Howdy Pardner –Cassie’s House, Wendell NC 6/7

After a pretty good rain storm last night, we woke up to blue skies and a crisp cool morning. We headed off towards Raleigh and just for the heck of it decided to see Duke University. On a whim we decided to call Ned’s high school friend, Jed, who is the Director of Duke’s Center for Nicotine & Smoking Cessation Research, a message, went to lunch and heard from him while eating. Turned out he only worked 2 blocks from where we had arbitrarily decided to dine. While walking the 2 blocks to his research office, my phone rang and it was Megan saying, “Hey, mom are you walking down the street in North Carolina now?” Quite surprised, I answered yes. Megan then said her friend Becca just called her and said, “Hey Megan, I think I just saw your mom walking down the street.” (Becca is a nursing student at Duke and a former roommate of Megan’s). How coincidental was that?! We had a great time chatting it up with Jed, meeting his wife and getting a tour of the facilities. A short drive later we arrived at my niece Cassie’s house. She and her husband, JB, have the two most adorable boys! We brought them some cowboy hats and bandanas from Bryce Canyon, and they wore them the rest of the day. The cutest thing was when we all went out for ice cream tonight, two little girls about the same age spotted them and said, “Look daddy – cowboys!” Some things never change – what girl doesn’t like a guy in a cowboy hat? (See today’s pic.) Ned and I are plum tuckered out from riding bikes, wrestling, playing at the park and being horses for the cowboys. This ol’ gray mare ain’t what she used to be. We promised the boys they could sleep in the camper’s upper bunk with us when we all meet up in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks. I’ll let you know how that works out...

Carolina on My Mind –Lake Norman State Park, Troutman, NC 6/6

Well who had bets on us taking the ski lift? You were right. We had a great time riding Virginia’s only chair lift down to the tunnel and wandering around looking up at the chasm and just soaking in the magic of the place. We’ve decided this state park is our second favorite, after Montauk. The park employed quite a few young men, about 18 or 19 yrs old, who worked the chair lift. We spent quite a long time talking with one of these Southern gentlemen and exchanging stories about each of our hometowns. (See today’s pic) He is a real sweet local boy. His daddy is a coal miner and the family also used to grow tobacco to supplement their income. We didn’t head out for North Carolina until almost noon! When we finally reached Asheville mid-afternoon we were thinking about taking a tour of the Biltmore Mansion. We went to the Visitor’s Center, saw a short film and then realized the tickets were $70 a piece. Call me cheap, but that’s the equivalent of about 6 nights camping! Fuhgetaboutit. Suddenly it didn’t seem that interesting to view rich people’s stuff. (Does this mean I’m cheap?) Instead, we decided to stroll thru downtown Asheville and had a delish lunch at an outdoor café listening to some great street musicians. We both thought this was a much better use of our dollars. Originally we were going to camp at Lake James SP, but because there was no swimming and we were really hot we thought we’d drive a bit longer and camp at Lake Norman. By the time we got here, it was about 6 and quite muggy. We hopped on our bikes and did the usual tour of the park. It’s a rather large state park and things are spread out. By the time we biked to the swimming beach we discovered that it had already closed. So, we decided to go back to the campsite and hike the lake access trail for an unauthorized swim. Well, as soon as we started on our quest the skies opened up and a huge drenching thunderstorm engulfed us. So, back to the van it was for a quick sketchy meal waiting for the storm to pass. Why am I seeing a heated game of skip-bo or scrabble in our future? Tomorrow we head to my niece’s house. I’m really looking forward to getting reacquainted with my grand-nephews!