North Carolina part 1

Two weekends ago my family took a trip to Blowing Rock, North Carolina.  Jay was a little slow at getting the pictures uploaded, so here is the full report just a tinsy bit late.

We left early on Sunday, but tried to keep the excitement to a minimum.  We had trouble finding a breakfast meeting spot (where my parents, Jay & I were supposed to meet up with my sister and her family).  The first mom & pop place we tried wasn't open on Sunday, and the 2nd confirmed via a phone call they were open, but when we arrived at their location no one was there.  (We've since discovered that they moved.)

Though we were all starving, we decided to stop in at a place my sister had eaten at before 30 minutes up the road.  My mom decided to ride between the princess and little man's seats and got hit with some projectile vomit (courtesy of the princess's car sickness) for her trouble.

Once we got into town, we didn't do a whole lot.  We walked up and down the street going into the cute little shops, stopping at the park to play, even finding a garage sale to shop!  After checking into the cottage, we freshened up then went back out to a pub for dinner.  After trying a sip of my BIL's beer selection, I went with a pint of Old Speckled Hen. 

It wasn't until Monday that the fun really got started.

Something that we didn't realize when booking the cottage with Blowing Rock Resort Rentals, was that their policy only allowed for 1 bag of garbage for the entirety of our stay.  8 people in a cabin for 3 days, and we only got 1 bag of trash.  If we left anything above that we'd be charged an additional $10 per bag.

Ridiculous right?  They did, however, include directions to the nearest trash dumps. 

My father instructed me not to tell you the story about the dump.  About how due to road construction he didn't see the dump entrance until it was too late to turn in, so he went out the in.  About how the "gentleman" working the dump lectured us about how we'd cause an accident coming in the wrong way.  How he and my dad argued for 5 minutes about whether or not it hurt anything.  About how my dad tried to explain it was an accident and we were tourists (and the problem wouldn't happen again) but the guy kept being a jerk about it.  About how my dad called him all kinds of names once we pulled away- names we were hoping the Little Man wouldn't try to repeat.

Then it was on to Tweesie Railroad - the Little Man loves trains (and all things "go-go" related) so we figured it'd be fun for him.  I was less than enthused about Jay and I shelling out $32 each for a stupid train ride, but we were pleasantly surprised at everything the park has to offer.

First off, they allowed us to bring in our picnic lunch.  Coming from a tourist town ourselves, we're use to being told we can't even carry in a bottle of water in our purse, much less lug in a rolly cooler full of sandwiches, fruit, and drinks.

After the train ride, we had lunch, then headed into the park toward the rides.  Jay took a million pictures (as always) and while some of them didn't turn out to his liking, it meant that I could post some on my blog.  You see my sister thinks the Internet is full of crazies just waiting to kidnap her children.  I've been given specific instructions not to post their gorgeous faces on my blog.  Enter Jay's photo fails.

The princess was too tall to ride the kiddie rides, and surprising (and sadly) enough the Little Man was big enough to go it alone!

One payoff for the princess being as tall as kids a year older than her was that she got to ride the adult rides - here's one of her in between her parents are the tiltawhilr.

The Little Man (with my sister & mom) were in front of the Princess and I on the Merry-Go-Round.

The photo fails of the Princess are few and far between - in true diva fashion she always knows where the camera is and is always willing to pose.  Here Jay has caught us in the middle of enjoying an ice cream snack.

The Princess and BIL were in the pole position.  Followed by Jay & I, my dad and the little man, then my mom and sister.  No, that isn't a possum on my dad's face.  Its his beloved mustache that makes him look about a decade older than he really is.

Here are a couple of mean rascals we found in the Tweesie jail, but the must have broken out because we found them riding off into the sunset a couple hours later.

As I said we were pleasantly surprised at how much fun the park was.  When we'd finally had enough we headed back to the cottage for some grilled steaks (courtesy of my dad).  The evening was capped off by a rousing game of Apples to Apples, before everyone headed to bed in the late 9 o'clock hour.

We're getting old!