Thanksgiving in November, 2004, I went to dinner at Turtle Island Preserve with Eustace Conway, his girlfriend Autumn, some of her family and several TIP staffers with their family and friends. It was a convivial bunch.

Over the long weekend of November 14, 2004, a bunch of the Paul Anderson Tuesday Afternoon Tea and Tennis Society went to the Wild Dunes resort on the Isle of Palms outside of Charleston, SC. Bob Boettger made all the arrangements. We were Paul, Bob Laney, Jeff Pardue, John Willardson, Joe Richardson, Jim McCrae, Bobby Isenhour and Terry Cleary.

Boone Fork - Two Trips

Trip One

In late November a couple years ago, Will McElwee and I made plans to backpack on the Appalachian Trail across Max Patch Mountain south of Hot Springs, NC.' Due to a conflict Will was not able to join me.' 'Not wanting to drive to the Tennessee border by myself, I elected to go backpacking closer to home on the Nuwati Trail in the Boone Fork Bowl, Watauga County.' This is the headwaters of Boone Fork Creek on the south-eastern flank of Grandfather Mountain.'

Over the long weekend of October 29, 2004, I went to Eustace Conway;s place called Turtle Island Preserve, in southeast Watauga County. I worked on his legal matters and used the bucolic ambience to research the law on some issues. His place is so big and undeveloped that it is like a small state park.

n the summer of 2004 I attended the scuba diving class with the Reef Dancer Dive shop in Wilkesboro. It has since gone out of business. After our class time at the shop and the pool time at the YMCA, we had to complete the certification and get our licenses by making five open water dives in the ocean. Our dive master Chris Jordan, the Reef Dancer owner and class teacher, and my class mates Stan and Iris Carman, Dave Smith and Rance Moore and I began making plans to go to the Florida Keys. My dive mentor and buddy Paul Anderson, who had been certified for more than a decade and had made about 150 dives, went with us.

In September, 2004, two of my buddies from Rutherford County, Bill Booth and his fellow high school teacher Thomas Crawford, and I spent a week trout fishing and horse wrangling in Wyoming. We stayed with Boulder Lake Lodge outfitters, at the east end of Boulder Lake, in the southwest corner of the Wind River Range. On the map the Lodge is located north east of the tiny town of Boulder, which is south east of the better know town of Pinedale, in west central Wyoming. This was Bill's third trip to this lodge; it was my second trip there; and it was Thomas' first trip.

I learned a couple things one evening a few years ago about athletic training.' I know, I know, I think too much.' Maybe someday I can put all this information to use and write a book or something.' I learned it while biking, but I believe it has a broader application. 'It just goes to show, the more you know (or think you do), the more is exposed that you don't know.'

One weekend in the middle of July, 2004, the St. Paul's Episcopal Church trekked to the idyllic, pastoral conference center in Valle Cruces, Watauga County, for their annual retreat.

The long weekend of July 4 - 5, 2004, Will McElwee and I (Bob Laney) took a backpacking trip on one of the most scenic, and famous, sections of the Appalachian Trial called Max Patch. This section is located on the North Carolina - Tennessee border southwest of Asheville.

The day before the July 4 holiday in 2001, I (Ranger Bob) took a paddling trip on the New River with my daughter Allison and her friend Beth Ann Dellinger. It was a pleasant day with a nice lunch along the way.