Riding the Rail, Walking the Line
we rode the Blue Ridge
Scenic Railway, feet in both
Georgia / Tennessee
Riding the Rails of the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway
Brothers on Bridges, By Fire Pits and on Couches in Blue Ridge
I call Bethany my sister-in-law because what’s his is mine and what’s mine is his, and since she’s married to his brother, that makes her my sister in law too. When we saw that we would not be able to complete Part 2 of our Route 66 trip from Santa Monica to Albuquerque this year, we booked a quick weekend getaway to the mountains of North Georgia a couple of months ago to celebrate their birthdays this month. We’d flown to Chicago and rented a car to drive to Albuquerque and fly from Albuquerque back to Atlanta in June 2024, and we still talk about all the great memories we made on that trip. I can’t forget that coconut pie at the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas, but that’s an entire story for another day. And so we found a VRBO situated just outside Blue Ridge on a winding creek where we could relax and lower our blood pressure.
That’s why it was so meaningful yesterday when Bethany shared that she knew God had this weekend in mind, prompting us to plan the trip when we did, knowing we’d need to get away more now than ever. Things got real a couple of weeks ago when Kyle had a heart attack. When he’d picked Bethany up from the airport, he shared he wasn’t feeling well, and she’d recognized the symptoms. She took over the driving and took him straight to the hospital, where hours later, after his heart attack, the doctor showed them The Widowmaker images and assured them that they had done the right thing getting to the hospital when they did. Following surgery, he was released a few days later as good as new – even better, actually. Doctor’s orders were to take it easy for the next few weeks.
Nothing surprises God. He had Kyle in his hand, getting him to the hospital so he could be here to celebrate another birthday. Here in these mountains, we’ve eaten delicious foods, sipped coffee in the early morning, taken walks, and sat around talking and laughing as we’ve shared family stories by the fire. Today, we’ll ride the rails of the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway along the Toccoa River to see if we can spot the first leaves of fall turning their glorious colors. And we’ll each say a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of nature and the time together to enjoy it.
We’ve always heard the popular phrase, “Life is short. Take the trip. Buy the shoes. Eat the cake.” But when someone we love has a close call, you realize it’s not just some random saying on a t-shirt. It’s true. We get one wild and precious life, and the poet Mary Oliver had the right idea asking us what we were going to do with it. Today, we answer: we’re going to live it to the fullest and thank the Good Lord for the gift.
Our Husbands are Brothers
they waited on us
while we were shopping in town
being brotherly
later, they built us a fire,
roasted marshmallows
***
from the moment we’re
born, all our clocks are ticking
make the most of life
Brothers on Benches in Blue Ridge
When we drove a little over half of Route 66 in June 2024 with my husband’s brother and his wife, we took a lot of pictures. One theme emerged early into the trip: brothers on benches. Bethany and I would be shopping in a store or ambling along to check things out in the small towns along the way when one of us would suddenly spy the brothers deep in conversation on a nearby bench. We’d snap a photo just to timestamp the moments of our slow-paced trot across the nation, where the scenery changed by the minute but the desire to just sit and talk never did, no matter the GPS point.
Such is the case this weekend in the mountains of North Georgia on our getaway to celebrate Bethany and Kyle’s birthdays this month. The brothers are still finding benches, no matter where we go. And we’re still capturing the moments in pictures. It’s the conversation and not the landscape that remains the constant.
Brothers on Benches
brothers on benches
solving all the world’s problems
no matter the place
Crossword Puzzles
The only game/puzzle my father ever believed was not a “frivolous waste of time” was a crossword puzzle. And he did the New York Times puzzle religiously, in pen, breezing through Monday like a flat treadmill, and slowing down with the incline challenge each day until Saturday, when it was next to impossible. Yet he motored through, and he’d often leave several clues undone and ask my brother and me to help him finish. When he died in June 2025, I found many of those single newspaper pages folded into just the crossword section with the puzzles all completed.
I believe puzzles and games improve brain health, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to learn to play Mahjong and to find a group so that I can play it regularly to keep my synapses firing. It’s one of the new joys I’ve discovered in retirement, and it makes me happy to have the fellowship with others as well. When I’m not in a group playing Mahjong, though, I do still enjoy crossword puzzles and the bravery to complete them in pen just like Dad did. Since I don’t take the New York Times, I do the Page-a-Day Crossword on the desk calendar and the puzzle on the last page of The New Yorker each week (a subscription that is a much loved gift from my aunt and uncle). I think of Dad and which clues he would be saving for Ken and me. The puzzles are listed as beginner friendly, moderately challenging, or challenging. And while some are brain bending, I don’t give up.
Inking Letters
Still, I motor through
challenging crossword puzzles
and think of our dad……
4th Friday Retirement Adventures: September 2026
Retirement officially began for me August 1st, and each second and fourth Friday, I’ve begun reflecting on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well. Friends and family who are still working seemed genuinely curious about what I would do with each day, and that’s what gave me the idea to plan and reflect on the course of my days and adventures. I remember my late father’s words, on retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, but the busy part is optional, like wearing real clothes on most days instead of my preferred loungewear. And I like having that choice.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in my first official eight weeks of retirement, with each being described in detail in previous posts :
1. Mahjong 101
2. Rag Quilting
3. Morning Walking
4. Yoga
5. Friends of the Library Book Fair –
6. Local Bookstore Book Club
7. Summer Reading Poetry Book Club
8. Postcard Poetry Fest
9. Wayfaring to FDR for camping
10. Wayfaring to Margaritaville for a concert
11. Mahjong 102 and Free Play
12. Zinnia Arrangement
13. Fabric Postcards
14. Porch Sitting
15. Lounge Pants Spree
16. Novel Writing with Nick –
17. Kindred Spirits Book Club –
18. Barnes and Noble Virtual Book Club
19. Re-vamping the Reading Room
20. Office Cleanout
21. Monthly Small Postcard Group
22. Watercolor Postcards
23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia
24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee
25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings
26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop
27. Mahjongg Group Formation
28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-In Law
29. Lunch with Friends
Here are the the most recent things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement:
30. Camping at Vogel State Park – We camped in the North Georgia mountains near Neel Gap along the Appalachian Trail. We managed to avoid the “problem bear” that had been frequenting site 52. Whew! We enjoyed sitting outside in the cooler temperatures and listening to the stream that ran behind our campsite.
31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail – I attempted this one, but took it off the list after setting out thinking that if Grandma Gatewood could do it, so could I. After a mere 36 seconds, I realized I was wrong. Even our recent hike to check in when we went to F. D. Roosevelt State Park took it out of me when I tried hiking mountainous terrain. I like flat, home-based, safe treadmill hiking best.
32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring – My husband and I experienced Blairsville like locals by visiting the county library to ask where to eat and what to see.
33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia – After realizing it would be challenging to go for days without playing Mahjong with a group, I reached out to a group leader in Blairsville for information on their open group play and joined them for a few hands, even Mahjonging with a consecutive run and getting to pick a trinket (a tiny seal) from their treasure box.
34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club – We read The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy as our September selection and set a date for a January getaway to a cabin for some girl time pajama reading.
35. Hosting Open Write – One writing community that sustains me is the Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. I enjoy writing with them monthly and also hosting a couple of times a year as well. I hosted one day during the month of September and will host again in 2027 during April. My reading and writing communities mean so very much to me.
36. Fall Baking – I was having the ladies over to play Mahjong on the first day of fall, so to welcome autumn, we celebrated with fall foods. I baked pumpkin bread and banana walnut bread, and I even wore my favorite fall apron! The whole house smelled of cinnamon and spice, and the vibe was that kind you wish you could keep all year long. I’ve always wanted a slow-paced fall baking day just to call a baking day.
I’m freezing some of the pumpkin bread to take with us to a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. We’re leaving on Saturday, and we’re going on a special excursion that I’ll share on the next Retirement Adventure countdown……
At the end of the second month, I’m more than a third of the way through my list of 100 Things.
Does this mean I need
to slow down?Heck, no. Not this
girl! Full steam ahead!
September 2026 Kindred Spirits Book Club
Our Kindred Spirits
more than just a small book club
we share heart and mind
Each month, the Kindred Spirits Book Club with a six-strong membership meets to discuss our monthly pick. We’re nearing the end of our second full year of reading together, and there’s a deep soul-knit sisterhood that we share. Back in January, our Kindred Spirits readers each chose two books that would take us through 2026, then we mapped out our choices on a calendar and set our meeting dates and locations for each month so that we could guard those calendar days and set ourselves up for attendance success.
It wasn’t until our actual book club meeting day (the last day of our trip to Vogel State Park last week) that I finished this month’s book, The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy, on the drive home (I like to go back and forth between Kindle and Audible). What I think I loved most about waiting until the last minute before the meeting to read the book is that so many of the details were still fresh in my mind for discussion. Generally, I read our selections far ahead of time, and by the time we meet, I’ve read a mix of other books and get the details mixed up. I’ll be more strategic with the timing of my book club selections in the future.
This book is an absolute treasure, by the way. Holly Kennedy is a Canadian author, and she had me in stitches with the kidnapping of a Canadian Goose named Tom Hanks. If you’ve never had the experience of sitting by a campfire reading a book that has you in a full-blown belly laugh while total strangers walk by chuckling from your contagious laughter, please find your way to a bookstore (or get a copy free on Kindle Unlimited) and meet Holly Kennedy in the pages of this novel as you sit by the fire this fall. I’d classify it as a comedic whodunit and go as far as classifying it as a modern Bildungsroman because the main character functions in so many ways as a child but grows in his understanding of the world. As a writer, I appreciate the way the author uses one character’s elaborate t-shirt collection to build character development throughout the novel. This book will change your perspective on those who face life with the deck stacked against them. Visit this link for more information about Holly Kennedy and read the Substack interview. Even in her author photo, you can tell she’s quite a character herself.
October’s selection (changed slightly from our calendar) is a choice of this trio: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth, Remain by Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan, or Songteller by Dolly Parton, just to give a fourth-quarter choice of an ironic author collaboration on a romantic ghost story, a timely biography, and a book flying off the shelves and so compelling it pulls you in and won’t turn loose, and then leaves you wanting to read it all over again. Here are our other selections we’ve read this year. We’re always interested to hear what others are reading and how it has broadened minds, opened worlds, and led to new adventures!
Happy Reading!
Ambling Through Blairsville and Playing Mahjong with New Friends
One of my favorite parts of RV travel is going into small towns along the way to see what life is like there. I don’t mean it to sound like I perceive other places as somehow foreign in an Earthling versus Alien kind of way, but I like to see what everyday is like for those who live in places other than where I live. I like to see their favorite places to eat, their shops, their town squares, their Walmarts, and their libraries. I like to experience a day in the place of others whose shoes I can share for even just a day.
During a recent trip to North Georgia, we spent a little time in Blairsville. Our first stop was the county library, where we checked out the book collections and programs and also asked about where the locals like to eat. The Union County Library has a Dolly Parton display and a plant swap going on right now, and when I go to other libraries around our state, I feel sad for our small library without the resources that others have.
We got several restaurant recommendations, including Belly Pizza and Hole in the Wall. At Belly Pizza, we had a supreme pizza and ordered a large so we’d have leftovers for the next day (we are “lazy” campers who prefer microwave leftovers to cookouts). We also ordered a Catalina Wine Mixer salad, which had baby spinach, red grapes, Kalamata olives, red onion, roasted tomato, sunflower seeds, feta cheese, Catalina vineyard dressing, pepperoncini peppers, and…..ta daaaaa…. pepper drops, also known as Biquinho peppers. In all my life, I have never had these, and they were fabulously flavorful. They’re the red bulb-looking peppers in the photo below. They’re a full taste explosion, popping like a firm grape and tasting like a cross between a sweet tomato and a soft bell pepper.
We also ducked into a gelato and chocolate shop for a sweet treat. The lemon gelato was delicious with a. sugar cookie crumble topping, and the chocolates looked good, too, but we stopped at one small sweet treat and resisted the urge to splurge worse.
I also made some new friends in Blairsville, too. Debbie Lynn, a fellow blogger from Texas, shared with me recently that Mahjong groups are generally welcoming of outsiders, and so I reached out to the leader of a group that plays on Wednesdays and joined them. I’m so glad I did! It was nice to see all the lovely tablescapes and meet new friends along the way! This group charges $3 to play for the afternoon, and from their monthly earnings, they pay part of the proceeds to their clubhouse for utilities and dues, and part to a charity. When Dolly Parton died, they played the 9-2-5 Mahjong cards and sent the contributions to the Imagination Library. I’m learning a lot about how a brain-stimulating game can connect people and help organizations.
My Favorite Neighborhood
consecutive run
no jokers allowed in pairs
still, a winning line!
Whether we are at home in our own small town or off exploring in other places around our great state or nation, it’s a warm feeling to belong and feel welcome. For this week, I’m back with my own neighborhood Mahjong group, reading with my dogs nuzzled beside me, and dreading the dentist visit today at 11:00…….I love clean teeth, but I hate the scraping.
September Camping at Vogel State Park in Georgia
Camping at Vogel State Park
camping at Vogel
mountain air resetting pace
allowing deep rest
Last week, we camped on the side of a mountain where a stream ran behind our campsite and gurgled with all the relaxing sounds of water. Morning temperatures were in the 60s, and the cell phone signals and wifi weakness made streaming movies and scrolling social media all but impossible.
It was absolutely wonderful, too!
Thank goodness I had hard copies of books and downloads on my Kindle. I was more “in the moment” walking dogs, sitting fireside for chats, and being tuned in to my surroundings. I’d learned the previous week how to play solo Mahjong from a new friend named Kristy, a fellow retired teacher one county north, so I practiced making hands on the 2026 card. I’d also thought to bring watercolor paints along in case an unplanned stroke of creativity came over me (it didn’t).
I’m already missing the mountains. It has peace you can breathe, and when the air gets much cooler, there’s a size XXL outdoor fireplace under a covered pavilion with tables for games or lunch, and sturdy, ample-seated rocking chairs that overlook the lake, perfect for reading or sipping coffee. A breeze wafts through the space. We sat and breathed for a while before driving up Blood Mountain to Neel Gap to visit the hiking store.
And at the end of the day, we roasted marshmallows just like when we were kids…..and slept with the windows open in all the clean night air.
I’m ready to go back!
September 2026 Open Write Day 4 of 4
Today’s host of the final day of the September 2026 Open Write at www.ethicalela.com is Leilya Pitre, who writes: In Louisiana, we often use the word lagniappe, meaning “a little something extra.” It is an unexpected gift offered in generosity. Today, I welcome you to a little lagniappe: one more space for conversation, reflection, encouragement, or an unexpected poem.
Leilya invites writers to look back or look forward and suggests considering a Gogyohka. She explains: Developed by Japanese poet Enta Kusakabe, a Gogyohka consists of five lines. Each line holds one phrase or breath, but there are no syllable counts, required themes, or preferred topics. You may write about anything that calls to you. That’s it: five concise but free lines.
Dolly Mahjong 925
we played the Dolly card
it proved terribly hard
no Mahjonging for me
(unlike the other three)
official card wins, we all agree
September 2026 Open Write Day 3 of 4: Too Many X
Today’s Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is hosted by Dr. Sarah Donovan using a prompt by Alora Young, who is the Poet Laureate of the Southeastern United States. She inspires us to write an I Have Many poem. You can hear hers at this link and see the structure for the poem, beginning with the line I Have Many X. They….They…..They…..They… begin the last for lines for repeating beginnings. My mind went to a book my Kindred Spirits book club read earlier this year by Emily Henry, entitled People We Meet on Vacation. One of the main characters has “too many wine,” and it made me think of a picture I received from a fellow teacher retiree just last night on the way to dinner. We’d been playing Mahjong the day before, and we realized that we can have drinks in public now without fear of getting fired. At dinner, she snapped a photo of herself smiling big with wine, and sent a text that said Cheers! So I snapped a picture of me with a beer and replied Cheers! (Disclaimer: I was with my husband, who was driving. I did not tell stories or get up and dance or, heaven forbid, sing anything. I did ask Siri who was singing the songs a couple of times because the first one did NOT sound like Keith Whitley, which my husband insisted it was….and it was, God rest his soul – Keith’s soul, to be clear – and the second one sounded more like Hank Williams Junior than Travis Tritt and my husband insisted it wasn’t Junior, and it wasn’t, but there were too many kids one table over and it made it hard to hear….but not because of the beer).
Too Many
I have many Blue Moon
they sing country song
they tell loose-lip story
they line dance wrong
they don’t drive
