Retreat

Many thanks to Barbara F. for organizing our retreat again this year. She found us a wonderful new location, Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria. 

This is the view from the balcony outside our rooms down to the main lodge where we dined. Many people walked up and down this nice long hill, several times a day. A few people drove down so that they could drive up. My Fitbit says walking up that hill was the equivalent of 8 flights of stairs. My calves agreed.
 

At dinner the first night we were treated to a show - a beautiful rainbow appeared down in the valley and we got to watch it for a long time. 
 

Sunrise Friday morning. I was up at 5:30.
 

We had some interesting wildlife experiences. This little cutie is a Rosy Maple Moth. It's yellow head is fuzzy. Lots of deer and bunnies. And yes, we did see a bear!

The son of the owner was in our stitching room fixing our AC when he stood up and asked if we wanted to see a bear. We went pouring out the door. The bear was at the bottom of the hill doing a slow saunter over to check out the garbage. He was not a small bear. He was a large bear. We saw evidence of other nocturnal visits strewn across the hillside in the mornings. 

If you spent time sitting in the rocking chairs on the balcony, this was what you saw. 
 

A few pics of our stitching room.
 

Let's move on to the food! We all ate way too much. Roast beef and mashed potatoes. Fresh fried trout. Fried chicken. Apple butter, apple sauce, fried apples, apple pie, apple cobbler. I think you get the idea. 
 

General consensus is this a good location to retreat at. We were sad to leave. 
 

Here's a bear from inside the lodge. Because every retreat should have a bear???