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Travel

Surprise Vacation

Sunday CDF surprised me with plans to go on a mini-vacation to Southern Pines. I think what surprised me the most was that she had arranged for me to have two days off work without me knowing anything about it.

We had a wonderful time. It was too cold to go hiking like she had planned — the weather forecast was revised from low 70’s to freezing temperatures, maybe snow! But we were able to go around the historic sections and visit little shops. We had lunch Monday at a deli that served a lot of German and Irish influenced sandwiches. I got a “Best Wurst” sandwich that was delicious… or would have been except for too much mustard. CDF had a ham and cheese sandwich that was reminiscent of a roast beef sandwich. All that to say we had a good lunch.

A railroad goes through the area, but none of the museum sites were open and since it was too cold to get out and walk around, we only got to see it driving by. It looks like it would be a nice place to come back in the spring or summer and poke around more.

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Travel

Myrtle Beach

This past week I took the family down to North Myrtle Beach when I went to the SEDUG conference. For me, there were just a couple of conference sessions that looked interesting, but CDF was looking forward to shopping! The Hilton that hosts the conference is just up the road from a Tanger outlet and another shopping center, so the girls always looking forward to coming with me.

A weather front moved in while we were at the beach. A couple of mornings the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the breakers when looking out the window at the beach. But by the afternoon the weather was nice enough for a walk on the beach. The girls ran around on the sand and tried to pick up the foam that was washing up with the breakers.

I went to a couple of sessions on Business Continuity, High Availability, Disaster Recovery, etc., and got some interesting perspectives, but for the most part, we’ve already implemented most of what they talked about, so it wasn’t anything new. The last session was about the direction Datatel is taking in their software development. The company is really pushing Microsoft as the platform to run their application, but they offer some consolation by pointing out that the new development kit is written as a plugin for Eclipse.

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Travel

Not so Tweetsie

Wednesday we had plans to go to Twitsie Railroad in Blowing Rock. It was a two hour drive north of us. Unfortunately when we finally got there we found out that after October 3rd, they are only open Friday through Sunday. Everyone was quite disappointed. We headed back into the town of Blowing Rock and stopped at a restaurant called Ichabods. We were seated beside a quartet of ladies playing Bridge and ordered burgers and sandwiches.

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Travel

Visiting Rutherfordton

Tuesday we left the resort to drive around. We tried to find something to do on the south side of Lake Lure, but after following Highway 9 for a while with no success, we turned north and followed Highway 108 back to Rutherfordton. The main street had a number of antique shops we visited. Finally we ended up at the children’s museum, which the girls really enjoyed. Their favorite part was the room set up as a grocery store. The spent a long time “buying” food and checking out at the cash register. When it was time for lunch we went to the Pizza Hut in Forest City — about a 10-minute drive.

When we got back to the Condo, I took the girls outside for a short walk, and we found the deer again at the end of our parking lot. We followed them to the edge of the hill where they stopped and looked at us for a few minutes before bounding off.

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Categories
Travel

Ink Berries

Monday the weather started getting colder again. We went for a walk in the morning, staying close by the condo. The wind made it even colder. That afternoon we drove the Escape back to the lake to walk around, this time it was too cold to get in the water. On the way back, I decided to walk with the girls. Not the best idea, since the wind chill made it really cold and the sun was going down, leaving a lot of the walk in the shadows. But we did stop to pick some ink berries. When we got back, I showed the girls how the berries have purple ink, and they painted their fingers and used leaves to draw on paper with the ink.

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Travel

Wildlife in Lake Lure

Sunday we slept late again. We got suckered into listening to a sales pitch from the condo management under the pretense of getting some information on the area. After the girls had lunch and a nap I took the girls to the indoor pool to swim. The water was nice and warm, but we all got cold getting out. That made CE grumpy.

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Later that afternoon we all went for a walk down to the golf course and saw a small herd of deer on the green. When we got back, and while CDF was cooking dinner, I was looking out the front window with the girls — we were looking for another feral dog that had been sleeping in the picnic shelter outside our building — and MD said, “What’s that?” I looked at the small animal running across the parking lot toward our car: a skunk! It ran under the Escape and down the hill.

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Travel

Late Night

On her way back from the first night at the retreat, CDF got sick. My guess is that her inner ear was thrown out of whack by going up and down in the mountains, but we don’t know for sure. Regardless of the cause, I ended up picking her up from the hospital at 2:00 AM. We finally made it back to the condo and got to sleep at 3:30 AM.

I’m not sure what time we got up Saturday morning, but after breakfast we looked out side and found the rain had stopped and the temperature was nice enough for a walk. So I got the girls dressed and we headed toward the lake. We walked through the golf course along a path that crossed three bridges. At the first bridge we saw some purple berries, “india squirt berries” as they came to be called, and made plans to pick some later. Finally we got to the lake and the girls took off their shoes to wade in the water. On the way back we saw a couple of feral dogs laying in the sun along the path. Fortunately they didn’t bother us. Later that afternoon we drove to the south side of Lake Lure to shop at Ingles and get the groceries we needed.

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Travel

Lake Lure

Friday was our first day. We got to the resort around three in the afternoon. We took highway 64 from I-40 through Ruth and past Rutherfordton to get to the resort. There are a lot of hills as you go south of I-40, but it didn’t get really curvy until we got off Hwy 64 and went up the mountain on Bills Creek Road. About halfway down 64 we stopped at a gas station to switch so CDF could drive so she wouldn’t get sick on the dips and turns.

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It had started raining after Greensboro and rained all night until sometime early the next morning. We got to our condo — after taking a wrong turn and going up a very windey road the wrong way — and got everything unpacked. The rain and cold made it too unpleasant to go out for a walk, so we were stuck inside. The condo is split into three levels, dining room, kitchen and living room at the top. Foyer and bedroom in the middle, and the master bedroom at the bottom. The girls were excited about the stairs and both wanted to explore. But after CE fell down the stairs twice, I told them that she would have to stay in the living room with me. That disappointed MD, since she wanted to play chase or hide-and-seek, but that wasn’t going to work with the stairs. But we made it through the evening and I finally gave them a bath and put them to bed.

Categories
Family Travel

Visiting Bear Island Again

Yesterday we took a trip to Hammocks Beach State Park, or better known as just Bear Island. It was the first time I’ve been there since 1999. A lot has changed with the park buildings (especially since the hurricanes), but the beach is still the same.

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The “Long” Walk

We rode the 10:30 ferry over to the island and arrived on the beach during low tide. The girls really enjoyed playing in the tidal pools (except for when the over abundant seaweed got caught around CE’s leg). The sea was calm and we all had a good time swimming just out past the first breakers.

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Lunch in the New Pavilion

We ate lunch at one of the new pavilions in the dunes. After that the girls returned to the beach to play and dance in the sand a little longer before we had to head home.

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Dancing on the Beach

We made it back for the 3:00 ferry. We were actually got back to the sound a few minutes early and sat on the boat for a while before it left.

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Waiting on the Ferry

The girls played around with hats as we waited.

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Wearing Wavy’s Hat
Categories
Travel

Visit to Washington, D.C.

Last week CDF and I went to D.C. so I could attend the Datatel Users Group conference at the Wardman Park Mariott hotel. The girls went to stay with their grandparents for the three nights that we were gone. We drove up Sunday, stopping to drop off the girls, and then drove back on Wednesday.

While we were up there we had time to visit the National mall. We rode the metro from the hotel to a central station, and then walked around for a few hours. One thing I thought was neat is that the station at Wardman Park is rather deep underground and requires two escalators, one which takes at least three minutes to ride, to reach. We took a couple of pictures of it from the bottom, but they still don’t capture the feeling of standing at either end and looking at the long stretch of moving steps.

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The Long Escalator

We did a lot more walking, and another day we rode the metro down to Dupont Circle to visit the shops there. In particular to visit Filene’s Basement and find out why so many of the other conference attendees went there. We also were a few blocks away from the National Zoo, but after so much walking we decided to drive there (regretting it after seeing how much it cost to park).

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Panda at the National Zoo