A Dear Friend I Finally Met Face to Face - Picture of the Day

 

Kimberly Thompson has been a Facebook friend of mine for years. We met through the Christian Author's Marketing Strategies group I started with Laura Eckroat, another author friend of mine. Kim is a Louisiana native and I love her to pieces. She recommended me to share a speaking engagement in a town not far from her home. The educators group was amazing and very encouraging. I was blessed to meet Kim and also another member of the Facebook group who has become dear to me as we have had conversations on Facebook, Linda Niemeir. She was another speaker at this lovely event. Kimberly Thompson has written a number of books. Search her name on amazon.com and it will bring up a list of her books. I especially love the legends of the swamp series. They are terrific love stories wound around historic detail as well as current times. You must read them!

 

Linda Niemeir and her mother wrote a biography of her mother's life in Louisiana in the dust bowl days. It is entitled "Sharecropping in Northern Louisiana". I recommend this book as well. The stories in this book are true and reminded me of stories my mother and dad used to tell all of us. Sometimes details of oral stories grow fuzzy, so I used this book to remind me of things that were done to survive in those days in some of my books. Terry has pictures from that event in his phone. We just have to learn how to put them on my computer. lol

 

This is Keith Thompson, Kim's husband and their sweet little granddaughter Raegan.

 

Kim, my friend and the author of some of my favorite books.

 

Terry playing with Kim and Keith's grands, Julian and Raegan

 

Being in Louisiana with Kim and Keith was relaxing and fun. We attended church with them on Wednesday night. Kim made file gumbo from scratch. It was sooooooooo good. I think she considered our non-Cajun stomachs and didn't add things we weren't used to. The flavor was the best. We went with her to look over her rabbits, garden and chickens. We laughed, told stories, and became forever friends. Isn't that the best kind?

Natural Bridge Outside of Clinton, Arkansas Pictures of the Day

 

Earlier this month Terry and I had a working vacation. You have seen some of the pictures from Arnett, OK and Baxter Springs, KS as well as Branson, MO. These pictures are from the travel across Arkansas North to South on our way to Louisiana.

Just outside Clinton, Arkansas we saw a sign that said "Natural Bridge". The sign indicated that it was located one mile off the road. Now Terry and I love the chance to see things like this.  Pictured above is the cabin where the host is who tells a little background of the place. He said a large family lived in that cabin years ago.

 

Some of the trees were just beginning to turn.

This is the front of the cabin in the first picture. Terry is on his way to look at something or else, he is reading a sign. (I don't remember.)

 

I always have to take pictures of covered wagons to keep in my mind the scale of how the pioneers moved from place to place.

 

Terry wants to make a well that looks like this for our garden. He is getting a closer look.

 

This is a sassafras tree. (The one with a sign on it...) I had thought that sassafras was a root or plant or something. I guess I am not too old to learn something that possibly everyone else already knows. 

 

I also learned from my friend, Kimberly Thompson, our hostess in Louisiana, that file (pronounced filly)  for gumbo is made from crushed and powdered leaves of the sassafras tree. This is another thing I did not know.

 

They reconstructed a still on the sight.

 

Look at the moss on the roof!

This was also a house where an entire family lived. We are so spoiled today!

Another view of this house.

 

 

This is the natural bridge. It is bigger than it looks here. Dirt eroded from under it and above it to reveal a natural stone bridge.

There is a little cave back in there.

This sphere is a natural stone. The host of the sight told us that they are called "pearls of the mountains". There are some in MO also. Google natural round rocks and there are pictures of other rocks like this. He said some of them are up to 12' diameter. We found this very interesting.