The first week in August, our good friends Sherrilyn and Pat came to visit us. Sherrilyn has been one of my best friends since we were in Junior High School and sang in the church choir together. Although we have lived far apart since those days, we have stayed in touch with the help of letters, email, Facebook, and our mothers. Sherrilyn’s mother died in November and I did the funeral. When my dad died in May, Sherrilyn was one of those special people who traveled to Mansfield for the visiting hours.
Sherrilyn and Pat recently bought a new travel trailer and needed a trip to break it in. Fortunately for us, they decided to come to Cumberland Gap and spend a few days with us. They came on a Monday and stayed through Friday, which meant we got to spend three days with them, which was the most time we have spent together in years.
We hit all the highlights of Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Their first morning in the park, we arranged a special viewing of the fogfall at the Pinnacle. We were the only ones at the Pinnacle and we stayed until the fog completely dissipated. We hiked up to Tri-State Peak, and took a selfie at the saddle of Cumberland Gap. Tom and I joined Sherrilyn and Pat at the Visitors Center and watched the park movies. I showed them my textile room. Tom showed off his buckets.
We went to Dutch Treat for grilled cheese sandwiches and took them to one of our new favorite places, White Pine Books. After our hike up Tri-State Peak, we cooled off by eating next to Gap Creek at Gap Creek Cafe.
Sherrilyn and Pat took the Gap Cave tour, although it was shortened due to increased bat activity. They were on the penultimate cave tour before the cave was closed for the season. They also spent a couple of hours at the Lincoln Memorial Museum, giving us some time to do laundry and grocery shopping.
One of our favorite things to do together is play games. One evening we played dominoes and Name Five. Another afternoon we played TransAmerica and CodeNames Duet. Sherrilyn is a Scrabble fiend, but we wanted to stick to games that all four of us could play together.
On Thursday evening we attended the Leavitt AMP Concert in Middlesboro together. We had cheeseburgers from Adorno’s food truck and then got ice cream from Kelli’s Kool Treats. The food was better than the music and we left the concert a little early, worn out from all the fun stuff we had done together.
We had a wonderful time with Sherrilyn and Pat. It was great to spend time catching up with each other and getting to know Pat better. When you get together with old friends, it sometimes seems like no time has passed at all.