Trip to the mountains

Last weekend we took a trip up the mountains of NC and TN.  The fall colors were not quite at peak but were still beautiful and the weather was pretty much perfect.  We took a drive through Great Smoky Mountain National Park, spent a night in Knoxville, drove the Cherohala Parkway and spent a night in Cherokee (losing a little at the casino).  It was a rejuvenating trip for sure.

House in the Horseshoe.  We stopped here on the way out of town and so glad we did.  Beautiful farm country and so quiet and isolated. 

A tunnel on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Off the BRP

The Smokies

Hiking the AT in the Smokies

A friend along the trail

I thought this leaf was interesting--split in half down the middle--half red, half yellow.

The Smokies

The Sun Sphere in Knoxville, TN

Along the Cherohala Parkway

Along the Cherohala

Fontana Dam

Playing Star Trek slots at Harrah's in Cherokee. 

Again, I've got more photos on flickr.

Weekend in Wytheville

We took a weekend trip up to Wytheville, VA several weeks ago.  I'm finally getting around to sharing a few photos.  We did couple of hikes, including a small trip on the Appalachian Trail.  We ate a would famous Skeeter-dog and just relaxed.  It's a great area if you're ever in the neighborhood.

I've put more photos on flickr if you'd like to have a look-see.

Local adventures....

Colby and I took a little trip through Durham a couple of weekends ago.  I love exploring the local area.  As much as I love traveling to far off places, there's just as many interesting spots locally that we can visit.  We've lived here for almost 5 years now and still there's so many places we haven't been. So we decided to check out one of them.  We started off at the Duke Homestead, the home, farm, and first factory of the Duke family.  They founded the American Tobacco Company and became very rich manufacturing cigarettes.  

The home was quite lovely--built in the late 1800's.

I loved the colored glass around the door.

Old tobacco barn

They still demonstrate how they hang tobacco to cure.  It smells so sweet.

The tobacco was blooming

In the museum, there was the "inspector"---inspecting the cigarettes off the rolling machine.  She looked so happy.

Funny, old advertisement

This cat named Biscuit had lived there at the Homestead for 5 years now.  He was a sweetie!

 From there we went downtown, milling around Brightleaf Square for a bit. I didn't take any photos here though--wish I had.  I found that the vintage store Dolly's was gone though!!  It's moved to Main Street though so it still exists!  Phew!

 

After Brightleaf, we drove to the American Tobacco Campus.  We love going here.   The Durham Bulls stadium is here too.

 

 We had lunch at Piper's Deli--another new-to-us place.   We had yummy sammies!

 

Then to Rita's for an Ice!

Nom Nom

That's about it.  A fun day trip visiting a new place and a couple old favorites.  I think we'll be having more of these little adventures now that Colby's started classes again.  It's a great way to spend a day and learn a little about the local area. 

Vacation time

Well the hubby and I got back from Florida last week.  We had a nice, relaxing time.  We chilled on the beach, caught some great live music and went to a Rays game ( I even scored a few things at the thrift).  It was great to get away for a bit. 

Back to reality......