(North) Carolina on My Mind

Although I pride myself on writing a nice narrative of our goings-on,  there’s been too much going on to do it all justice- I’d be up till dawn writing,  and STILL it would not be enough.

So we’re going to have to make do with pictures,  and captions, and some commentary along the way.  See below…

We were staying with my cousin Lacy in Asheville.  I haven’t seen her in a long time,  and it was good to reconnect.

Our first night in Asheville, she gave us the whirlwind tour of all her favorite spots.  She’s quite the dancer,  and had ’em lined up at the Weinhaus,  waiting their turn.

She and her boyfriend Charley Harvey are BIG into Contra Dancing,  and she had big plans for us to go to a Contra Dance on Thursday night.  Unfortunately,  I came down with some kind of bug,  which Kate had had on the road two days earlier.  I stayed home and moaned while Kate and Lacy went Contra Dancing.  Kate said it was a lot of fun,  but didn’t get any pics.

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Our stay in Asheville was one of the few deadlines we have had on this journey.  That’s because Lacy and Charley had planned a camping trip for this weekend, and invited us along.   It was a big family get-together with Charley’s kids and grandkids, and was all kinds of fun.  Charley is working in Atlanta,  so the campsite was in between Asheville and Atlanta, on the Talluhla River in Georgia.  The scenery was incredible.

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On Sunday we broke camp and went down the road a few miles to the Talluhla Gorge State Park, and hiked down to see the falls.  This place was incredibly beautiful.  I shot a few pics, but they did not do the place justice,  so I’ll just post this bit of video I found.  If you ever marveled at the scenery in the movie Deliverance,  it’s because parts of it were filmed in the Gorge.

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Back in Asheville on Monday, it was a regroup and repack day.   Lacy has lived in Asheville for 14 years,  and has heard neighbor’s reports of black bears roaming her neighborhood.  But, she says, “I’ve never gotten to see one of the danged things!”

So guess what happened next?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We left Asheville on Tuesday, and what happened next was pretty special.  Kate had received a FaceBook message back in March, wanting to know if she was married to a Lee Catlow.  Turned out it was from my next door neighbor from when I was growing up in Houston, looking to reconnect with, as he put it, “my first best friend”.  He now lives in North Carolina, not far from Chapel Hill,  so we routed our journey in that direction.

Tom was my best friend, from as early as I can remember until I moved away when I was 10.  We had a far too brief reunion Tuesday night, but made plans to catch up some more when Kate and I return by boat later on.

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So at this point,  we’ve made it all the way across North Carolina and north to Virginia Beach VA.   It’s been a great trip!

We’ve missed the ocean, and decided to head up the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake to make our way north.   Tomorrow we cross the bridge over to the DelMarVa peninsula,  and mosey over to Chincoteague Island so see the wild horses.

More to come…