Hurricane Irene turned out to be a non-event for us, but as she was forming earlier in the week, I was preparing to evacuate to Cary. No damage done to me and mine but it could have been messy for a lot of us. The NC coast fared far worse than we did here.
Taken earlier in the month, this is the view out our deck on a normal day.
This was about 2 PM Friday as Irene was passing through. I know, not that much difference. It was basically a 30-minute rain.
As Irene left us, she went with some lovely winds and skies. Dusk was a pretty time Friday night. It seemed like the trees were being "fluffed" -- the limbs and leaves were lifted and dropped -- shaking the dust out. I took this picture from our deck about 8PM. It was a high tide, but not the highest we've seen by a long shot. Can you see the rainbow?
On Tuesday, as we were waiting to see what Irene was going to do, there was an earthquake in Virginia felt by Mom in Cary, and by some here in Charleston. Not me. Still, we all survived a hurricane and an earthquake in one week. Whew, enough weather news for the year!
Our very relaxing mountain-top vacation was well-timed. In the last week of July, we spent five nights sleeping under blankets with the windows open. Now, home again, it is sweaty, sizzling, sweltering, stifling hot! What are we going to do to get through August?
We had a condo at the lovely Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock. None of us had been in that part of the mountains in more than 10 years! Everything in Watagua County looks pretty upscale and prosperous compared to what we all remember. Especially in Blowing Rock, flowers were nearly as lush and pretty as they were in Victoria and Vancouver last year.
Driving 421 and 321 out of Winston-Salem, we took the Parkway into Blowing Rock and the Blue Ridge was living up to its name.
In the 80s, Duncan worked at Blue Ridge Parkway National Park and spent quite a bit of his time around the Moses Cone Memorial Park. As a park ranger, Duncan used to take visitors on a hike from the house up to the grave site of Moses & Bertha Cone and tell them ghost stories. He very much wanted us to walk up there with him, but we never made it. We spent too much time in the wonderful Crafts Showroom that fills the lower floor of Flattop Manor now.
From our deck at Chetola we could see this vast house way in the distance filling the entire mountainside. At first we were unaware it was the Cone House and we grumbled about the poor taste of whoever ruined the view with such a monstrosity. But when looking at a picture in a brochure, we realized that this mostrosity had not been built by "new money" but was Flattop Manor and had been on the mountaintop for quite awhile
We went shopping in Blowing rock, everyone bought shoes at the Tanger Outlet, and we went over to Boone and took a look at the campus of Appalachian before stopping at the Daniel Boone Inn for a blow-out meal. We had great kitchen facilities in our condo and mostly fixed our own meals and ate outside on the patio. That felt like such a luxury!
I had never been to Grandfather Mountain so we did another drive down the Parkway to see that. Very pretty and now I can say I have walked across the swinging bridge.
Truly my daddy's child, I don't think I would make it on the bridge on a windy day, but this was pretty tame -- and wonderfully cool at that elevation. We climbed around on some of the rocks, took in the views, and just enjoyed being there on a nearly perfect day.
This was one of those great relaxing vacations where we did things at our own pace and sometimes it wasn't much.
We went for walks.
We watched the ducks on the pond. The swans at Chetola were raising babies -- (learned that baby swans are called cygnets. I am sure I will continue to call them baby swans.)
Relaxing for everyone except Duncan maybe. He did a lot of driving.
In the evenings, we laughed through episode after episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Sitting on the couch with your mother and laughing at a Priest tell almost dirty jokes is satisfying on so many different levels!
Back in the day, I thought I was thinking ahead when I made the rule: "Never set out to go anywhere without a corkscrew." My travel emergency kit consisted of jumper cables, a tampon, and always, a corkscrew.
Today, in preparation for holiday weekend travel, I knew I needed to clean out the trunk. After 5 years married to a disaster preparedness guy, here's some of what I found in my trunk: -- all of which I am told we "need to have."
4 bottles of water
suntan lotion and bug spray
duct tape
a bath towel and a wash cloth
a small fleece blanket
leather work gloves
3 umbrellas
2 flashlights -- both with working batteries
a sleeve of quarters
5 bungie cords
an insulated cold storage bag
a first aid kit where the band aids are at least 5 years old
an assortment of wrenches and screwdrivers
a city map and a phone book
a pair of crocs (for emergency gardening?)
a raincoat
and a corkscrew
Space for suitcases and beach chairs is shrinking.
Duncan and I skipped church today and instead went out as tourists in our own town. Our neighbor Harry has started doing Charleston tours and we went on his Harbor Tour today.
We've decided next time we go to a costume party, we can recreate this look and just add a pair of binoculars around Duncan's neck and some sightseeing maps spilling out of my bag and we'd be great Tourists!
We went out on the General Beauregard
Harry covered Charleston history from the 1500s to the establishment of the Navy base just before WWII
We got some pictures of the Ravenel Bridge from angles we don't usually see.
The bridge, the marina and The Yorktown. Downtown is to the left, Mount Pleasant to the right.
