Thursday morning

Well Wednesday was a fun day which found us once again gone from the cabin for nearly 12 hours with Patrick and Kathryn Tracy. We headed south to the Boone area then we visited Beech Mountain and the surrounding small towns and had a marvelous dinner at Bella's Italian eatery in Banner Elk. We did run into a terrific storm that had streams of rain water flooding the highways along with lightning and thunder, yeow!!!! We never got a drop at the cabin and so we go on two weeks with out rain and once more the temps were on the high side but we did see some relief with cooler temps as we got back on this side of the mountain.

The day started with my usual 6'ish roll out to a hot cup of turmeric drink, the posting of this ramble and then a few quiet moments with my Creator before heading out to check on the gardens for any damage. Ted Smith one of my pickle ball buddies mentioned on Tuesday night he had a bear get into his garbage bin during the night destroying his bin and 4 large bags leaving garbage strewn over his driveway. We have heard from several folks that bear sighting have been common this summer for our area. I have noticed the compost pile gets dug into almost nightly but the night time game camera only shows a raccoon, possum and a feral house cat.

I cooked sausage patties on the outside grill and we had biscuits in the oven so we had those with some egg and cheese for our breakfast as we would skip lunch on our travels for the day and dine later in the evening in Banner Elk. We met up with the Tracy's just before 11 and traveled together in their fuel efficient Prius. We made a quick stop in Jefferson as we wanted them to meet Sami Ashley(Bobby's school mate) at her Harvest Cafe on Main street. Her husband Steve and a couple of their daughters were present as well. We just love Sami as we have know her since she was just a kindergartener. We got to Kathryn's appointment in Boone right on time at 12:30 then dropped Nancy off at the christian book store while Patrick and I shopped at Walmart. We came back around 1:30 and picked both of the gals up and headed to Starbucks where they had their special drinks.

We headed south to the the Beech Mountain area which is magnificent in vistas, yeow is all I can say. We have never been there or to that area. I'm not sure I could live there as they have some few necessary places such as grocery stores, gas stations and farm markets on the mountain. There was one place on top that had grocery items and fresh veggies but that was it. I spoke at length with one of the owners and this is primary a ski town with only 350 or so folks living there year round. All of these majestic homes are mainly owned by Floridians she told me, who visit mainly in the summer and then again in the winter for skiing. It's quite a trip down the mountain for basic necessities but views of GrandFather Mountain and surrounding vistas are awesome. I'm at a loss of explaining the construction of some of these beautiful huge buildings and homes on the ledges and steep slopes in the area.

We did run into a party of 6-7 gals who were all classmates in high school and were celebrating their 70th birthdays together as one of them had a place on the mountain. They were very cordial and we shared a few moments with them as well. We headed over to Banner Elk and saw the beautiful Lees McRae College located in the heart of the town. It was a two year school when I was at Gardner Webb in '64 and we played them in sports. We saw some huge Episcopal conference centers located on the mountain with beautiful long distance vistas. It was after 5 when we arrived at this eatery The Tracy's and Botbyl's had eaten there earlier this summer. The food and service was awesome and the place quickly filled up as we dined. We managed to get out of the building in between down pours and lightning strikes as the mountain was inundated with the storm, yikes did it ever down pour and we were hoping that some of this rain was heading our way.

We stopped in W. Jefferson on the way back at the huge Walmart for some items that required the cooler which we had brought with us. The drive back to Sparta was uneventful except for the many deer feeding in the fields along the roadway. It was dark by the time we got back to our place only to find the lack of any moisture from the skies. It had cooled down some what and a hot shower felt good. I was soon reading for a few minutes until 10 o'clock before it was lights out. We didn't bring the camera so we have no pictures to share but the pictures in my mind where awesome of the new areas we visited, LATER