Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

A day of leisure and recreation has been long-needed. We’ve been so busy the past month or so with the RV move-in and house move-out that I can’t remember the last day we spent just doing some sort of leisure activity all-day. 

The day began with the ordinary; we left out late to start the day, but progressed through the extraordinary.  On top of already being behind schedule in heading to Dana’s parents’ house, we had to stop for gas.  So, we shot over into South Carolina to take advantage of the low gas prices.  I remembered a BP on HWY. 521 so we plotted our course for there.  When we pulled up to the pump I could already tell this was not a conventional BP.  Scrap pieces of paper taped to the pump with chicken-scratch handwriting told me ‘Cash’, ‘Credit’, and ‘”BP” cards are not accepted inside or outside.”  Dana asked me if I was sure it was really a BP we were at.  She also asked me to go in to get her a bottle of water so I headed for the door.  Apparently, the business owner doesn’t believe having the windows cleaned would be beneficial.  I decided to use the restroom before we proceeded on our 1 ½ hour drive.  I walked into the ‘bathroom’ and what used to be the urinal had been reduce to a few pipes sticking out of the wall.  It was my turn to wait for the one occupied ‘stall’.  This gave me a chance to notice the collection of nastiness around the bottom of the walls on the floor.  BP owner cuts overhead costs by nixing bathroom cleaning, too.  Needless to say, my hand sanitizer in the glove compartment came in handy (no pun intended).  On the way out of the store, struggling to breath because of the extreme amount of cigarette smoking that had taken place inside, I noticed a waist-high counter along the longest windowed wall.  There were scattered chairs there for what was apparently the “sit and smoke while you watch traffic go by” section.  On the counters was the source of my respiratory pain… about four overflowing ashtrays.  After I relayed my observations to Dana, she decided drinking the bottled water I got her may not have been in the best interest of her health.

Our next stop was to be Bojangle’s since our lateness prevented us from eating breakfast before leaving the house-RV-thingy.  We made it to I-85 and came upon an exit that had multiple restaurants listed, Bojangle’s being one of them.  We noted at the top of the ramp that we only had to go 0.3 miles to kill our hunger but after about 5 miles, we wised up about a little discrepancy on the interstate sign. Since we were so far off the interstate, I decided to take a small highway cut-across to our eventual north-bound highway.  Hunger must’ve been impeding my rationale.

Once we finally arrived in Hickory, we came up to a large intersection.  Pacing back-and-forth on one of the medians was a man.  He caught our attention instantly because in his right hand he was holding up an open umbrella, for shade I guess, and in his left hand was a ventriloquist dummy.  That’s not all.  Strapped to his waist was a megaphone with wired mic hung around his neck so he could speak hands-free.  Hanging from his back was a 4’x3’ piece of wood on which we wondered what was written since he was facing us.  He turned around and there they were… about 20 lines of small text the lady in the car next to him would’ve had trouble reading.  I’ve seen similar things in New York City but never thought I’d come across it in Hickory, NC.

Before going to Dana’s parents’ place, we stopped by the Lutheran Home to see her grandmother.  She isn’t doing well at all and it was hard to hear her say that there were two specific times during the previous week when she wanted death to come quickly.  I told her we would not be sorrowful when she passes because we know she’ll be with Jesus.  I asked her to save us a seat when she got there and she asked where we’d like to sit.  I told her, “In the back, of course.  I am Baptist after all.”  It was nice to see her smile.  She asked for both of us to pray for her so we did and headed out.

Pulling out, we looked down the street the opposite way of which we were supposed to go and LOW-and-BEHOLD there was a Bojangle’s!  Finally, we had our biscuits at 12:15pm!

We toured the parents’ new house before piling into the back seat of their car and heading off to the mountains to see the fall colors.  It was nice to be driven around for once!

Our first stop on the way up was at an apple orchard to buy some mountain-grown gala apples – DELICIOSO!  I also picked up a little plastic bear full of pure sourwood honey.  I even got to taste sample it in the building before I bought it.  It’s so good, I’ve got to get up from the computer and get a spoonful now… … … … that was good!

From the orchard, it was time to head up on up the mountain to a place called Glendale Springs.  There’s an old church there that has a painting in it that’s done in a style called fresco.  It just so happen that the community was having the Festival of Frescoes in an open grassy area nearby.  We got a good taste of the local culture there.

The next good chunk of time was spent on the Blue Ridge Parkway looking at the fall colors.  You can see pictures here.

One of the biggest reasons Dana’s parents took us to the mountains was to eat at Shatley Springs, a very popular country-cookin’ inn and restaurant.  When we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed the expected high number of cars.  We made our way down to the front door and Dana’s dad went in to put our name on the list.  Little did he know that Shatley Springs was now operating on a reservation system so the wait for walk-ups was 3 hours.  Do you think we stayed or left?  Pretty easy choice.

So, we got back in the car to head ½ hour down to Wilkesboro and ended up stopping at a Mayflower Fish Camp.  If you don’t know what a ‘fish camp’ is, e-mail me.  The interesting day continued as we noticed a large group of people file in, filling up one side of the restaurant.  Shortly behind them came an unexpected couple… a bride and groom.  Apparently the fish camp is the local hot spot for wedding receptions!  I even grew up around the corner of a fish camp and NEVER had seen that before!

On our way back to the parents’ place, our realtor called us about a viewing of the house by a couple who wanted to submit an offer but it had a contingency attached for the sale of their home.  We had gotten a lot of response to the house at that point so we chose not to get into a situation like that.

The day was drawing to a close so we hit the road for the RV with the Bank of America 500 on the radio.  Listening to NASCAR is nothing like watching it which is NOTHING like being there.  But, we got home with about 80 laps left in the race which became our opportunity to gear down for the night.

It was one of the more unusual days I’ve experienced.