Looking out the historical entrance at Mammoth Cave

June 2021. It was great to see this after two hours working the self-guided tour 50 years ago this summer.

 

Available from www.booklocker.com (Booklocker.com) or wherever book are sold. Available in print and e-book formats.

All but one member of the Mammoth Cave Wild Cave Tour led by Keven goes missing. Officials say they are just lost in the cave. Bob and Walt know better. When Bob and Walt go to find the tour, they suddenly find themselves in familiar passages, but virgin, or almost virgin, cave. What follows is a tour through Mammoth Cave as it once was as they struggle to get the cavers home.

 

Van Gogh Immersion Experience

 We went to this in Atlanta yesterday. This is in the big room showing his famous painting. Amazing experience.

Rotunda in Mammoth Cave

 A view of the Rotunda in Mammoth Cave as seen from the exit of Little Bat Avenue into Audubon Avenue. Image collected with available, low-level lights.

If you have read Dark Goes the Stage, and would like to read more about Walt's nightmare, e-mail me, and I will send you a PDF copy. lancesbarron@gmail.com.

Be careful in the dark.

If you have read Dark Goes the Stage, you may be interested in more details about Walt's nightmare that prompted the trip to Mammoth Cave. E-mail at lancesbarron@gmail.com to request a PDF copy.

Thank you for reading Dark Goes the Stage and hope you enjoyed it. If you can, please leave a comment, and if you can, leave a review on Amazon and Good Reads.

E-book and hard copies of both books are available at Booklocker.com as well as other book distributors. Hard copies are available from Southern Pen Bookshop on line (https://www.southernpenbookshop.com/product-page/dark-are-the-steps-of-time) or in person at 113 N Broad Street, Monroe, GA 30655.

See you in the dark sometime.

 Mammoth Cave National Park has released its tour schedules through August 14, 2021. Here is the link for the first part of July: https://www.nps.gov/maca/planyourvisit/cave-tours.htm

Tickets for the Discovery Self-Guided tour are sold only in person and on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Mammoth Cave National Park has released it's schedule of cave tours for June 6 to June 19, 2021. See them at this link:

https://www.nps.gov/maca/planyourvisit/cave-tours.htm

 

 Dark Goes the Stage has been published. Trade paperback and e-book versions are available from Booklocker.com: 

 
https://booklocker.com/11758

Support your local, independent bookstores, who can order it for you.

Also you can find paperback versions on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Books A Million.

For e-books, go to booklocker.com at:
https://booklocker.com/11758

Please post a review.

Comment here.

The rain fell in torrents here in the North Georgia Piedmont for the last two days. Nearly six inches here at the house. The moisture has met to satisfy even the most skeptical of agronomists. 

Lots of flooding in Kentucky around Mammoth Cave National Park. 

A quick note about Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Starting today, the park will close the Cade's Cove loop to motorized traffic and reserve the entire eleven-mile loop for walkers and bicyclists. Park only in designated spots. Each Wednesday for the rest of the summer.

On April 17, 2021, after we left GSMNP through Cherokee, North Carolina, we stopped in Bryson City for a nice lunch at the Everett Street Diner. Highly recommend. Back across the bridge, there is Calby's Collectibles and Antiques, and for used books, go poke around in Friends of the Marianna Black Library Used Book Store.

Back in the middle of April, we went on a time-share boondoggle where we got three nights lodging in Gatlinburg, TN, in exchange for listening to a two-hour pitch (which actually lasted three hours). We did not buy. But, we really enjoyed Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We had not been in the park very much, and not at all since 1981. We caught the wildflowers at what looked like their peak. Also got to see some black bears and some black blobs that others said were bears. The two water falls we walked to were Grotto Falls and Laurel Falls. Lots of wildflowers on both walks. We also did the requisite drive around Cade's Cove.

 

The darker pink azaleas have begun to fade. The dogwoods are almost all gone. But, the rhododendrons are just beginning to bloom. Looks to be a good year for those as well. Spider wort if coming along, too. We had just a couple of blooms on our poor apple tree. But will there be fruit?

Flowers in the Georgia Piedmont

Flowers are continuing to bloom here in the North Georgia Piedmont. A series of light showers came through this morning, and the rain helped wash some of the pollen out of the air and off surfaces. We parked our cars outside, and the rain washed off the pollen. Then the oak blooms fell on the wet cars. See light pink azaleas and white iris below.

 

Forensic Anthropologists at Sisters in Crime Atlanta

I attended the monthly, virtual meeting of Sisters in Crime Atlanta this morning. The program included two forensic anthropologists discussing decomposition of bodies and evidence that can be obtained from skeletal tissue. Kyra Stull, PhD., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Reno. As a biological anthropologist, she has a specific interest in human growth and development, modern human variation, forensic anthropology, and quantitative methods. Meredith Tise, PhD., works as a forensic anthropologist with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office in Florida. The program was excellent, and we learned a lot about what can and cannot be determined and with what confidence from skeletal tissue, including biological profiles and trauma defects. The next meeting is May 8, 2021. For more information contact sincatlanta@gmail.com.

Dark Goes the Stage proposed cover!

 

Spring and Azaleas in the North Georgia Piedmont

 

Dark Goes the Stage

With the spring comes flowers, warmer temperatures, mild weather (so far), and a new book in the Mammoth Cave mystery series. This next one is called Dark Goes the Stage. To be published later in the spring by Booklocker.com.

Barbara and I have been to my home for a funeral: my last aunt. We enjoyed seeing family and friends, many of whom -- most -- we haven't seen since her husband, my last uncle passed away several years ago. Most of the land around my parents' house has been clear cut for pine logs and pulp. The resulting post-apocalyptic landscape was disorienting -- even for cousins who have lived there all their lives (except for brief periods of service). We could see across long distances (for this area) that were previously blocked by trees.

The day after the funeral, I rode around with my brother to check out the old home place: the area settled by my great, great grandfather in the early 1830s, and the log house my grandfather built -- and where my father was born -- on an upland area near a large creek bottom. The old bridge across the creek burned years ago, but some of the pilings still mark the crossing. The water was high because of recent heavy rains.

The photograph below is looking upstream from the bridge.

We also drove around my brother's and cousin's 650-acre hunting lease. My uncle previously owned it. The photograph below is from my cousin's wife's deer stand.

A nice, sunny day after the oppressive and dark rainy day of the funeral.

Barbara and I participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count every February. The amount of time required is a minimum of 15 minutes. You list the birds you can identify and the maximum number of birds of each species that you see at one time. Easy checklist to fill out at www.birdcount.org. We always enjoy it even if that weekend in February in the Georgia Piedmont is nasty. I encourage you to join in. You can also go to other locations like at national park locations: Kennesaw National Battlefield, Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, Mammoth Cave National Park, and many others.

Well, it looks like I haven't been posting yet in 2020. So to catch up on the first two weeks. Lots of rain here. Over five inches for the year. About half an inch just today. More rain forecast tonight and tomorrow. Warm temperature: about 63 degrees F.

We spent the first full week in Thunderbolt with Barbara's mother. Ate

Camellia bloom in Thunderbolt, Georgia, in January 2020.

some really good food. She's a great cook. Worked in the yard and on some jigsaw puzzles. Camellias are blooming in Savannah -- as well as here in the Georgia Piedmont. The attached bloom is from her mother's yard on the south side of the garage.

Before we left for Thunderbolt on Monday morning, we watched two pileated woodpeckers across the road in our neighbors' yards, and then in our back yard. I will try to upload a short video of one flying across the street. They tended to stay close to the ground in the shade and were difficult to photograph. I was worried about chasing them off before I could get a good shot. This video is about  as good as I got.

Here on the eve of 2020, I am looking forward to the new year and a new situation as nearly all retired. There are a few projects that have lurched forward into January and February, but today was the last regular day of going into the office. This past December 2 marked 20 years at one company. My previous longest job was eleven years. Today I spent most of my time filing and packing and throwing out. A number of three-ring binders I brought with me from my previous job. I left today with only the files I will need for those projects lingering into 2020.

I am looking forward to having more time with Barbara and working with her in the yard and in our home. We hope to see friends in the Mammoth Cave area this year at the Cave Guides' Reunion, as well as friends in the St. Louis area.

The western sky is golden, and darkness approaches. Solitary fireworks sound through the neighborhood, a sign of more to come.

Happy New Year, everyone!

20th anniversary of Y2K!