VIRGINIA TRIP - MATURIA FARM

You can hardly fly direct from Tulsa to anywhere. Our flights were booked through Delta so you can imagine our surprise when we had to walk down stairs and across the tarmac to reach this small, 4 seat across, commuter plane on our first leg to Cincinnati. We were 20 minutes late leaving and weren't sure if we'd make our connection to Norfolk or not.

When we landed we had to almost run to our next plane which was already loading to leave. This plane was only 3 seats across!!!! We did arrive in Norfolk almost on time.

On our return flight we actually had a large plane on the first leg to Atlanta and then another small, 4 seat across, to Tulsa. We were late leaving Norfolk by 30 minutes and didn't arrive home until almost midnight. Our son, Marc, picked us up at the airport and brought us home.

I hate to have to say that my left knee gave me fits and much pain on this trip. Of course walking through 3 airports, 2 times, plus all the other walking we did didn't help it at all. I'm no longer doing the "happy dance" about this knee.

Here we are at the airport. Mickey, Susan, Karen & Tommy. Karen is the forth child of Mickey's oldest brother, Bob's, 6 children. She and Tommy married when she was 17 and he 19 and have been married 38 years. They have 2 daughters, who you'll see in later posts, and they lost their only son, Nathan, 7 years ago in a car wreck.

The beautiful azalea's and flowing trees that greeted us at Norfolk.

More azalea's as we are driving.

This is the driveway to Karen & Tommy's Maturia Farms. The drive at the top right comes off the main road, the "t" leg turns into their home and buildings, the other road leads to another entrance to their pastures.

Maturia means "Evidence of Blessing" and they built their home here 8 years ago. Mickey & I spent 7 days here with them in October, 2002 when we were traveling in our RV.

This is the front view of the house. You can see Tommy's large shop on the left behind the house. Tommy owns Great Bridge Muffler & Brake Shop at Great Bridge, VA and restores old auto's and works on engines here at home. I'll show some of that in another post.

Maturia Farms is a 48 acre horse farm in Chesapeake. Karen breeds and trains Championship horses. Her home is full of ribbons and awards her horses have won at Dressage. She currently has 11 horses of her own, one about to give birth, one ready to breed and she boards 2 others. This is one of the corrals with 2 horses in front of Tommy's garage. We didn't try and get pictures of all the pastures and horses.

This is the back view of their home. You can see the golf cart parked by the carport in front of the garage. Karen rides this golf cart around to feed her horses each morning.

This view is the horse barn, fenced riding course and covered arena that is behind the house and across from Tommy's workshop.

This is a sign on the fence separating the house from the other buildings. The have 2 dogs: a Great Dane named Joe and a Spangled Beagle names Ernie, 2 house cats and several barn cats.

It is absolutely peaceful and beautiful here and we had a wonderful time.