well, today started out very early, mainly because i wanted to see one of the few runestones that have been found in the united states. while looking at the map last night, i saw that us-59 connects to us-270 after going through heavener, oklahoma. i knew that heavener was the home of the heavener runestone state park. for those of you who don't know about runes, they are sort of a norse alphabet (called the futhark). in scandinavia, something like a thousand runestones have been located, but in the united states, only about 6 or 8 have ever been uncovered. one of these is the heavener runestone and the inscription translates to "glome dal" or glome's valley and it is thought to be a kind of property marker dating back to between 600 to 800 a.d. by viking explorers. even though it was starting to get really hot in heavener, we still trekked down the mountain on the trail to gaze at some viking history (i really appreciated nancy accompanying me; she was a real trooper and does not like the heat). anyway, there are a couple photos to enjoy and i'll try to upload a mini-movie showing the rock that was inscribed on in a day or so. the huge rock slab is about 8 feet wide at the base and about 10 feet tall and is housed in a protected building that was constructed by the oklahoma state park system. from there we drove to hot springs to meet some new friends, vilma and ward hawley, from hot springs village. (ward, is it hot there because of the springs or is it just hot?!) vilma and nancy are on the "connecting threads forum" online and share the joy of quilting. needless to say the wives had to go to the local quilt shop, "hickory hill quilts" (there may be just enough left for gas money to get home). ward and i enjoyed talking about man-stuff, like hunting, fishing, and stuff like that. ooh-ooh! after a late lunch, we all headed out for a tour of hot springs village with our hosts, the hawleys, where there are some great views in the ozarks! this was a great day and thanks to vilma and ward for their hospitality. we drove back to the trailer, which was sweltering—but the a/c is on once again and we are chillin'...
