Silver Dollar City

One of the highlights of our autumn is the Festival of Craftsmen at Silver Dollar City. The festival has been renamed several times - I think it's called The Harvest Festival - but we call it by the name John always knew it by. They bring in all kinds of craftsmen - silversmiths, blacksmiths, coopers, quilters, basket makers, candle makers, saddle makers, sorghum-makers, jewelry makers, potters. And I'm sure I'm forgetting more but my brain can't recall them. John and I spent yesterday at the festival. What a wonderful time we had! We wandered thru the park and picked up a few Christmas presents, dreamed a few dreams about times gone by, and before we left, went back to the cooperage and picked up this little darling. It's a bucket made from woods indigenous to the Ozarks. Each stay is a different wood. The cooper wrote on the bottom what each stay is...I think there are 3 repeats of each wood. It's waterproof and quite substantial. John asked me what I was going to use it for and I told him I honestly don't know...but I really wanted it and he indulged me, as usual!

John had charge of the camera this time and he took a mountain of photos of me...I deleted most of them since they were pretty awful - not because of the photographer, because the sun kept creeping in and out from behind the clouds and the shadows made me look quite ill. I'm not ill, just pale!

And then we went over by the lumberjack camp and saw John's favorite waterfall...he began snapping photos of me and frankly, they were all just hideous (my opinion, not his). I took one of him and then a nice couple came over to us and asked us if we wanted our picture taken together - and then would we take one of them? Here we are with the waterfall behind us through the trees...one of my favorite photos of the two of us!

We are off on vacation next week. A week in Hilton Head, South Carolina. John III and his wonderful family are flying there on Friday, we will drive there and meet them on Saturday for a week . It's been 10 months since we've seen them and we are so homesick for them all. We can hardly wait. John III has some great day trips planned for us - I'm hitting a quilt shop and a yarn shop and Paula Deen's restaurant for sure! I'm hoping to be able to blog while we're gone...keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks for stopping by.