Join a motorcycle club without a motorcycle? She insisted. I joined Chariots of Light even though I had no chariot.

Within days money started coming in from strange sources. Writing I had done months before brought some. New unexpected assignmnets brought some. I didn’t think much about it at first. But then I realized that this was unexplained money coming to us for some specific reason. It was God responding, the reaping that comes after the sowing. Within two months I could see in my mind’s eye a new bike sitting in my driveway. I drug Sylvia to every motorcycle shop in South Florida. She saw so many motorcycles she, too, decided to get her license. Now she is waiting for God to let her know if she will ride her own bike.

I bought my first bike for $50, a Simplex ServiCycle, in 1952 and rode other bikes many miles as a younger man. But I was an older guy now and it was probably not a good idea for guy 65 to start riding motorcycles. Could I still ride? There was only one safe way to find out. I enrolled in a Motorcycle Safety Foundation basic rider course. A paunchy grey haired guy among people half his age. Some young enough to be his grandchildren. But I did it. I could still ride. And that course got my motorcycle endorsement. The next day I tested a Gold Wing. What a huge bike! A week later I paid cash for a new 2003 GL1800 Gold Wing with ABS and $1,500 worth of accessories. Not a nickel came from our household budget. It was God's Gift.

Servicycle -- Chuck's first motorcycle

GL1800 -- Our Current Bike