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Blonde Redhead |
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So once again I'm consumed by pet-sitting and exercising. I'm not sure why those go hand-in-hand, especially when pet-sitting is exercising since I go on so many dog walks....strange. Anyway, at least I'm making money and keeping busy. Otherwise, I know I'd be terribly depressed and restless, especially when I heard that the "only way" to get licensed nowadays in this mental health reform crisis is to volunteer and work for free to collect hours. Fuck that.
The Virginia/Kentucky/Tennessee trip was great! We met my relatives from Indiana there and toured around the place where my Grandma was raised. She turned 80 while we were there and she still has a bunch of relatives there, too, so we had a nice reunion there. And by nice, I mean pleasant, but still very bizarre. I met a female relative who has a full beard, a double second-cousin who is schizophrenic and was on America's Most Wanted, and another double cousin who was hitting on me. (Double cousin = my grandma and her sister married two brothers, so we're related two ways. Yes. Very hillbilly.) Carey and Brandy brought Brandy's daughters, so we were kept very busy chasing them around.
But a big highlight was when we went to a historic site called "Martin's Fort." My Grandma's maiden name is Martin and come to find out (via a video the site showed us) our ancestor, Jospeh Martin, was a famous peacekeeper between the colonists and Cherokee people and ran a fort that housed colonists as they traveled west out of Virginia. (It apparently kept them safe from Indian invasions.) Then he fell in love with a Cherokee woman and had children with her, and that's where my bloodline started. I knew I was English and Cherokee on my mom's side, but I didn't know the full story, so it was really cool to find all that out. What was ALSO really cool about that was that even though the actual fort (recreated) was closed for the day, we ran into the Joseph Martin reenactor in the parking lot and when we told him we were related to him, he got excited and gave us a private tour of everything! Call me a dork, but I thought it was really cool.
The rest of the trip was nice, too. We visited my late great-uncle's tobacco farm and hiked up the land to his old barns. There we picked blackberries and enjoyed the view.....I've forgotten how much I've missed the mountains.
That part and this part:
Haha. That was in front of a MIddlesboro, KY bridal shop that was next door to our hotel. In the hotel lobby was a newspaper clipping that recounted the day the hotel was reopened by different owners. The front page headline said, AND I QUOTE, "Hotels New Named Unveiled at Ribbon Cutting." They were so proud.
For now I'm off to rest. I was house/pet sitting a chocolate lab puppy all weekend and she kept me up for most of last night whining and crying. Oh it's good to be home.
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