States and Towns

Thinking of buying a new house in a town I never, in my wildest dreams, thought of living in reminds me of all the places I have lived.

    Born on an Air Force Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico
Pampa, Texas - moved there when I was 3.
Burlington, Vermont - moved to a Air Force Base near there when I was 5
Pampa, Texas - we were there about 4 months that time when I was 6.
Los Vegas, Nevada - I was 7 when we moved to Nellis Air Force Base near there.
Tampa, Florida - moved to McDill Air Force Base near there when I was 11.
Tucson, Arizona - moved to Davis Monthan Air Force Base near there when I was 13.
Sandpoint, Idaho - we moved there when Dad retired from Air Force and I was 14.
Albuquerque, New Mexico - back to my birth place for last 2 years of high school when I was 16.
Chandler, Arizona - I lived there about 6 months with my parents and joined the Navy when I was 18.
Bainbridge, Maryland - 10 weeks here for Navy boot camp.
San Diego, California - Navy sent me here where I met Lee, we got married, I was 20 when we left.
Wakeigan, Illinois - we were here for 6 months while Lee had Navy schooling.
Silver City, New Mexico - I stayed with my parents while Lee was on a Navy ship.
Honolulu, Hawaii - was here 4 months with Lee before he was off on ship again and I was back to
      NM. Turned 21 here.
Silver City, New Mexico - Lee got out of Navy and we stayed here about 3 years when I was 24.
Albuquerque, New Mexico - moved here so Lee could go to school. Lived in several houses. Had
       our son, Dustin. I was 33 when we moved to small town near Albuquerque.
Rio Rancho, New Mexico - I would never have though of spending 35 years in this town but we did
       in 2 different houses.
Bedford, Kentucky - my son moved here and we followed. I am not sure why. I am now 66.

You can count them, that is 19 different places although I lived twice or more at a couple of them. This is just the towns and states. This list would be a lot longer if I added in all the different houses I lived in. I know there are lots of people who have lived a lot more places, but then I know of people who have never lived outside of the town they were born in. And even a few who were born, lived and died in the same house.
  Just another of the Different Trails that people follow in their lives.

White Tailed Deer

We took a drive over to Carrollton, KY yesterday and drove through General Butler State Park which is almost in the middle of the town. Its not the kind of state park I am used to out in the southwestern states which are usually don't have anything besides a visitors center and if you are lucky a small area for camping. The state parks in KY all seem to have big, fancy resorts and restaurants on them. General Butler includes cabins for rent, a golf course and a center for meetings. But it is a nice drive through several hundred acres of native Kentucky county and has lots of hiking trails. The Kentucky river runs through part of it and there is a large pond area where geese and other birds can be seen. We had stopped at a (so called) primitive camping area (another words for tent camping, not primitive by western ideas) that over looked the pond sort of. There was to much brush and trees to see the pond well from this spot, but we decided it was a good place to stretch our lets and let our dog, Ziva, get out for a bit. It was to muddy to do much hiking so we stayed to the paved drive way (remember this is a primitive camp area). Ziva kept acting like she wanted to go back to our Jeep so we wondered back slowly and she wanted to stand in front of the Jeep looking down into a gully. Ok, I thought, there is a bird or squirrel down there and she can see or smell it even if I can't. But I kept looking as did Ziva and then I saw some small tree trunks start walking. I realized there were about 3 deer just coming out of the gully onto the road we had come in on. Of course they were several hundred yards away with a deep gully in between and if they hadn't crossed the road I don't think we would have seen them. Lee and I discussed it thinking the deer would be far back into the woods by the time we could drive over there. But as we were ready to leave we did so. And we were surprised to see the deer still standing by the road when we got there. And not just 3. We were able to count at least 8. All does and their fawns from last summer. They didn't pay us much attention so I got my camera and started taking photos. You could tell they were really used to people. I got several of the doe that acted as if she was the leader of the group. But I also took several of all of them just to show how well they are camouflaged when standing in a bunch of leafless trees and shrubs. There are at least 7 deer in the last photo on this post. I know where they are (sort of). But they sure are hard to see.  

ICE

It doesn't show that well but there is ice on each and every little branch and twig on the trees and bushes. We had another ice storm the night before I took these photos. I can never get the photos to look the way my eyes see the ice on everything. It is beautiful but, oh, so dangerous. So far we have been lucky in not having to go anywhere on days like this.