Gold Fever

A different kind of blog entry today! As the subject is treasure hunting and shipwrecks I guess you could say it's a "Captain's Blog". Have you ever noticed that your list of favourite books is almost completely comprised of books that you have read at least twice? Well the same is true for me and in the genre of true adventure books, this one ranks right up there with Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. The book I am speaking of is....Ship of Gold(in the Deep Blue Sea) by Gary Kinder and it tells the story of the sinking of a ship, theSS Central America, in 1857. Approximately450 lives were lost when the ship sank in an Atlantic storm, 149 people were saved(mostly women and children) but from the point of view of most modern day treasure hunters the bigger story was the loss of 21 tons, lets say that again TWENTY ONE TONS of GOLDMove forward to 1980's America and a young adventurer named Tommy Thompson enters the scene with a novel idea or even a whole new philosophy on how to find profitable shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean. This engrossing book tells the story of the SS Central America Treasure from two time-frames so that , as the reader, you have the vicarious thrill of finding the gold and artifacts not once but twice. The hard work and strife of the original miners and grub-stakers is juxtaposed with the modern day struggles of a band of ingenious treasure hunters and although some of the text is technical it never gets so far into techno-babble that the reader loses interest.
For anyone who loves a great adventure story or who owns a metal detector or just loves to "dig for stuff", this is one of the best reads you will ever find.
The picture above is part of the wreck just covered in gold coins and bars. Oh by the way 21 tons of gold at 1000 dollars an ounce is 672 MILLION dollars, but that is just the value of the gold in the coins. As collector coins they are worth anywhere up to 50 times the amount of gold in them!!!

Now then, what else has the Garden Geezer been up to besides re-reading old books? Well I am still working on the side of the house that needs trees cleared off so that we can put in a workshop on the property, its untelling (real word.ask the locals) how tired you can get climbing up and down trees and piling up firewood for next winter. Still have not got the garden going yet, other than some lettuce for Cheri, because the weather is not really co-operating with my desire to get my fingers in the dirt. Maybe, as everyone around here says, I'll just have to wait for Memorial Day to pass before I do any real planting. My seed taters are ready to go in the ground so those will probably be the first pictures you see of the garden. I also have about a dozen Strawberry plants started in the house and they will go out as soon as the ground warms up.
Cheri and I put wallpaper on the ceiling in the Library/Living room today, now THAT was an adventure. I'm sure we looked like Laurel and Hardy what with the paper sticking to us and having to climb around each other on a very narrow scaffold. We had to put up 8 pieces that were 14foot 6 inches long AND make the patterns line up AND work as a team...aarrgghh. By the time we were on our 3rd piece we had a system worked out and we could actually grin as we worked instead of growling. Oh and did I mention that when wallpapering a ceiling you have to use a special kind of plaster that has clay in it! So not only are you working overhead with a 14 foot long piece of paper but it is weighted down with clay paste! What a pain. The end result after 3 or 4 hours of hard slog is quite nice, really.
Now all I have to do to make the room "complete" is , add cornices, replace the furniture, touch up/clean the walls, sand and paint the kickboards and make bookshelves. Cool, wonder what I'm gonna do after lunch!
We also taught dance, 3 classes, yesterday at the Crossnore Academy and after the 1-o-clock class finished we had the massive pleasure of going out for lunch with some of our students and 2 of their counsellors. We drove down to Boone and all 11 of us ate at the Mellow Mushroom pizza place. Brilliant food, good company and a happy time was had by one and all.
More to come later.
Garden Geezer

A special blog entry for Faith and Walter

Hello Faith, Hello Walter. I felt as if I had to do a special entry just for you two. I know Walter is quite concerned with my tree chopping activities , so I decided to show you both some of the area where Cheri and I live in order to put your mind at ease about the massive number of trees around here.
As you can see from this first picture we are not short of the tall brown and green stuff. In certain places you can turn360 degrees and see nothing but trees. Admittedly most of the trees around us are not "old growth" the area has been harvested and replanted a coupla times probably since America was first colonised. And there certainly arent many(if any) Elms here since the Dutch Elm Disease hit some time ago. The sight of all these trees is beautiful though and they do support a lively ecosystem even if some of them are sacrificed once in a while to keep people warm in winter.


This second picture is of my lovely wife Cheri, who, like me, really enjoys the great outdoors. We actually met on a camping and canoe trip in the Okeefenokee Swamp which is on the border of Florida and Georgia.
We have hiked and canoed many miles together and I am sure there will be more stories on here in the future about some of those adventures so that you can gasp in awe, shiver in fear and laugh out loud at some of the silly predicaments we get ourselves into.

Once again walter a massive abundance of trees.






Another picture below, this time of the happy couple doing what we do best. Hanging out together and having a great time.This shot and the one above are taken from high on
Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. On a good day they say you can see Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee as well as....North Carolina.
Grandfather Mtn is also home to the Mile High Swinging Bridge which is really over 5280 feet high and when the wind is blowing, which it often does, really swings. It swings enough to scare people into not crossing it even though that was their main reason for going to the top of the mountain. There is also a wildlife preserve/zoo on the mountain where you can see bears,eagles,otter,deer and mountain lions or as they are called hereabouts mountain cats or cougars.
Well thats enough for now I suppose except to tell anyone reading this that Walter and Faith are friends of mine in England, both are retired although they do work hard at their favourite hobby which is Managing and Maintaining a nature reserve called Paxton Pits. Faith says she is going to start a Blog and I'm sure Paxton will be a large part of it. So if she does(hint hint Faith) make sure you have a look at it. Or you can click here http://paxtonpits.blogspot.com/ to have a look at some eccentric English folk looking after their little corner of the island.

All my best to Walter and Faith,
and any other wandering bloggers
Paul.