en-yas, dead butterflies, and apples

ready for his trip, and his close-up

and yes, by the end of the trip, these sunglasses (and they are not Jed's) were lost

On Monday, we headed to the cool, salubrious North Carolina mountains. Following a leg-stretch in Winston-Salem and an unexpected visit with a Twin City friend, we enjoyed an uneventful drive to Spruce Pine.

After we tucked Jed in, Eric and I settled on the sofa for a quiet, tv-free evening at our Cousin Barbara's mountain house, but it quickly turned into an extremely loud night of thunder and incredible lightening. Rumbling started around 7 and increased in intensity until it was at its peak from about 9 until about 11 when it finally started to quiet down. I'm sure having all the windows open heightened our experience, but I think that was the loudest thunder and brightest lightening I've ever heard and seen, and it refused to move along for what seemed like forever! Amazingly, Jed didn't wake up until it started getting slightly quieter.

Morning was bright and almost crisp so we set our sights on Biltmore. Frankly, I wasn't sure how Jed would fare: he's not a fan of sitting still in his stroller and I knew we'd be there well into his nap time. As usual, however, he surprised and pleased us by behaving well (once we gave him one of the audio-tour headphone sets), and then taking a brief nap on Eric's back.

commanding Barbara's deck on our first morning

the view

enjoying the audio tour at Biltmore

Hark! Is that ga-gaua (water) I see?

Why yes, I think it is!

But let me touch it to make sure.

Hooray! I was right!

What do lions say, Jed?

Despite the mountain splendor and the enormous and overwhelming scale of Blitmore, Jed maintained focus where it counts: on buses.

Jed and Daddy, in tiny scale

from the front to the back steps . . .

asleep

After our day with the Vanderbilts, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway from Asheville to Spruce Pine. Along the way, we saw millions of butterflies. They were spectacular, but try as I might, I think I managed to smash about half the population with our car.

Hey, Jed, how do we get back to Barbara's house?

Tuesday night was storm-free but it was raining again by Wednesday morning. Luckily, given our lack of rain gear and our mostly-outdoor plans, it cleared up by the time Jed was ready to roll. Our first stop of the day was Spruce Pine where Jed had his favorite experience of the trip. I think the pictures tell the story:

But wait, Daddy! I want to see if another en-ya (engine) rounds the bend!

After his nap, we headed down hill from Barbara's to The Orchard at Altapass. The Clinchfield Railroad planted the orchard when they completed a stretch of track known as the Clinchfield Loops. The Loops switch-back along the Blue Ridge escarpment via 22 miles of track and 18 tunnels. Trains gain over 1,500 feet in elevation, but arrive at the top only 4 miles farther west, as the crow files. You can click here to watch a four-minute video that uses Google Earth to follow the route. Because Barbara's house is uphill from The Loops, we got to hear plenty of choo-choos and en-yas!

the view from the orchard

in search of the perfect apple

success!

in the shop at the orchard

our last evening of cool mountain air

And on our last day, we returned to downtown Spruce Pine. Thankfully, we saw another en-ya before we left town and Jed got to meet a bear.


On the way back home, we stopped for lunch in Marion. The last time I ate in downtown Marion, I "enjoyed" a bizarre salad and badly freezer-burned ice cream. (I believe Courtney may remember this lunch.) Thursday's meal could not have been more different. We ate at Bruce's Fabulous Food at 63 S. Main Street, just down from the courthouse. Bruce's food lived up to the moniker so if you're in Marion or even on I-40 (it's well worth the trip into town), stop in. I had a truly fabulous Brucie Melt, consisting of a burger on toasted rye bread topped with grilled onions and pimento cheese. This may have been the best burger I've ever eaten; at the very least it's a tie with one Eric grilled up several years ago. Eric raved about his egg salad sandwich and cantaloupe soup. Yes, cantaloupe soup. In Marion. No kidding.

We had a really great time, with special thanks to Barbara for sharing her house with us, to Grandma and Grandpa for the use of their camera, and to our secret source for Biltmore tickets!

and we're off

like a herd of turtles.

We'll be back next week feeling cooler and refreshed. Hopefully. In the meantime, you can check out what we were doing two years ago and one year ago. As a wise woman told me recently, the days creep and the years leap.

finally back . . .

only to leave again.

We are back in business, but we're going on vacation next week, so there will be another lull in postings. This time, however, we'll return to the blog with plenty of mountain photos thanks to Grandma and Grandpa who loaned their camera to us until we can get a new one.

And, by the way, if you have any suggestions on digital cameras let us know; it's been 8 years since we bought one so we have some research to do before we purchase.

In the meantime, here's your hot-headed boy in all his sweaty, food-covered glory.

believe it or not, he is not mad or even yelling in this picture

hurray for grandma and grandpa and the lumber

Jed raised his milk this morning and said "chee" (for cheers) in honor of Grandma and Grandpa's 39th anniversary!

In an unrelated tidbit, Land for Tomorrow recently announced its list of Top Ten Natural Wonders in North Carolina and the Lumber River, along which Jed's Great-Grandma Be grew up, made the cut. As part of the celebration, Lumber River State Park is celebrating Lumber River Day today. And just downstream from there, in Be's hometown of Fair Bluff, you can enjoy the North Carolina Watermelon Festival tomorrow and next weekend. Who knew Columbus and Robeson counties were the places to look for the weekend's best action?

still working out the bugs

We are still working on getting our photo situation repaired. In the meantime, here's a video I made yesterday. During my efforts to capture some new footage, I realized why still images are better for the blog: in addition to being faster to upload, pictures of everyday life can be cute; videos of a random afternoon are boring.

And for your reading pleasure, check out this recent article from Slate about gender and baby clothing . I'm not sure why the writer considers boy-style clothing "gender neutral." I'm not suggesting that girl-styles are gender neutral, either; I just think it's kind-of a useless term in this context. Applying one gender-type of clothing to the opposite gender doesn't make it neutral, it just means a boy is wearing girl-type clothes and/or a girl is wearing boy-type clothes. At the end of the article, the writer predicts a new wave of "gender neutral" clothing for kids is possible, but what he or she really says is that a new wave of girls wearing boy-style clothing might be on the way.

Also, here's an article that has ruffled a lot of feathers recently. It's about parental happiness. A lot of the response I've read has been very black-and-white: if you feel this article makes some good points, you're a very bad, selfish parent; if you think the article is pointless, you are a Grade A parent.

In my opinion, however, the writer covers a wide spectrum of grays and makes worthwhile observations about the way parenting (Parenting, I should say) has become a job with goals and tools. We didn't have a child to make ourselves happy, thankfully, and we're able to enjoy the many, many aspects of parenthood that are spectacularly amazing, but I think the writer makes a lot of points that really hit home with us.

computer update

We finally seem to have our photo-uploading problem solved, but now we are waiting for a new memory card for the camera. In the meantime, here are a few pictures from last weekend's railroad outing.

it's a . . .

boy!

Eric and I both thought it was a girl!

With Jed, I had a sudden and certain feeling, almost a premonition or vision, that he was a boy, but this time, I didn't experience anything like that. However, a week or two ago, I realized that I consistently thought of the baby with female pronouns, so I was pretty convinced we had a girl. As Jed has taught me, however, there's a lot I don't know!!

The final tally on the poll, by the way, was 6 votes for a boy, 5 for a girl, and 1 for unknown until December.

bd2 says hello

and "rock on!"

here's a foot

and a profile

riding the rails

We still can't upload pictures, but at least we have video. That means more work for me, but possibly more fun for you!

Today, we road the New Hope Valley Railroad, or, if you prefer, the New Hope Valley Choo-choo, in southwestern Wake County. The East Carolina Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society operates the train, which takes you outbound for about 20 or 30 minutes and then brings you back. They run a steam engine and a diesel, both of which are small engines used in logging operations and in rail switching yards. Unfortunately, the steam schedule conflicted with our lunch and nap schedule, but we did get several whistle blasts from the steam engine as we departed and returned to the station.

So, did Jed enjoy himself? It's hard to say, actually. We're taking Jed's stunned silence as a positive reaction, and you can make your own determination.

through the trees . . . silently

Jed's namesakes were on the rails, too:
Jed's Great-Grandpa Doc spent a lot of time introducing me to the wonders of the choo-choo, so I know Grandpa Doc enjoyed today as much as we did. And we haven't seen much of Jed's "Grandpa Joe smile" in a long time, but it was fitting that he brought it out on Grandpa Joe's birthday!



returning to the station

and finally, a quick blast from the steam engine