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Washington, Williamsburg and Wilmington. 10 days of driving, walking, and bike riding but most importantly 10 days of ingesting American history.

Washington was hot and crowded with tourists but historically entertaining. It is a planned city with vast tracts of land dedicated to the people of the United States. A stunning vista has been created along the corridor of the Mall providing an uninterrupted view from Capitol Hill all the way through to Lincoln Memorial. Due respect is paid to past great presidents whilst ongoing goverment business continues to be conducted in the corridors of power (sometimes underground). Whilst there are metal detectors and security guards everywhere there is still access to most buildings. One of the funny things we noticed was that most American families stopped by the tshirt vendors and purchased matching tie-dyed shirts and then proceeded to wear them around each day. Not a good fashion look and not a good safety procedure either as every single other family was doing the same thing!

We visited a lot of sites whilst in this capital city, that makes it protest so eloquently on its number plates by stating 'Taxation without representation', so let me categorise the sites so I don't go on too long.

Popular museums (Air & Space, Natural History, Botanic Gardens) - these sites were totally crowded, littered with garbage and somewhat dark (with the exception of the gardens). Lucy lost it in the Natural History museum as there were just too many people and it was extremely noisy. Dozens of tour buses line the mall dropping off school children and primarily Asian tourists for the obligatory visit to these museums. Unfortunately we didn't get to the Dulles site of the Air & Space and thus missed 'the Enterprise' but we did see the original 'Kitty Hawk' having seen a replica in Kitty Hawk. Go figure!

Ticketed museums (Capitol, White House, Bureau of Printing and Engraving) - these sites required a timed pass to visit and thus the number of tourists entering at one time was minimised. Our Capitol tour was a private tour in one sense as we were the only North Carolinian family visiting that day and thus the lovely intern from Senator Dole's office was our private tour guide. But it was not so private in that the other 49 states had tours going on at the same time! However we got to see the 2 NC statues, the Wright Brothers fresco and stand on the star in the centre of DC. The BEP was a truly awesome visit. Andrew headed over there and lined up at 8am for tickets snagging us a gig at 9:30am. We drank Starbucks(!) while we waited and saw how large $1M looks in $100 notes. The tour took us into the real facility for printing notes and we could smell the ink and hear the paper rushing through giant machines as we walked through. As you know we didn't make it into the White House but we did see a cool cavalcade of cars with ambulance and police in tow leave the grounds.

Outdoor attractions (Monuments, Arboreteum, Eastern Market) These three sites were amongst our favourties. We rode bike around the monuments and memorials with Lucy riding around in a burley. She thought is was great fun to sit back with her snacks and drinks and was sad to give the bikes back. Our tour guide explained the underlying history of the sites to us and we enjoyed learning about some of the early presidents as well as understanding more about the casualties of war. Lucy enjoyed running around the Korean war memorial and spelling out the letters on the wall "Freedom is not free". When I called her back to stop touching the letters and move out of peoples photos some of the other tourists said that she should stay at the wall as she actually 'made' the photo by representing the freedom that was fought for. Check out the video from last week to see those photos. The Arboreteum is on the outskirts of the city and features the National Herb Garden and National Bonsai Collection both worth a stroll around. We also saw the original Capitol columns now housed there. Eastern Market, Eastern Market, can you please move to Wilmington? The fruit, the crepes, the meat, the artwork all together make me rue living in a small town.

Quiet attractions (Library of Congress, Supreme Court, American Art museum and National Portrait Gallery) The Library of Congress is the world's biggest library, can be used by anyone over 16 and is free. It houses some of the original books donated by Jefferson to start the Library and there is a special exhibition with the original Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence documents. One of 3 existing perfect Gutenberg bibles in on display every day. What more can I say? Go there. And if you can't go there in person go to http://www.loc.gov/ The Supreme Court building is impressive and the Art musuem holds some great paintings (focussing on US Presidents)

Not-so-crowded museums (Old Postal Pavilion, Postal Museum) These museums are great spots but not popular with the tour buses and thus great for us. The Pavilion provides an awesome view of the city and hardly anyone seems to know about it. The Postal museum was highly interactive and Lucy even got to buy a book about 'Clifford goes to Washington DC'. She drove the purple delivery truck, wrote a postcard to Grandma and we looked at lots of really old unique stamps (mostly with errors and thus very rare)

Expensive attractions (International Spy museum) At $18 each and no strollers allowed, Lucy slept whilst Andrew entered the murky world of espionage. Lots of cool gadgets and stories but none that I can tell you here, or I'd have to shoot you!

Child friendly (National Zoo, Smithsonian Castle carousel) The Zoo was okay but is undergoing major restructuring by building a large elephant area. Also most of the animals are asleep during the day so action at the panda station was fairly low. Lucy enjoyed the honking flamingos and seeing an elephant having a bath (or as she keeps telling me, he was technically having a shower). The carousel proved a big hit and we went there on two separate days for a ride.

Out of Washington (Arlington National Cemetery, Mount Vernon, Annapolis) The cemetery is extremely large and it is eerie how many headstones can be seen. We saw the major sites along the bus tour route and can recommend going early before the hordes arrive. Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington and the only president not to live in the White House, was a very fun day trip. His house decorated in a stylish vivid green is a must see as is the stunning view of the river. A highlight here was eating at the Mount Vernon Inn where we encountered delicious peanut soup with chestnuts, pork pye and duck & sausage cassuolet. Annapolis, the original capitol is a cute red brick town. We dined very well along the river front and now we can say that we have stepped foot in Maryland (I think we are up to 12 states.

Eating (Bistro Bis, B.Smiths, Trader Joes, Ebenezers) We LOVED LOVED LOVED Bistro Bis and Ebenezers going back to both of them multiple times. Ebenezers is a church cafe ie a church owns the cafe and runs meetings there but apart from that it is a regular cafe and it was literally 3 houses down from our accommodation. We taught them to make babyccinos and we went there almost everyday! Bistro Bis is a well connected French restaurant with awesome food. The chef sent a message to me that he wasn't prepared to serve the duck consomme that I had ordered. Disappointed I accepted the vichyssoise he offered in replacement. Absolutely divine. I could eat that soup forever. Forget the sea scallops, the french onion soup or Lucy's 'mac and cheese' made with gruyere. The vichyssoise was to die for. We finally visited Teader Joes and had fun roving the aisles until we encountered a 150 person checkout queue (no exaggeration!) Thankfully 15 cashiers moved us along. B.Smiths was a little disappoitning. Advertised as southern food, the bread served was regular rolls rather than biscuits! We know our southern food by now and obviously this is catering for a northern audience.

I will leave you with one strong impression that I had during this trip and that is the American penchant for painting history in a different light. Changing the facts, well changing the appearance to make things look like you think they should. We encountered this several times. Firstly at Bentonville Battlefield. The original slave quarters were demolished. An old outbuilding was still standing and thus the National Parks decided to portray this building as the slave quarters. No matter that it was half the size of the original and no matter that it was in the wrong spot, it was given the okay because it "looked like what you expect a slave quarters to look like". In the Capitol building dome there is a painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. All the signors are sitting in benches watching one of their number sign. No matter that the signing did not occur this way and each signor rocked up to DC when they could and signed the document alone. History looks better painted this way. This is dangerous people!

Ther eare many more details but all I can say is get ye to DC! (preferably in fall when school is back in session)

Williamsburg in pictures

Washington DC in pictures

Fiona's Top 5 Washington moments

1. Touring the Library of Congress sans toddler and seeing the $10million map with the first reference to 'America'













2. Bike riding around the Washington monuments (Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, WWII, Korean War, Vietnam War)














3. Eating crepes at Eastern Market, shopping at Trader Joes and tasting cheese at the Cowgirl Creamery


4. Discovering that the old Postal Pavillion has an awesome view of DC so that we didn't have to wait in a huge line to climb the Washington monument













5. Making a venus flytrap with Lucy at the National Botanic Garden and getting free southern wildflower seeds

Andrew's Top 5 Washington moments

1. Having a private Capitol tour (including riding the special underground train from the Senate offices to the Capitol building)













2. Seeing how paper money is made at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing














3. Wandering around the National Bonsai Collection and National Herb Garden


4. Visiting the International Spy Museum


5. Eating awesome French food at Bistro Bis (where the speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi eats) including french onion soup, vichyssoise, scallops, crab, creme brulee etc etc (we ate here twice!)




Sorry that there are no photos for the last 3 items as we just didn't taken any at these places!

Lucy's Top 5 Washington moments

1. Riding the carousel on the Mall outside the Smithsonian Castle (twice)

2. Drinking babyccinos at Ebenezers cafe (across the road from our accommodation)

3. Seeing the Washington Monument and telling everyone each time

4. Visiting the National Zoo and seeing an elephant have a bath

5. Sending a postcard to grandma from the National Postal museum and driving the purple(!) delivery truck

DC

We're off on another summer adventure, this time to Washington DC. It should be a 6 hour drive which is about the same time it took to the Outer Banks. However this trip we are driving on interstate roads at 70mph so it is further away. To stop, revive, survive we are stopping at a few civil war battlesites along the way. We're looking forward to seeing the White House, eating Ethiopian food and visiting the National Herb Garden for some tips.

We applied for some behind the scenes tours through our Senator's office and yesterday we received an email response - we were 'denied' a White House tour (ie they were full) but were 'accepted' for a Capitol tour. We meet at Senator Dole's office and head off from there (though I'm sure she won't be the one giving the tour).

See you in July!

Outer Banks in pictures

After 1,114 kilometres...

we're back in Wilmington and have been treated with 99.0F degree heat (37C) and a tremendous thunderstorm. Memorial Day marks the start of summer and we may be in for a hot season ahead. We had a fabulous time away, eating far too many desserts but we're tanned and relaxed. (Well one of us is tanned and two are still white)

After only 2 days of being back we are already very busy with Andrew heading up to Boston for a day and 2 nights. Wednesday is the peak of busyness with: Jenny's birthday [thus a pavlova is required!], Lucy's gymnastics class, Andrew arriving home from Boston, GE function, and a bible study BBQ at our place. Check back later in the week for the full rundown on our week in the Outer Banks.

Travel Moment 4 - Driving from Las Vegas to Yosemite

We drove 8 hours from Las Vegas to Yosemite via Death Valley and Mono Lake. It was an amazing day with so many changes in scenery that were simply breath taking. Here we are driving out of Las Vegas ready to drive on the wrong side of the road!

Travel Moment 3 - Lake Mead

Our tour guide was taking us to the Grand Canyon but on the way we stopped to glimpse Lake Mead. In the town of Boulder, a herd of Barbary sheep live in a park with this amazing view of the lake.

Travel Moment 2 - Maid of the Mist tour at Niagara Falls

Travel Moment 1 - Architectural cruise in Chicago

Chicago is one of my favourite cities. Let me qualify that. Chicago is one of my favourite cities in summer (in winter my great aunt got frostbite on her ear going to the supermarket). Today's travel moment is about an architectural cruise through the waterways to marvel at the skyscrapers. It is always a risk to join a cruise - they are either awesome (Sydney, Paris) or dead boring (Vienna, Perth). In this case it was awesome! We sat back, drank Starbucks coffee and enjoyed the sunshine whilst our announcer explained various building styles and techniques. From the Wrigley, to the corn cobs, to the John Hancock, to the Sun Times we enjoyed our cruise and recommend it to you. We also recommend seeing the Wrigley up close as built into its outer walls are stones from other famous buildings (great wall of China, Notre Dame, and the Parthenon to name a few)

OBX

We're heading off on vacation tomorrow. It seems a long time since our Seattle Odyssey and what a contrast in weather! We are driving north to the Outer Banks, North Carolina's most famous stretch of sand. The Outer Banks is a series of relatively undeveloped barrier islands which change shape with the fierce hurricanes. We are staying in the aptly named town of Waves, south of Rodanthe made famous by the Nicolas Sparks novel 'Nights in Rodanthe'. Incidentally Richard Gere and Diane Lane were here in Wilmington filming the movie last year and I was in an art gallery when the call came in for paintings to be sent to the set ASAP. [Film to be released 3 October 2008]

It is the Outer Banks where the Wright Brothers first made flight, where Black Beard the pirate reigned and is the location of the 2007 beach of the year as judged by "Mr Beach" (Ocracoke beach) It is also home of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse, the international symbol of North Carolina. In short it is a jewel in the crown for our state and many many tourists venture here each year. This was the number one place on our travel list whilst here in the US as we would be kicking ourselves if we moved back to Australia without experiencing this place at least once.

We are staying at a house (above) almost on the beach. Given that is not school holidays yet we managed to get this house for a good price and we're looking forward to falling asleep to the sound of the waves. Blogging will continue next week so keep checking in. To keep with the traveling theme I'm going to post some photos showing some awesome holiday spots around the US.

Seattle

The air is cold and I’m rugged up in an overcoat, scarf and beanie, sitting at a deserted graffitied bench at Pike Place Market looking out over a rain swept Puget Sound reading the New York Times Review of Books with a momentarily peaceful sleeping toddler snuggled into my lap whilst drinking a Starbucks Peppermint Mocha and eating fresh mozzarella and dolmades from the deli. A defining moment for our Seattle visit.

If I was to describe Seattle in winter in one word it would be bleak. I think it sums up the place well - the grey rainy days, the bone chilling cold, the dark, chilly, damp nights. It is not the rain or the cold that is depressing per se, it is the absence of the sun that breaks the spirit. And we did not see the sun for 7 days. Upon landing at an even colder-than-Seattle Wilmington we were still greeted with blue skies and sunshine requiring sunglasses that made everything seem ok again.

Now I’m not saying that Seattle isn’t a great city, because I think in fairer weather it would be an interesting place to be but I am railing against winter traveling (except for the purpose of skiing). Here are my top three reasons for not traveling in winter:

1. Excess baggage. Traveling with children requires a lot of extra luggage. Throw in a few jackets, jumpers, and blankets it is nigh impossible to keep under the baggage weight limit. Also hand luggage becomes unwieldly.
   
2. Helicopter rides are closed. Most tourist attractions shut down with snow. I know lots of people claim to be ‘travelers’ not tourists but at the end of the day we’re all tourists and if the sites are closed there’s not much to do.
   
3. It’s dark when you set out at 8am and it gets dark again at 4:30pm. Also the daily temperature range is 35 - 43 F.
   

As you can probably tell this is the first travel we have undertaken in winter. Usually we escape southern winters and enjoy the extra sunshine of a European summer – long days filled with art, photo ops and gelato. We have enjoyed many more summer days than winter ones in recent years and I tell you it improves your quality of life, health, and happiness but does drain wealth. I am at loss to understand winter travel and I don’t recommend it.

I also don’t recommend traveling with a toddler who has reached the life stage of recognizing that they are their own person and would like to make their own decisions (compounded with a double ear infection). The old wives tale of not traveling with infants between 6 -18 months is a fallacy but I will save this rant for Lucy’s next blog.

So with that introduction did we do anything interesting on our trip to Washington state? Yes but just a few things so here they are.

Seattle Center. We caught the monorail to the Center to visit the Sci-Fi museum (next to the architecturally amazing Experience Music Project) so that Andrew could get his fill of all things trekkie. We ate lunch in the revolving restaurant in the Space Needle for a better view of the city (so now we’ve eaten at three revolving restaurants – Sydney, Berlin and Seattle).

Seattle Aquarium. We arrived in time to see the daily feeding of Omar, the seven legged Giant Pacific Octopus. We also saw lots of fish and the feeding of the otters and seals. Lucy’s favourite ‘shish’ was a bright yellow box fish and she loved watching the wave machine blow around a school of fish!

Olympic Sculpture Park (part of the Seattle Art Museum) is located along the water. It is a sparse desolate park interspersed with modern sculptures. Would be awesome to visit in summer with a jazz band, red wine and some sunshine.

Pike Place Market. Great range of fresh fruit and veggies, pastas, oil and fish. We visited the first ever Starbucks café which has been kept just so. The Starbucks logo has been changed into a more modest mermaid for franchising purposes but the Pike St store still bears the original trademark. Lucy loved her babyccino even if she did manage to spill it all over herself. Back in the market we saw the famous Pike Place fish company where the staff throw the fish around, sing, chant and have fun (remember applying these principles to CBA from the book these guys wrote??) We found a donut place that had great fresh cinnamon doughnuts to rival the Berry donut van and they were even packaged with flourish.

Mount St. Helens. After weeks of clouds blocking the view, the day we visited the clouds parted and we had a clear view of Mount St.Helens. We stopped in at the Silver Lake visitors centre and Mt Hoffsbladt centre but given the time of year not much was happening. We drove up to about 3500 ft before we encountered quite a lot of snow and ice on the road. Andrew frolicked in the snow and threw snowballs at the car until Lucy woke up screaming. She then refused to get out of the car to touch the snow! So Andrew and I had a walk around before heading down the mountain again.

Kirk & Bethany’s Wedding. We had a great time catching up with the Meller extended clan and Auntie Lynda. On the Friday night we enjoyed a rehearsal dinner at the Monticello Hotel and Saturday we attended the wedding. There were a number of differences to what we’ve come to expect at Aussie weddings: special candle lighters entered the service before the bridal party, there was no singing, and the reception was more informal. But the bride and groom still said ‘I will’ and they looked enormously happy. Lucy refused to wear her beautiful shoes to the wedding and insisted on wearing her nike sneakers. After quite a bit of wedding cake (I think her first taste of cake ever) she was running around hysterically happy. We kicked on at the Aussie ‘after party’ at our hotel drinking Moet in plastic cups and having a great chat. It was a real highlight of the trip (and Lucy was tucked up in bed asleep with the baby monitor on)

Other interesting facts:

• Lucy loved the plane landings (we had 5 in total this time). After the first one she said and signed ‘more’.
  
• Lucy has decided that the way to say plane is ‘bobo’ and will not listen to any correction
  
• 3 hour time difference is much harder to deal with than the Sydney-US or Sydney–Europe time differences. Waking at 4am is not fun.
  
• Along I5 there are many signs saying ‘Do not pick up hitch hikers’. Why I do not know.
  
• Inner city Seattle is truly a maze of asphalt. At one point we were on a 5 lane highway (each way!) with extra roads above and to the right. We had to cross 4 lanes of traffic to keep going straight ahead. Truly amazing!
  

Email me for access to more photos.

Seattle bound

We're heading across the continent to Washington state to attend Kirk & Bethany's wedding. We are very much looking forward to it and Lucy even has a new outfit with matching shoes. Prior to the happy occassion we are spending some time in Seattle sipping lattes and watching flying fish. And yes we are going to check out the first ever Starbucks cafe at Pike Place Market! Of course we will update you all later about our last adventure for 2007. The temperature over there is in the range of -1 to 7 degrees celsius. Unfortunately WIlmington has just hit a sweet spot and we are experiencing 25 degree heat (we were wearing t-shirts and eating ice cream in the backyard yesterday!) However the beanies, mittens and scarves are packed and we're nearly ready to go!

It's been a while...

but did anyone notice I was missing in action? The truth is that I am tired of blogging. I know that when you tire of London you tire of life but what does it mean to tire of writing trivial comments on the internet? The content is out there but the time and motivation are lacking. If I'm going to blog I want to do it well. But is it better to churn out sub-prime content for the sake of being out there and keeping a record of our life in the US? Not sure the answer to this so we'll see how things pan out. I invite readers to make comments! Offers for babysitting greatly appreciated.

Andrew was back in Oz for a week and has been working hard back here so I have gone 10 days straight as a single parent. And today he can't drop Lu off at day care. So much for having a quiet day at home doing my tax return.

In Andrew's absence we had a few playdates (Rory, Ava and Julian), read many many books and spent lots of time outside playing in the sandpit. We got the fence installed (hooray!), hosted bible study, and kept the house very tidy.

On the fun side Andrew had a very nice surprise coming home to Wilmington as Lucy and I met him at the airport with a home-made sign. And when Lucy spotted him in the crowd at the airport she ignored the 'do not enter' sign and ran half way down the corridor to greet him with a big hug. I waited until he got into the foyer before giving him a big hug!

Not sure if things will get back to normal anytime soon but 'product of the week' will return tomorrow.

Asheville, North Carolina

Ok so I said I wanted some cooler weather but that did not mean I wanted to experience 29 degrees (F) at 9am! Whilst staying in Blowing Rock we were greeted in the morning with a layer of ice over everything, including the car, which gave the appearance that it had snowed overnight! That being said the weather was kind to us and was generally in the high 60’s. Let me take you through the drive, the food and the sights.

Driving

Driving with an 18 month old child that likes to run around wasn’t easy and poor Lucy had a couple of melt downs when she just couldn’t take being strapped down anymore. In between she enjoyed watching Colin Buchanan on DVD, listening to her kindermusik CD using Dad’s headphones and reading her books. We all enjoyed listening to Charlotte’s Web being read by E B White, watching the leaves change colour as we headed west and having a pit stop at the Tractor Supply Co at Monroe (stocking motorized toy horses, deer feed and tractor tyres).

We drove via Charlotte on the way to Asheville which was a slower but more scenic route. We saw trailer homes, the Pee Dee river and a beauty supply company selling ‘human hair’. We even saw a town called Shelby! There were many many traffic lights on the approach to Charlotte which made the going slow (plus it was pouring with rain). The way home was via Interstate 40 which was fast (70mph) but reasonably boring. Both sides of the road were lined with rows of trees and once we were out of the mountains it was no longer scenic.

One of the cool things we wanted to do on this trip was to drive the ‘Blue Ridge Parkway’. It is one of the top 10 scenic drives in the US so it was something we did not want to miss. We drove two separate parts of it and we were amazed at the beauty of the trees as the leaves changed colour. One of my favourite moments was when the wind was gently blowing yellow leaves out of the trees above us which then flew around in the breeze and sunlight before landing on the road in front. Spectacular! Despite the drought and the unseasonably warm weather in October it was still a site to behold.




Dining

Dining out fell into two main categories: national chain restaurants and single site operators. The chain restaurants as expected were fast, convenient, and clean with food of mediocre quality (Chili’s, Outback Steakhouse, Dairy Queen and iHop) The only exception being Waffle House which was extremely dirty and had a ‘smoking’ section which means little when patrons walk through the restaurant to the exit with lit cigarettes.

Fortunately we did a little foodie research before traveling and discovered a couple of gems including Corner Kitchen (Biltmore Village), Crippens Country Inn (Blowing Rock) and Melanie’s Fantasy Food (Boone). The highlight was the watermelon salad at Crippens that consisted of watermelon, fresh mozzarella, basil, rocket, toasted almonds and balsamic vinegar served with lavash. The single sites on the whole were excellent but we were very disappointed with Eastern Lights (Durham) which was a well recommended Chinese restaurant that was far too Americanised (though the Gwo Tieh “pot stickers” were awesome). We even got a Southern fix at the Farmers Market Restaurant (Raleigh) with biscuits and hush puppies, fried ham steak, fried green tomatoes, fried okra, grits and mashed potatoes (notice the fried theme!)

Asheville

Biltmore Estate
This estate inspired our whole vacation and it lived up to its reputation. A family owned property built by George Vanderbilt in 1895 it is the largest home in the US. With around 4 acres under roof and 5 stories tall the house is amazingly large with 61 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms. It houses an indoor pool, a gym, a bowling alley, an architectural model room, library, observatory, billiards room and tapestry gallery. The kitchen comprises of 5 refrigerated rooms, the house keepers pantry, the canning room, the vegetable pantry, the pastry room, the rotisserie kitchen, the main kitchen, the kitchen pantry, the small pantry, servants dining room etc etc! The thing that amazed us about this place was the electrical innovations for its time. The house was awesome but not as good as Windsor Castle, the gardens were pretty but not as breathtaking as Versailles but nothing we have seen compares to the amazing things done here with electricity – pool lights, refrigerated rooms, and electric dumb waiters. Unfortunately with Lucy in tow we couldn’t do the behind the scenes tour which would have revealed so much more. Instead we picked up a picnic basket at the Bake Shop and headed off into the gardens exploring the hot house and playing in the fallen leaves. We ended up at the bass pond where Lucy watched the ducks. We then headed over to River Bend Farm (still part of the Estate) where Lucy patted horses, sheep and donkeys but was mostly fascinated with the chickens and owls. We ate ice cream, watched a blacksmith in action and wandered around a corn maze.

Mast General Store
“Quality goods for the living, coffins and caskets for the dead”. A small town department store on the national register of historic places specializing in camping and hiking gear but also full of tourist knick knacks. The first store opened in 1883 but this Asheville post is the youngest branch opening in 1940.

Peanuts – Pumpkin Patch Express
We boarded the Great Smoky Mountains train in the quaint village of Dillsboro for a trip to the pumpkin patch. The train traveled alongside the river (where the train wreck in The Fugitive was filmed) to the pumpkin patch where we bobbed for apples, took photos with Lucy & Charlie Brown, had a hay ride, patted the goats, and roasted marshmallows. And we picked a pumpkin too! Lucy was dressed in her ladybug costume and she looked SO GORGEOUS!!! The photos don’t adequately capture how beautiful she looked.

Malaprops Book Store
A fun bookstore with the poetry section at the front and the fiction section at the back it was an oasis I could have hidden in all day.


Blowing Rock

Linville Caverns
Underneath Humpback Mountain runs a river that has formed a limestone cavern. Now a tourist attraction but previously a hide out for deserters from the civil war we took a guided tour inside. There are blind rainbow trout living in the 42 degree water and Lucy was quite keen to jump in to take a closer look at them. We also saw a couple of bats hiding in nooks in the ceiling. The stalactites and stalagmites were impressive and there was one particular point that a column was formed where the two met. If only the guide who had a really strong southern accent had spoken slower we could have learnt a lot more.

Chimney Rock
Chimney Rock is a huge piece of granite 26 stories above Hickory Nut Gorge displays awesome views. Although there are trails to hike up we took the easy option and caught the elevator – yes an elevator in a national park, inside the rock itself! We had to go up a staircase of about 30 steps to get right up the top and boy was it windy and cold up there! Lucy wanted to do some rock climbing herself and was unhappy when we restricted her. It is a long way down! Well worth the visit and if we ever get back here we are definitely doing some hiking.

Blowing Rock
Given that we were staying in Blowing Rock we thought we should check out the actual ‘blowing rock’. A big disappointment and in fact it is so ordinary we walked past it the first time without even realizing. Lucy slept through the whole thing and we got her back into the car asleep and kept driving without her even knowing we had stopped.

Durham & Raleigh

Duke University
Pronounced ‘dook’ by the Americans we stopped in at the chapel of this famous college. Although in the middle of the city the campus had the feeling of a country estate as there were so many trees around. The chapel impressively stood at the end of a drive lined with trees. Brick work, stained glass windows and huge wooden doors. Lucy liked the sound of her screams echoing around inside so we couldn’t stay for too long but she enjoyed running around on the grass chasing squirrels.


Raleigh Farmers Market
Compared to Wilmington these markets are large but still weren’t all that impressive. Lots of pumpkins, mums and tomatoes available. The restaurant was great and we did some caching here (1 successful and 1 yet to be found). Probably more produce available on the weekends.


Wilmington

We got back home in time for our church’s ‘Fall Festival’. Instead of celebrating Halloween we had a night full of activities based on Pilgrims Progress. Lucy was so gorgeous firstly wearing a burden, then arming herself for the journey with a sword and shield and then traveling to the celestial city. It was so cool and she got lots of prizes, petted puppies and made a puppet. It was much more fun than trick or treating and she didn’t eat any candy (though she did have pepperoni pizza for dinner).

And thus ends our mountain vacation. I’ll leave you with some awesome pictures of the fall.

Sneak peak: Asheville