NC trip Days 3 and 4

I can't believe it has been two weeks since I've updated this.

On day three we were up earlier. Still foggy but we decided to travel south on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Asheville. Along the way we stopped at the Moses Cone memorial park, which has a beautiful mansion that houses the arts and crafts guild. Laura ended up getting a bracelet charm of a possum with two babies on its back, Laura is a twin. And I picked up a CD of women blue grass performers. There is also a nice nature trail that explains about the different plants, so we took a walk and prior to leaving, the fog cleared up some for a view out to lake.

We continued down the Parkway until we were detoured off and around some construction work on the parkway. When we got back on, we didn't have too much further to go until we reached Asheville. We stopped at the Folk Art museum and enjoyed the exhibit and a little more shopping. Then we went into downtown to walk a bit and enjoyed a good meal and beer at The Green Man. Laura had a Saison ale and then Spaten Oktoberfest, which was on tap, with her Sheppard Pie and I had the house Porter with a flank steak sandwich with an onion and apricot spread on it. Interesting combination but very good. When we left The Green Man the sun was finally out for our drive home on the interstate.

Day four and foggy again, time for more shopping. We headed to Blowing Rock, which we never did see, but prior to leaving we saw a very large woodpecker outside the kitchen window. Not a very clear photo, but it was take through the kitchen window and screen. It was also another foggy rainy day. After shopping a bit in Blowing Rock we end up in the Storrie Street Grill for lunch. Laura calls it a good accident because we went there because she saw an advertisement in the restroom somewhere along the way. I had fish and chips, but had them replace the chips with sweet potato casserole, yum. Laura enjoyed great barbecue, vinegar based, with fries. We waddled out for a bit more shopping and kept running into Romeo, a miniature beagle who was wandering with his owners. Our last stop in town is the post office so Laura can send out 20 post cards and rush to Grandfather's mountain since the sun is out.

Shortly after we pay our entrance fee, $28, the fog closes in on us again. We get occasional views as we drive the winding drive to the top. We park and start to climb to the suspension bridge and we only see half of it, due to the fog. Laura thinks its kind of cool and Brigadoon like. She'd like to come back in the summer for their highland games. In the parking lot we discover that the stamps that should have been on the postcards, remember the postcards?, are still in the car. We go back to the gift shop and beg the use of the phone and a phone book. Laura manages to get in touch with the post office and sure enough they had just gotten them out of the post box. They will hold them for us and we can stop by tomorrow and put stamps on them. On the way down from Grandfather mountain we stop at the Nature Museum. Wonderful exhibit of carved birds and the largest amethyst found in the U.S. and a small zoo with animals in more natural habitat.

They had six bears that we saw and three cougars, two of which ran around playing most of the time and one that just sat and posed for us. Also, a couple majestic bald eagles and some white talked deer. Don't know why they had the later as they seem to be quite common all across the U.S.

Back on the parkway the fog lifted again we were able to see what we had missed on the drive up to Grandfather. Got back to our Deep Gap home and had our own deer in the yard, including a fawn. Unfortunately, it was too dark for good photos. After dinner, while doing laundry, we found the seed corn for the deer so maybe we can entice them back in daylight.