Tuesday, July 31, 2007

How Green Was My Valley

What a nice afternoon for traveling! C and I got a lot done at home this morning, and then took to the road right after lunch. We hated leaving Barker behind, but we know that once he laid eyes on his housesitter buddy, he was happy as a clam!
Our first stop:

Otto, North Carolina.

C had told me about this place, as he had stopped there on his way home from a church Vestry retreat a year or so ago...and he loved it. The ice cream was indeed fabulous (I had coconut and C had butter pecan)...and worth every point, Gerrie!

So here we are somewhere between Otto and Asheville........I love the green of summer in our part of the south!


And look at these day lilies:

North Carolina does a great job of beautifying its byways.
We're on the road to Asheville, and the thunderbumps are growin'. YIKES!!!

Isn't that just pretty:


Whoa, the traffic out here is a real killer!


More clouds, a bit of rain, but a very pleasant ride:

I love the barns and old farms in the southeast.....wish I had gotten this entire barn:
Such rugged mountains here in the southeast:

Yeah, the Great Smoky Mountains!!


The traffic was just horrible, as you can plainly see:



Another wonderful old barn that almost escaped me:



Well, now you can see just why I was having trouble keeping up with the barns:


I'm on my second reading of Jane Dunnewold's wonderful "Complex Cloth", thanks to Karoda! Now I can't wait to get back home and start "work" again! Let me see, how long have we been gone??


More heavy traffic and rugged, old mountains:


We arrived in Bristol, Tennessee at about 6:00 PM, and after checking in to our hotel, we headed for the minor league baseball stadium to see the Bristol Sox play host to the Burlington Royals. Our friend Bob is an ardent Chicago White Sox fan, so we really felt driven to get to this game. It was a lot of fun...a couple of home runs, a few strikeouts, and several double plays...not bad for a rookie team. The Bristol Sox won 6-4, Bob.

As the sun was setting over the stadium, C and I happened to glance up and see these beautiful clouds:




As you can see, there was a good crowd at the game:



Hope I haven't bored you...we've had so much fun...but the traffic has been hell!!


Tomorrow: Pittsburgh and a Pirate's game!!!!

PEACE




2 comments:

Joyce said...

I've never been to that part of the country but it looks to be well worth the visist if only for the lack of traffic.

Anonymous said...

Mr C would love to take a road trip with you because it involves baseball, but not me. I am sorry you had to deal with all that traffic. Why don't they put more roads in out there in the boonies!!