Heart Attack

Today was a beautiful day - a beautiful day to leave work early, to go to the lake for a pre-Pampered Chef party, to have my engagement ring drop 80-90 feet to the bottom of the lake.

Let's back up. My friend Karen has started back as a Pampered Chef consultant. She sent out a note to several of us to see if we would have a party to help her kick off her business. I had mine last Friday (and got $600 in products for $150!!), another girl had hers on Monday and Angela had hers today. Ang decided to extend hers to make it a "lie by the lake for the afternoon" party as well. Several women from work were invited and a few of us were going to bring our dogs. I arrived mid-afternoon with Sir Kodie and we had a grand time on the floating dock.

Eventually we decided that Kodie needed to try swimming. I took off my rings (engagement and promise) and my watch, tucking them deep in my jeans pocket, stripped down to my bathing suit and went into the lake with that guy. He wasn't sure what to think. I was wearing a life vest (so he wouldn't push me down) and he floated on my chest for a while. He even tried swimming a bit, although he was grunting while trying that so after a few minutes, we climbed back up.

That's when it happened. As I picked up my jeans to put them back on, the rings slipped out of my pocket and bounced on the deck. I grabbed at them and rescued one, but my face drained of all blood as I watched my engagement ring bounce off the edge and sink down into the depths. On one side of the ladder, the water was only 11 feet deep; on the other side, the ledge dropped off to 80-90 feet. It was on the deep side it went down.

I bawled. I felt so stupid, but I blubbered about the value and how Shannon's mom had given it to him. Angela called her husband to see if they knew any divers. He didn't, but he called a diving company for me. It was going to cost $400 and there was no guarentee they would find it. The ring is worth more than that, but that's also a fair bit. Shannon showed up to pick up Kodie in the middle of this and was the model husband. He was hardly fazed and pointed out it was just a material thing. He also reminded me that he had lost his wedding band a couple of years back - his slipped off his finger somewhere in Virginia.

He went home and called a diving company (same one that Angela's husband was in the process of talking to at that time). Right as we were deciding to go with them (although they couldn't do it today), two more friends showed up at the party and called someone at work that dove. He gave them a couple of references for some professionals. That's how we were put in touch with Billy Baxter.

Billy charged $25 an hour and showed up about half an hour after I talked to him. I sat on the dock while he dove and watched his bubbles circle around beneath the floating dock. I really didn't believe I'd see my ring again.

After 15 minutes, he started to ascend. As he reached the surface, his arm came up and there was my ring on his finger. Cheering came from the terrace above and a celebratory drink was prepared for him. He said that he had passed over it twice before he saw it wedged in a cluster of rocks. What a sense of relief!

So thank you, Deidre and Amaryl, for calling Clark. Thank you, Clark, for recommending Billy. And Billy Baxter, you are my hero.

Hiking

The heat and humidity have finally gone down a little. Since we had a few hours to ourselves today (although not long enough) we drove an hour and a quarter to Roan Mountain to take that guy (aka Kodie, aka the pup) hiking. For the most part, Roan Mountain is at least a few degrees cooler than here. The forecast was for 85F here, 75F in Roan Mountain and beautiful skies both places. Well, as you can see from the pictures below, the skies part wasn't entirely accurate (although it became so just as we were leaving). The temperature was a perfect 66F, which was chilly at first for me in my tank top, but was ideal once we got hiking. We went to Carver's Gap on the Tennessee / North Carolina border and hiked for an hour and 10 minutes. I would have loved to have gone on longer, but my father-in-law was cooking supper. We did hit 'Round Bald', which is at 5,826 feet. At least with the cloud cover, it wasn't hazy and we were actually able to see further than if it had been sunny. The view was beautiful, although the pictures I snapped do not do it justice.

This section of Roan Mountain is on the Appalacian Trail. The Trail goes from Maine to Georgia, and there are several places in this area through which it crosses. Eventually, I would like to hit as many of those places as possible.

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

This is a great music video. Probably would have been a lot of fun to come up with!