Thu, Feb 17
02.17.05
The alarm went off at 8, and we started moving around 8:30. We were out of the hotel by 9:30 and headed to the Huddle House for breakfast. It is clearly a WaffleHouse clone, and Brenda says she’d go back. From there we set off to get Harlan a haircut, and eventually found “Attitudes” where we were expecting to find the Biltmore Barber Shop. The store is owned by a transplant from Manhattan, and she was thrilled to have customers show up who came from somewhere besides Asheville. We all had pleasant conversation while Harlan was getting trimmed, and we were on our way to Chimney Rock Park by 12:30.
Chimney Rock Park is where they filmed “The Last of the Mohicans” and lets just say that it has a lot of stairs. When the current roll of film gets used up we’ll have a bunch of pictures to upload. We hiked up to the top of the 440′ waterfall, and the views of the surrounding countryside were very good. The weather today was really good.
Interesting trails, similar to Starved Rock (boardwalk trails) except here the trails are mostly on the edge of the mountain.
We never got a really good look at the waterfall.
Around 3:30 we headed off to Pinehurst. We took Route 9 north to I40 and headed east. Route 9 was really pretty, but Brenda was still thinking about “Deliverance” and was glad we had a new car.
We stopped for a quick bite around sunset and discovered that we left a laundry bag at the hotel in TN. We’ll call them tomorrow about having it shipped somewhere.
We got to the Comfort Inn in Pinehurst around 8pm, checked in, and immediately went over to Brenda’s parents’ house (there I go wondering if I punctuated this properly). Beautiful little place (little is relative – it’s way bigger than the spaces of Brenda and Harlan combined). The astonishing thing is that they happened to have a “family sized” Sara Lee Pound Cake in the fridge, just for us! This is the same size that we use at home as “the single serving”. However, as both Brenda and Harlan are still trying to implement their “lose 30 pounds each, sooner or later” plan, we declined. At least until tomorrow, as they also have Breyer’s French Vanilla ice cream. We spent the evening in delightful conversation.
Brenda’s Mom and Dad took a nap this afternoon (they usually rise around 6am, and fall asleep around 9pm), so by 10:30pm they were still going strong while we were wearing out.
We headed back to the hotel with the understanding that when we woke up in the morning we’d head over there for (a possibly late) breakfast.