Nina's church hall in Laurence

Met Nina & Frank, Tansy, Kinsie, & Louisa at the Botanical Gardens. Nina drove Alison in Alison's car & I rode with Frank & the rest. I was tired of "spotto" so I started a limerick game. My first one started out, "There once was a man named Frank, that....? I forget how it went but everyone seemed to get in the spirit. I also started one for Kinsie who's last name is Hope. "There once was a woman named Hope, whose business was making rope....." It went off real well & we were all laughing.

We drove thru the back roads towards Middlemarch. The landscape turned a golden brown. Sort of like Prescott Valley. And then rock formations popped out here & there. It looked strange like a moonscape. Then we passed an area with a sign to our left that said, "DANGER - DO NOT TRESPASS". A little further on, the road was closed, I started to worry because I was reading the map & there was no where else to go except way back & around. Frank wasn't worried at all. He just turned around, found a little detour road & got us back onto our original road heading in the right direction. As I looked to the left where the road was closed, it dropped down into a pit mine. Quite a large one. That was at McRea's Flat.

At Middlemarch, we stopped for coffee. Nina bought me the iced chocolate she owed on the bet at Ed's. We also had toasted cheese & ham (grilled cheese & ham sandwiches). Kinsie joined Alison & Nina & off we went again, this time past hills with unusual patchwork-looking patterns on them from trees plantings. They were gone before I could get my camera out.

We drove into a little town of Laurence & there was Nina's church hall. It was in great need of repair. Nina felt it was in better shape than she thought it would be. The roof leaked in 2 places. The foundation was in need of a lot of repair. Some woodwork needed replacing. It badly needed the old paint scraped off & new put on. A couple windows were broken & a corner of the room was being taken over by vines. If enough money was put into it, the building would look quite beautiful, especially the hard wood floor.

Some of us got ice cream cones & some had more coffee & away we went again, this time to a place called Gabriel's Gully, an old mining area. There was a pond or lake with yellow flowering shrubs all over. It was beautiful. Alison didn't feel well so she stayed in the car. I wasn't doing too good myself so I hiked about 10 minutes out & then came back again. I'm glad I took that little walk because the area was gorgeous. We followed a little stream & where everyone crossed it is where I turned around. They were heading up to a dam where they planned to go skinny-dipping. Sounded like the water was going to be cold.

Alison & I headed back to Jo's where she had homemade quiche & pizza waiting for us. Both were delicious. She had a tape on Circus d'Ole - sp? that we watched.

Alison's car window had fallen down on the passenger side during our outing. It was stuck inside the door. We decided to take it to her dad's in the morning to borrow some tools & fix it. Thank goodness it didn't rain.