The Order Testudines

This box turtle (from the order of Testudines) was sunning himself on our driveway this morning.

The Joys of Being Somewhat Colorblind

So I was at Conner's supermarket yesterday doing some grocery shopping and stubbed my toe on something while I was in the produce department.  Looked down at my big toe and it was bleeding under the nail, but not so severely that it was dripping on the floor or making a mess of my $5 flip flops.  Returned to the house and ate lunch, and then headed down to the beach.  Spent a considerable amount of time in the ocean boogie boarding and my toe was still an unsightly mess.  Came back to the house and took a shower.  The toe was still a mess, so I got out the nail clippers and prepared for minor surgery.  Starting digging around under the nail, and what a treasure I did find!  I stubbed my toe on a watermelon at Conner's and spent the day with a green watermelon rind jammed under my toenail...no blood, no damage.  If I was not partially colorblind I probably would have noticed earlier in the day that my toe was green, not red!  Such is life for those of us afflicted with this colorblindness thing!

Hatteras Like You Have Never Seen It!

Carolee and Kristyne are at the beach this week for some mid-January R&R and they got a little more than they bargained for!  It is a rare occurrence to have snow stick on the ground in Hatteras...happens every 10-15 years, but the girls timed it right. (Double click on the picture below for a larger view of the slideshow!)

OoO

We mark our calendars at work with 'OoO' whenever we are going to be out of the office.  I've come up with a new meaning for 'OoO'...October on Ocracoke.  Carolee and I spent five days at the house by ourselves (not a complaint...we love to have other people around) last week, a rare event, and enjoyed some pretty spectacular weather.  Carolee celebrated her birthday on Sunday the 17th by running 11 miles in preparation for her upcoming 1/2 marathon in Indianapolis and we had dinner with Dennis and Alita at Oceana's Bistro that evening.  On Monday the 18th I took the ferry from Hatteras Island to Ocracoke Island and biked from the north end of the island down to the village of Ocracoke and back, a 27 mile round trip.  It was a perfect day and I highly recommend hitting the Outer Banks in October when the crowds have died down (except the fisherman) and the daily highs are still in the mid to upper 70's.  We are heading back to the beach next month and will spend Thanksgiving at the beach for the first time.  The weather will be cooler, but the beach is good any time of the year.

Earl (is no pearl)

Earl had Nora so wound up her hair was sticking straight up!  Actually we sweated Hurricane Earl out Thursday evening from Indianapolis by watching The Weather Channel for a ridiculous amount of time (like it would change something!).  The biggest problem was sound side flooding, but the island is back open for business and Highway 12 did not sustain any structural damage.  If you know the area, slide 6 of the slide show (see link below) will give you a good reference point. The picture is taken going north on Highway 12 and you can see Dillon's corner on the left, which is right across the street from Old Lighthouse Road.  Everyone is feeling fortunate that the area came through relatively unscathed considering this was a Category 4 storm at one point with winds of 145 mph!

http://www.islandfreepress.org/2010Archives/09.03.2010-HurricaneEarlSlideShow/index.html

"Gran-paw"

Carolee's Dad celebrates his 79th birthday today.  We had the entire gang of 22 over last night for ice cream cake and the opening of presents.  The extremely nice icing lady at Food Lion struggled a bit with the spelling of Grandpa...I got her to drop the "w" at the end but didn't catch the missing "d" till we got back to the house!

Myers Family Redux

I'm a little late on this post...but the Myers family made their return in early June and had what they described as "an awesome week".