That annoying (and what isn’t from) Geico money with eyes thing:
and the annoying flash intro screen while I wait for MLB Gameday Audio to start:
This morning we did get to the WNC Nature Center and it was interesting destination. I’m sure they are doing good work, but it came off as more of a minor league zoo and is mostly aimed at kids. We left Edward Scissorhands (Allen) at the town home so he could prune, trim and shape the landscaping, while Diane, Donna and I took a pleasant drive north to Asheville and then to the east side of town via the Blueridge Parkway.
There were three caches within a 1/4 mile of the nature center, so after we had our fill of wild animals in captivity, we went out looking for captive containers in the wild. The first one was spotted by Donna as it hovered right over my head in a tree I was standing near. The second one we only gave a half hearted attempt at because it was supposed to be at the edge of a small stream in a small park, but to get to it you had to fight through a large patch of plants with large thorns on them. The third was near a soccer field in the same park, but there was a broom less game of Quidditch taking place, so we didn’t even leave the car.
Lunch was back in Hendersonville at West First wood fired pizza. After eating lunch we went back to the Stricker Mountain Home and packed our bags. We were vacating the place so Allen’s sister and her husband from Charlotte could spend Saturday night in the guest room.
We are back home and while it was fun to see their new place and visit with my sister and Allen, there is no place like home.
Didn’t notice it until we got in the car this morning that sometime last night just before we got to the hotel the Emperor passed over the 94,000 mile mark. Leaving the Red Roof Inn to come over to 607 Carriage Commons Drive I looked down and the odo read 94006.
Our plan was to visit the Western North Carolina Nature Center this morning, but the rains came down so we opted to try and find something indoors to do, so we spent an hour in the Asheville Welcome Center, most of it waiting for Allen to try on shirts off the clearance rack before ending up at the Grove Arcade. We then spent another 45 minutes sitting in rocking chairs while Allen bought a recliner for the living room.
Lunch was at Donna and my favorite place in downtown Asheville, Doc Chey’s. Aftr eating we walked in the rain to the next block to visit a Mast General Store (where Allen bought a straw hat.) With the rain showing no sign of letting up we just drove back to Hendersonville. Where it was sunny!
Allen went off to arrange delivery of his chair and Diane, Donna and I went into downtown H-ville to give St. Frank a new home at the Hospice Home Store.
Allen and Diane are of the Jewish faith and the previous owners of the Stricker Mountain Home were Catholic and left behind a 4′ tall concrete lawn statue of St. Francis of Assisi outside the front door. They weren’t sure what to do about him and I said let’s pop him in the trunk and donate him to the Goodwill, failing that we’ll just leave him on the side of the road as a corner monument. Neither of the two ladies were keen on option 2, so we donated him to the Hospice Store.
The Emperor had the top down all day in the rain, but he is as dry as could be because he is in the garage here while the four of us have been tooling around in the rental Pontiac Vibe.
We are in Hendersonville, NC to visit my sister and her husband in their new town home that they just bought. They are planning to retire here in the near future and decided to go ahead and buy a place, so that when they visit here a couple three times a year they will have a place to stay instead of the Red Roof Inn.
Donna and I are going to be the quasi-caretakers of the place (when they aren’t in residence) for however long it takes Allen to get fed up at work and retire…
We will be coming up once a month to flush the toilets, run the AC/Heater and check to make sure the picture is still clear on the HDTV in the living room. All it is going to cost us is I pay for the high speed internet access (because I’m the one who wants it) and that we keep the small patch of level ground on the empty lot he owns in the development mown. I’m going to have t-shirts made up. 🙂
I should have saved last night’s Mad Men thing for tonight. So instead of real content here are a couple more images:
Me regaling the “girls” with tails of daring do.
Me and Don schmooze over drinks a lunch.
Bonus post tonight.
Wanted to show you what it would look like on my first day at Sterling Cooper if I flashed back to 1965.
Less than 3 weeks to go before new episodes of TDTVS2 and you can amuse yourself until then by recreating yourself in Swanky ’60s Style With MadMenYourself.com.
We went for a hike in Hitchcock Woods this evening and checked on two of our caches and scouted a spot for our next hide, Hats Off to Caching in SC. It is inspired by the fellow who was also responsible for my Geocaching License, Renzo Tobias.
It is going to be a mystery cache and we found the perfect place to put it, a place in the Woods that is called Mystery Field. It is more of a thinned out piece of woods than an actual field and it doesn’t have a sign, but it is a spot of the woods that is little used and all up hill on the way out, so heading back to the start is a pleasant walk down. If someone wanted to get this one and the other two we checked on tonight it will be a nice little 3 mile loop.