Home Sweet Home

From Mt. Pisgah, Blue Ridge Parkway

Triple Falls, Dupont State Forest

We are back from vacation in North Carolina.  We were blessed with beautiful weather.   Our week on Lake Lure was just wonderful.  I could have spent every day sitting on the screen porch that overlooked the lake.  But as nice as it was, it's always good to come home.   It would be even better if I could postpone going back to work <wink>.   I have not downloaded all the pictures yet so I can only share a few. 

It was absolutely beautiful in the mountains.  They just roll on forever.   From a painter's perspective, it was interesting to observe the change in color from the green of the trees in front of you to the blue mountains in the distance, almost darker than the color of the sky.  And speaking of green, the kudzu plant/vine is a scary green thing in the south.  Yikes!  I don't think the word invasive quite describes it. Translyvania County (yes, you read the correctly) was a 45 minute drive from where we stayed and the literature stated that the county has 250 waterfalls.  Transylvania County is in the Pisgah National Forest.   We only saw 4 waterfalls and they were lovely.  Surprisingly, all had a quite a bit of water coming over.   We would like to go back and stay nearer to the waterfall area to visit more of the waterfalls.  But there are lots of things we would like to do :)  

Friday night we had dinner, on a recommendation from a couple we met on the trail earlier in the day, at the Mt. Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway, at the Peak of the Parkway as they call it at the Inn.  We were at 5,000 feet with an absolutely amazing view of the mountains and we had a fabulous dinner too.   If I begin to describe it I'll droll all over my keyboard.  It started with pumpkin bisque soup and ended with silk pie and everything in between was so so good.   And then there was the view.  Oh, and the monarch butterflies were migrating thru so we saw one or two every 30 seconds.  

We left Lake Lure Saturday morning and  headed to Abingdon, Virginia for my cousin's wedding Saturday afternoon.  We moved on from Abingdon early evening and drove 4 hours north so we would not have a long drive home on Sunday.   The wedding was on my cousin's uncle's farm and it was a beautiful ceremony and reception (camera battery died).   My counsin's Aunt and family did all the cooking and it was yet another yummy meal!.  Everyone had fun and it was good to see family we don't get to see too often.  I left the wedding with a mason jar filled with starter for sour dough bread.   An entirely new experience for me, but I think I can handle it!  I like to bake!  I'll keep you posted!  I have to email Ann to let her know how it goes.  That's what I'll be doing this weekend!   I figured waiting for bread to rise and knitting fit nicely in around the spaces of waiting for water color paints to dry.   It stops me from rushing on to the next step.  This is all working out quite to my liking.  And yes, I did paint on vacation, just not as much as I had wanted to because I spent too much time doing absolutely nothing on the screen porch, or knitting :).  But I have a lovely bowl of tomatoes "growing".