Sunday, May 31, 2009

Chimney Rock

The last weekend we headed up to Chimney Rock. The only other time we were there was when I first moved to Charlotte. My parents and I took a ride up to see what there was to see. http://www.chimneyrockpark.com/ Lake Lure and the surrounding area were a bit crowded given it was a holiday weekend but it wasn't that bad. We did end up parking at the "meadows" field and not necessarily near the "top" but that's OK. We took a shuttle bus to the top and walked to the bottom of the waterfall from there. The walk to the waterfall was 1.5 miles round trip and it looked rather flat... at least on the map... There was a bit more of an incline than we realized. But it was well worth it when we got to there. An interesting thing about being at the bottom of the waterfall... you really aren't at the bottom of the mountain... There is still a ways down. I felt the same way when we got to the top. There was still more you could climb up. We opted to not climb up any further but did take the trail down. Wow - quite the trail it was. It had started to rain at that point too. Oh fun!

For movie trivia fanatics - Lake Lure is where they filmed Dirty Dancing. Parts of The Last of the Mohicans were filmed at Chimney Rock.

Landsford along the Catawba... trail walk











I think I will go back to walk some of the other trails along the park. Similar to Brattonsville there were more trails than were realised.
We finished up the day with some ribs and lots of other good food with friends. Perhaps I should bring my camera and capture pics of friends as well. hmmm... I need to remember that.




Landsford Canal State Park

The second weekend of my mom's visit got off to a good start with dinner with Maya and Brendan. The girls were there too but they had their cousins over and were enjoying their own company - pizza, movies, slumber party...
They gave a us a great idea for our Saturday... Go check out the Rocky Shoal Spider Lilies. Huh? Yeah, that was my initial reaction as well. I had heard of them once before but it didn't stick. This time I got more details and found out where we needed to go.

The park wasn't too hard to find even though we were meandering our way there via Edgewater (a new community my mom saw advertised on the tv earlier in the week). And I must say I was surprised that it was as crowded as it was. That Sunday was a lily festival... I can only imagine what those crowds were like.
So we walked a little over a mile round trip to go check out these lilies. My little digital camera does not do them as much justice as they deserve. You can google them and find better on Flickr but they were still neat to see in person.
The trails and view of the river were nice as well. And contrary to Maya's warning - we only saw one little snake while we were out there.


Saturday, May 30, 2009

Mothers Day Brunch

I am not much for brunch, especially buffetts. I never feel like I get my money's worth. And I get torn between sweets and savories on the breakfast and lunch menu. But somehow we ended up at brunch. Well actually while driving home from a client visit my co-worker pointed out this little restaurant on the water in Davidson. And we know I gravitate towards water. Oh and to be able to eat water side... So we went for a little drive and had an amazing brunch with all sorts of food for mother's day.

Hogs

And I just have to give honorable mention to the hog and cat...

They did have animals around the "farm". There were the hogs, goats, sheep, horses, roosters. A little bit of everything to keep your interest.

Homes and interiors

One of the aspects of the park I found interesting were the homes. They started with a small cabin and ended with a plantation home. There was another home further off the site that was being refurbished. I assume when that re-opens it will be more of an attraction than the other homes.

Historic Brattonsville


So the first weekend of the visit, my mom, Spencer and I took a drive over to Historic Brattonsville. I have to say I am surprised at the number of people in the area that have not been there before. I first heard of it not long after I moved to the area. Portions of The Patriot were filmed here. There was hoopla about Mel Gibson being in the area (like the Sting concert at Ovens I went to and Mel was in teh front row)... I digress.... So we spent a good amount of time site-seeing around the area.

Grounds for Sculpture


So a few months back I was out on the Shore Turtle blog. He had gone running through the old state fair grounds in Hamilton (or is it Hamilton Square?) and it looked rather interesting. I told my mom about it. And when the weather warmed up she headed out that way. Interesting may be an understatement.


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LBI


She did a little trip to LBI one day too. Do you know I don't think I have ever been to Barnegat Lighthouse. How silly is that... How many other trips have and seen lighthouses but never the one closest to my house... OK Sea Girt is closest but... You know I don't know that I have seen the one at Sandy Hook either.

I wonder if these have candles too? Sorry KP it was just oddly coincidental to be back on the lighthouse conversation - I couldn't help it.

United Nations and then some


So my mom took a bus trip through Ocean County Community College to the United Nations.

Well she went to some gardens too but most of the pics are U.N.

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Mothers May

My mom came to visit for the better part of May. And boy were we ever busy! I think we had a few more things to do on our list but the weather did not cooperate. It seemed to be raining for the whole visit as well.
So I have a bunch of pics etc to throw on here.
I have some older files of pics from her I need to link up.
It is still pretty early with the day so I figured I would tinker with this for a while... before attacking the rest of my list of things to do. So over a cup of coffee and Absolute Radio - here we go...