Storms and Dollywood

Well, I got all ready to post this blog last night but Blogger was ‘offline’ or something. Apparently Facebook was too, said Gary. So this posted on Thursday morning before work.

Monday we were getting ready to go to work, and as I was packing my phone, I checked for messages. Ugh, oh – a call from my boss. “Peggy, you need to be at Show Street Lemonade at 12 o’clock.” It was 12:08 and we weren’t even ready for our scheduled 1 o’clock start time. We grabbed things and made a call to let them know we were on our way. I asked if I had screwed up, and he said it wasn’t me, it was them and not to rush, just get here asap. Fortunately, work is only 10 minutes away and I clocked in at 12:18 while Gary parked the jeep.

Sunday night there had been a severe storm over Dollywood where someone had even spotted a funnel cloud. It hit around 5:30 and only took 10 minutes to rip branches, leaves and guests all over the place. One little girl was hit in the face by a piece of signage and, for precaution, was taken to the hospital. Water ran easily down the hills and into stores and restaurants, people took shelter where ever they could, but the park stayed open. Once again, our hearts go out to all those affected by this terrible weather we have been experiencing.

In my frozen lemonade stand, everything was soaked (I have no walls), so before I opened up, everything had to be dried off. There was no time that night to salvage things, I guess. But the weather was hot and sunny reaching 90 some degrees and I was doing a brisk business that didn’t stop until someone came to give me a break. We finally closed up and got home around 8:30. Whew.

Tuesday was chemo day and we showed up at 10:15 but were told that Gary’s lab tests were read and fine, but now they had to defrost the Ontak for an hour. We drove home, I made brownies for the potluck this evening and threw in a load of wash. We drove back to the hospital and they were ready for him – in a private room, no less. He got his Benadryl and went promptly to sleep. I read my book. Home again, another load of wash while Gary slept off his drugs until 5 when it was time to leave.

We met Phil and Diana, Jim and Meghan and Richard and Sandy on the way down the hill from the parking lot and signed in at the barn dropping our door prize tickets in the basket. A welcome from the RV Coordinator, Pam Wood, and then we got in line to eat the goodies we all brought. Let me tell you, RVers are GREAT cooks! Here’s my plate:
After dinner it was door prize time. We had three tickets in the basket and we won three times! What are the chances of that??? Now if the Lottery would just come through... We got a Splash Country mug, a visor and a cap as prizes. Our friends who all won prizes, too! This is Jim and Meghan behind us in a Dutch Star, This is Sandy and Richard, friends visiting Meghan and Jim And this is Phil and Diana and us We gave a huge applause to oldest working couple at 78 years old and going strong! Wonderful!! Then we all herded out to have our picture taken and we ran into Chris and John whom we met in our Kissimmee campground. They are working in catering this year. It was a good time, although brief, but we see most of us on a regular basis either in Dollywood or in our campgrounds anyway. It was a beautiful evening, light until after nine, and we sat out looking for hummers. I got my feeders out for them this morning, but no takers yet that I have seen.

But it is Thursday morning and we have hummers! I love them at the huge windshield feeder, but I have three up now. I will try to catch them with my camera soon.

Right now, we've got to get ready for a 91 degree day at work.