Notebook

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.