Field Trips, Part One

Finally! Let me say that one more time--finally! Of what, pray tell are you referring to Gail? After seven weeks in North Carolina, our mail should be coming soon. Tell us more you say, and so I shall.  While we do not get a lot of mail, we do get some. Most of our bills are done online so that is not really a problem, that is unless I want to study the expansive American Express bill. Where does the money go? Right? More than that, every now and again we receive some mailbox money and letters from Dale, our Vancouver friend who still has no electronic means of communication by choice. It was just weird, so after two weeks without mail we checked at the post office here. Wait, I already wrote about that in June. I won't belabor the point, but it has taken multiple phone calls over the following weeks with plenty of false information disseminated but the confirmation of address change that I began on June 10 has been recognized. So there is that good news. Here's a photo of where we are staying, in case you are new to this space, and that driveway that is a little bit challenging for us to go down, what with our weary knees and all. Note the mailboxes at the end of the driveway. 

After the early weeks of rainy days, it had largely been raining just every now and again, however, this Thursday, our regular field trip day, it is raining this morning. We shall see what the day holds in store for us, but for now I thought I would begin to catch you up to date on the field trips we have already taken. I am pretty sure our first trip was to the nearby Nottely Dam where I took this photo.

Water, rocks, greenery and trees will be a familiar theme of this post because there are plenty of those beautiful creations around!

Nearby there are some trails to hike which we did. Naturally I had to take a photo of my dear husband amongst the trees.

As I mentioned, we both have knees that are showing wear, making hiking challenging, however, putting one foot in front of another day after day is what we gladly do. While on the river walk yesterday, I was talking to Nancy about how sad it is that we have lost two sisters, especially Carol at 63 years old, and how grateful I am that we can, indeed, put one foot in front of another.

Early on we went to see Mary near Lake Fontana and were treated to this lovely view on our way.

I absolutely love looking at the mountains from the valley floor, but being up high like this view from the deck of the house Mary rented is pretty darn wonderful as well.

Of course that entails lots of winding roads to traverse to get up there, but after weeks of practice, Bruce is taking to it. 

Here's a little thing that I wanted to pass on and that was that in our Orlando world we venture but a few miles from our little part of the city. Here, people think nothing of driving twenty or more miles to do something with the explanation that the drive is both scenic and relaxing as there is so little traffic. A different perspective for sure. 

On our return from seeing Mary we stopped in the nearby town of Andrews, a place we visited ages ago. I found this album from June of 2008 from our visit. That was fun to revisit. Anyway, since that time Andrews has lost some of their population as well as their businesses. The downtown is still cute, but seeing this sort of thing was both sad and hopeful. At least flowers filled the space!

That said, they are not giving up. Forgive me if I already wrote about this but when the three major factories closed down, people were forced to look elsewhere for work wherever that may be. Here was a sweet mural I spotted.

This place is the scene of the current Andrews Idol competition that, according to the Scout, continues to be a rousing success. The space is very attractive.

Here is why it is called The Blue Stage. 

According to many people we have spoken to, below is the primo restaurant in the area. The outdoor look is lovely and so, apparently is the inside with terrific food. Perhaps we will try Sage for our upcoming anniversary. 

Taking the photo below, I had no idea that in a few weeks time we would meet a man whose family is heavily involved in the trout industry.

Interesting because he is one of the few people we have met that are actually from the area. As I have mentioned before, most everyone we meet has a Florida connection, however, we did meet another local on Wednesday evening and he said that the locals are none too happy with the Florida invasion. Sounds kind of like how we feel in Orlando!

As we got closer to Murphy, returning from that trip, we saw a fishing sign marked along the highway. Pulling into a field Bruce followed the bumpy. pitted, gravel road to its end and while he investigated the close by water, I enjoyed this beautiful view.

A veritable sea of green that in a few months time will look anything but. Now that sounds exciting doesn't it? 

One of our visits to the folk school we went through the museum, filled with beautiful examples of what is taught there, including blacksmithing. The weaving...wow!

Just past the entrance to the school in Brasstown, off old HWY 64 W, not to be confused with HWY 64, there is a small cluster of colorful buildings used as shops. This stands guard outside a closed station with a somewhat curious sign.

What could "sons of arthritis" possibly mean? 

UPDATE!

I began writing this yesterday morning and as it turns out the rain held off for a bit so we did a small field trip AND some mail from June 20th arrived!! Woo. Our sweet mailman wrote on the back of one of the envelopes, "my apologies for the forwarding fiasco." He said it better than I could have! And yes, there was some mailbox money along with a statement that let me know that insurance only paid so much, thus I owed money to our doctor. 

Time to go play pickleball with our new group. Speaking of new groups, our friends Shirley and Shelly made it into this article in Orlando Magazine.  Aw shucks, I heard from another friend late last evening, a friend texted and said, it should have been me in the article. I don't miss a lot from Orlando but I do miss friends and family, that's for sure. 

Lastly I miss seeing the sunrise and sunset every day. Rarely is there color in the sky here except for this one evening.

Plus I am not seeing as many stars as I would like but other than that, it is all good.

your friend,

Gail