The Weekend in Western North Carolina

Well, I'm back! My sister and I had a lovely time with our grandparents!

Both there and back, we flew from Seattle to Chicago/O'Hare, and from there to Charlotte, NC, finally arriving in Asheville, NC. Strangely enough, somebody I knew was on the plane to Chicago, so that was unexpected! We had Quizno's in Chicago, and since the flight from Charlotte to Asheville was so short, they were charging 2 dollars for any drink whatsoever! Crazy times! I remember flying as a kid, and back then on long flights they'd give everyone little food trays. Not now! Holy Cow!

Even though we were really tired when we got to our grandparents house, my sister and I stayed up for at least three hours in our room, talking and laughing. It had been a long time since we've had a sleepover, and smothering my mouth was all I could do stop from making too much noise! Oh, we had a great time! Our first day we worked a lot on a "12 Days of Christmas" quilt puzzle, that was very challenging. But a good part of the day was spent at the "Epic" movie theater, seeing Disney's "Bolt" in 3D. Oh My Goodness! I was crying from the very first scene, it was so cute! Bolt had stand-up ears, just like my blue heeler, Spiffy. And when he pounced on that squeaky carrot... I just lost it. (Linda, I haven't seen that episode of Lassie you mentioned, but there were violins in this one too... along with some soaring French horns. :) My goodness, gracious, I'm going to invest in this one! Very nice indeed! I had lots of tear stains on my face! Was this thing Pixar? I didn't see their name on it anywhere.

My aunt and uncle also live around the same area of Asheville, and they were on a little vacation for most of the time we were there, so we took care of their black lab "Gus". He's a tall and slender black lab, who had legs made out of rubber! He bounces four feet in the air when you come to get him out of his pen! He's so funny! The house they own is on a very little lake, so there are ducks every night (one night there were 20!) and often there were deer on the lawn. Once we saw 5, and another time we saw a faun, still with it's spots! So we had to make lots of trips to their house to pick up or drop off the dog, but it was fun to drive around the beautiful countryside all the time. The first two days we were there, it was brilliant sunshine outside.

On Thanksgiving day itself, we finished the puzzle! I think it was 1,000 pieces, with a lot of repeated patterns as well! But of course, this day we went to the Biltmore Estate for Thanksgiving dinner at the Deerpark Restaurant on the Estate grounds. We arrived 2 o'clock and didn't leave until 4 or 4:30. The restaurant is in a converted carriage house, it's narrow halls lined with glass windows, both on the grounds, and on the small courtyard in the middle. It was buffet style, but what a buffet! I had freshly mixed Caesar salad, a cold chicken pasta salad, strawberries, pineapple, melon, grapes, fresh bread, spicy green beans, catfish cakes baked with nuts, juicy turkey and heaps of jumbo shrimp cocktail! My goodness! I was full! But then there was tea and desert... I had a delicious vanilla cheesecake and scoop of ice creme. A Thanksgiving to remember, for sure! When we got back home, after picking up Gus, we watched that Jimmy Stewart movie that we had never seen before, "The Shopworn Angel" from 1938. It was pretty different from the other ones he made, but I enjoyed it all the same.

After waking up from a nightmare (whew!) and after breakfast and after dropping off Gus, (whew!) , we went for a short drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, at my request. We brought a boxed lunch of beef sausage and cheese sandwiches, along with snacks like raisins and string cheese and sliced apple. It felt like a camping lunch from Tuscarora (the resort my grandparents ran in northern Minnesota for 25 years) and I enjoyed it very much. The Blue Ridge is run by the National Parks, and a few miles up the trail from the highway, is a visitor's center and folk art center that we visited. I found a couple of patches! and in the art portion, I bought a little fish made out of decorated metal... both things that fit well in my various, strange collections. :) The parkway was closed 8 miles up from the center, but we drove all of them anyway, and I was able to take a few pictures as well. That night we picked up my aunt and uncle from the regional airport (there are 4 or 5 gates) and drove them home to the delight of their long, lost doggie.

On Saturday, (wow, that was just yesterday!) my aunt came over in the morning, and her and my grandma and my sister and I did a few crafts. We made decorative paper boxes and made Christmas bracelets and beaded winter pins. Grandpa declined. LOL After a little bit of just plain visiting, my aunt went home and then we all met for dinner at a great little (authentic) Mexican restaurant called "Papas and Beer". Now for any of you that know Spanish, that should be "Papas and Cervesa" (potatoes and beer), but to each his own, I suppose. I had shrimp enchiladas and Mexican rice and refried beans... it was a much lighter Mexican than I usually have, and it was very nice. But after that we headed off to The Flatrock Playhouse for a Christmas play called "Dear Santa". We sat in the 2nd row (just like the two other plays I've seen this year... :), and enjoyed ourselves heartily. The rest of them had seen this play a few years ago, but everyone besides my sister didn't quite remember how it ended, so we were mostly all in the same boat. The one character we all loved the most was an elf named "Bolzidar", who used lots of common phrases, but got them messed up. "She's a stone's throw away." "What?" "She's a castaway." Or... "I'm playing the Devil's Avocado." Or... "I'll bet your bottom." (dollar- LOL) and on and on! I should have written them all down! But the whopper at the end... Santa's assistant had described Santa earlier on to this guy as "The Great Wheel" and "The big cheese". So when Santa was leaving, the elf told him in hilarious earnestness, "Goodbye you great big wheel of cheese!" It was a great, feel-good holiday play that taught us about the Christmas spirit and making and being friends and understanding parent's scolding, among other things. Very cute and very well done! Some of my favorite regulars were in it, Michael Edwards (who played Ben Franklin in 1776) played Santa Claus and Scott Treadway (from various plays, like Leading Ladies) played a great character (a sleigh salesman from Detroit) named Lou Flapdoodle. What a hoot!

In the past, I've seen 1776 there, Leading Ladies (and I Love You... on the same trip), along with a few others that don't have photo albums, like "Beauty and the Beast", "There Goes the Bride" and a few others.

This morning we left really early (like 5:40 Eastern - yikes!), and had a long layover in Charlotte where we had bagels and watched most of "The Emperor's Club". I saw my first snow of the year in that tottlin' town, where they sprayed the wings with some defroster. I slept quite a bit on the plane, but also did a little fanfiction writing. Grace and Victor! Whoowho! We'll see how it goes - I love the story, but I hope I do it justice.

Jp