July 22nd through 31st 2008

July 22nd Tuesday AND Sasha's Birthday - Happy Birthday to Sasha! Again, crazy weather, we had a thundershower with big gusts of wind in the MORNING - I though thunder came in the evening after it got so hot during the day? Crazy weather again - it is supposed to be a high of 88 and a low of 70 today. I guess this means I do not have to water the garden?

July 23rd,Wednesday, (hi of 77 low of ?? and raining in the morning and evening) my day off and we are headed to Luray Caverns. My folks, my sister, and my niece and nephew are going with Sasha and I to Luray Caverns. We have never been there before so it should be cool. I will have pictures up once we come back.

Just got back from a fun-filled day. We had breakfast over at Courtyard by Marriott with the folks and sis and kiddies, had omelets and fruit, and then (because it was raining and kind of cool) went to Wally World (Wal-Mart) to get the kiddies & Karen sweatshirts. It was so warm in Richmond, that they just did not expect it to be cool. And the temp in the Caverns is a balmy 65 or so degrees. I would imagine that the closer you get to the top, the warmer it gets, but at the lowest part in the cavern, it is probably pretty cool. We shall see.

I decided, since we took a bunch of pictures, to make the part below into a table, with pictures on one side and explanations on the other. Hopefully it will read well, but especially will load quickly.

Picture	Explanation
	Well, not all of the pictures demand explanations. This is Brenden and Lindsay on Sasha's motorcycle. Maybe some day they will get their own? I don't think Karen would like that, no mom does, but they look pretty good on it. This was taken after dinner when they came and checked out where we live. They really liked the playground and the big slide!
	Brenden looks pretty good on it himself, he can reach the parts for the hands, but I'm not sure about the parts for the feet.
	Before we went to Luray Caverns, like I stated before, we went to Wally World to get sweatshirts for the kids. It turned out to be a good thing as it was raining above, and cool below. This was one of the first pictures we took of the caverns. I just wanted to mention that the areas where we took the pictures were vast - a picture can not really show the vastness. Although it cost $19 per person to get in, if you have a Giant Card, Ukrops card, or AAA membership, you can get discounts. Sasha and I had the Giant Card, so it was buy one, get next one at half price. So pretty good deal. Definitely worth it.
	I took this picture early on. Brenden, Sasha, my Mom, and Lindsay. Brenden has nerves of steel, and was not cold, but Lindsay was, so her sweatshirt was on.
	We took this picture of the kiddies at the lake. There is a huge lake underground at Luray Caverns. Very hard to take the pictures as you will see in the next couple of pictures, but these two cuties are not hard to take at all!
	Near the lake was this formation - I guess that is what you could call it, and they called it a fish market. Or it could look like long fingers too. It was wet and cool in this part of the cavern.
	I would strongly suggest that you click on the picture here, because then you could see how big the picture really is. This was taken with flash but it just does not give it justice.
	This is the lake that stretches for many acres. We were bad, we could not hear the tour guide very well, she talked a little weird, like she had gum in her mouth. Youngish - probably had braces or a tough piercing. She said that she gave between 3 to 4 tours a day.  So anyway, the lake looks like this with flash and hand held.
	Another try at the handheld method with flash.
	On a ledge (not handheld) and on a timer. Quite a difference! Again, I would suggest clicking on the picture to get the full effect. It was quite stunning when taken this way.
	Sorry this is a little dark, but you can see some of the pieces were broken off. This vandalism happened in the 1930s before it became a National Historic place. People took back "souvenirs."
	You can see this ledge in better detail with the flash. As you notice, it is a bit drier in this area. The air is drier too, and a little cooler than above. We are getting to the deepest part of the cavern.
	This is kind of cool - a stalactite and stalagmite are almost touching. A stalactite is on top and a stalagmite "might" someday reach the top. That is a neat way to remember the different types.
	This is how scary it could be with minimal light....OOOO so scary! Halloween must be great here.
	We have gone deep into the cave here. Again, might want to click on the picture to get the full effect. Can't really take the flash properly, the walls are too far away.
	This is the picture (one of them) of the White Ghost. The founders of the cave came upon this formation and thought it was a ghost. Of course, they only had lanterns back then, not the lights that are there now. So I could imagine it being quite scary coming upon this column.
	Here is another image of the White Ghost a little farther away. It almost looks like it is floating.
	This one sort of looks like a finger - stating do not take any souvenirs from this place, you will get into trouble. Also touching the formations is not a good idea as the grease and oils in our hands is not good for the formations. Most of these formations took thousands to millions of years to make.
	The lighting on this was cool, so we took the picture. It looks as though it was lit from behind.
	Again, you might have to click on the picture to really see it, but this is one of the deepest parts of the cavern.
	This is not a good place to lay down.
	Immense area.
	Here is the white ghost up close
	Ok, I am not sure if this is the white ghost or the Indian Princess, we were getting a little confused as we moved around the caverns. It is not a straight up  and then down, but goes around almost in switch-backs. Supposedly, there was an Indian Princess whose bones were discovered within the formation here.
	OK, I thought I would put this in large view so you could see the colors of the formations a little better but it still works in smaller view. Calcite is the white, the red is from iron oxide, and the green is man-made: it comes from the leaching in the water of the pennies thrown in to the pond. Now I am all for giving money to the organizations that need it, but I don't like the idea of a wishing well like this. Luray Caverns is NOT a National Park but a private enterprise. You might as well be throwing garbage out the window as the copper from the pennies is changing the color of the water and the color of the formations. But what can you do? It was interesting to note, in 2001, there was less given to charities because that was the year of 9/11 and tourism was way down.
Unfortunately, our camera died about there - actually the battery died. So no more pictures.

After the caverns, we went to eat at a nice restaurant in Old Town Luray, something having to do with Memories, but I can't remember the full name of the restaurant. Obviously my memory of the restaurant is only ok. But the food was great, it was in an old hardware store, so there was still some of the shelving in the store. They had organic food and to die for desserts. I had a Turtle Cheesecake - OMG - unbelievable - so tasty that Brenden and Karen got one too.

Then Karen and the kiddies had to get home, there was a pool party they had to get to (which we found out afterwards was cancelled because of the rain) and so they left and we (my parents and Sasha and I) went onto Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park. We do not have pictures but I will get a map on here so you can see it soon.

OK, looks like I left the map in my parents' car, so no dice. I guess I will have to go back to Shenandoah some other time to get the map.

We took the drive with my parents - it was beautiful up there. What was so fabulous about it - my parents have a convertible, so there was a 360 degree view. And we actually touched the clouds a couple of times. Real sorry the camera was not working but it was a beautiful and fun day.

We did not want the day to end, and went out to dinner with the folks. That was fun too, had a great dinner and Mom and I split a bottle of wine. The food was good and the talk great. We enjoyed spending time together.

After dinner, my parents dropped us at their hotel, (our car was there) and we went back home. A fun packed day for everyone!

July 24th Thursday: hi 82/low 60 (or so) great weather - not a cloud in the sky and no humidity. A great day for driving which was good for my parents, as they were going up to NJ for a while. Sasha had to get back to work, and I was working in the afternoon. So after the morning, I played in the garden for a bit, got some veggies and had me a nice salad. It was great to have the day off the day before, totally fired up my energy levels.

July 25th Friday: hi 86/low 59: Worked today, lots of rigs supposed to come in, as the weekend is supposed to be great.

July 26th Saturday: hi 87/low 64 - getting warmer - Sasha spent the day at the pool. Always is nice to have a day off! After work, I spent some time at the pool too, but I am reading a great book, The Queens Gambit, and I can not put it down for being at the pool.

July 27th Sunday: hi 88/low 64 - hopefully will rain again soon, as it is hot and a bit humid. Actually, it rained in the morning, which put a damper on the people that were here, so they left, probably earlier than we thought. But the rain is making it better for the garden, so I can't complain. The only thing I am worried about , is that my peppers are starting to topple over. I am going to have to put in supports of some kind, but I am unsure of what to put in.

July 28th Monday: hi 84/low 59 - rained Sunday night into Monday morning - Sasha was not feeling well, so took a day off. It was probably a small cold, but I then found out the pollen count in this area is really high, so maybe that has something to do with it. I have to work at 2, so we had lunch and then he dragged himself to the pool. The sun is always a good way to go, helps you get better.

July 29th Tuesday: hi 88/low 67 - hot but cool-ish in the morning or cool enough so that I could go berry picking. As it was my day off, I went to get the mail and go berry picking. I got a pint of blackberries and 2 lbs of peaches. Plus I went to the Farmer's Market and picked up some cherries. A very berry berry day! I took some pictures of the landscape, I went by Sky Meadows State Park. Right now, everything is so lush and green. I hope we do not get a drought, as everything is so nice here now. This picture is the area that I went berry picking. Plus the picture on the right is the area that I drove by: -------------------->>>

July 30th Wednesday: hi 86/low 65: Another day off - mostly spent in the garden. I put up the stakes that I had gotten yesterday, to shore up the pepper plants. Unfortunately, one of the peppers on a plant fell off, so we are going to eat it tonight. But I managed to get all the plants looking good and happy - with a bit of water (I believe it might rain later on today.) 

July 31st Thursday: hi 84/low 72: Working today.

Expenses: July Can we have low expenses?

Yahoo! First month below $1,000 in expenses in a long time. I think the last time we were below $1K was....Never! I think, because I had done some serious provisions in the last couple of months, that we have a low month this time. The goal is to be below $1200 for several months, if not all the time.

As you can see, we still did provisions this month, but less - mostly getting dried milk, coffee, and pasta. I also went to the farmer's markets and Pick Your Own (PYO) places to get berries and peaches. We actually had so many blueberries that I had to dry the rest of them or they would go bad. So now we have a full stock of dried berries.  We did not go to too many restaurants this month, again, the tax in this area is killing our business.

The biggest expenses that we see here are the transportation costs. We spent over $289 this month in gas. Sasha is taking a toll road to get to work as it is faster than stopping at each light every couple of miles. So we have the added expense of tolls. We also registered the Truck this month, probably will register the Saturn next month.

Again, no utilities, but we did get propane, but the expense will show up in the August portion, as that is when I paid for it. But again, we managed to go almost 9 months without having to fill up. The camper services were things that we bought for the camper - the dehydrator and our refrigerator light finally went out. So we got a replacement.

Health Insurance stayed the same, and we had a little bit of fun this month, going to Luray Caverns with the family. I got a few more things for the garden, will have to tally up the expenses at the end of the year and see what it all cost in comparison to buying the food outright. I was overdue on a couple of library books so that was for the books.

Overall, we really did not spend too much, although next month I will have to up the minutes on the phone (but $45 for two months is not bad at all!) 

Check out Next Month: August, a couple of birthdays, More Berry picking (and hopefully some veggies from the garden) and hot weather!