March 2009

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Monday, 09 March 2009

Blowing Rock

We had a great time up at the North Carolina mountains this past weekend. The Saxmans (Olivia, Pam & Jim - Olivia is in my Kindergarten class) invited us to come up with them to go snow tubing. So we all drove up on Friday afternoon. We got to leave school early, just after lunch. I drove up with Olivia while Mummy & Daddy got to drive by themselves. Olivia and I had fun in the back of Pam's car watching movies and doing other stuff. The trip was about 3.5 hours.

We stayed at a resort called Chetola in the town Blowing Rock. We had a 3-bedroom apartment which was really nice. Olivia and I shared a room. We arrived late afternoon, in time to unpack, relax and have drinks and nibblies on our deck. Even though we were here to play on the snow it was actually quite warm - around 20°C. So it was nice out on the deck. Daddy set up High School Musical 3 on the TV so Olivia and I watched a bit of that.

We had a reservation at a really nice local Italian restaurant called Pssghetti's. I filled up too much on snacks so I didn't eat much of my dinner (oops), but we saved it in case I wanted some later. We came home after dinner after driving down the main street of Blowing Rock, then into Jammies and bed. Olivia and I went to sleep without argument - we were tired. Our staff stayed up and watched a movie apparently.

On Saturday morning, we were off to tubing at HawksNest. Tubing involves sitting on truck inner tubes and sliding down a gentle slope in specially built lanes. Even though it was warm, they still managed to have some snow (it had snowed about a foot a week earlier). They had plowed the snow into lanes that were each about as wide as two inner tubes. We were all wearing ski gear, but that proved to be too hot. Fortunately we had T-shirts on underneath. Mummy & I had snow boots which were just the right thing to keep our feet dry. Our tubing ticket bought us just under 2 hours of tubing time but that was enough - the snow was starting to get soft and slow (on some of the longer flatter runs, we had to get up and walk/push at 1 or 2 spots) and we were getting hot. Still, it was a lot of fun.

After lunch at a local place, we drove to the old fashioned Mast General Store in Valle Crusis and bought some old-fashioned candy. I also got to try some of Jim's Cheerwine, a red-coloured softdrink that's made in North Carolina. I liked it so much I asked Daddy to get my own bottle. Mummy had some ginger ale which apparently was much better than the normal stuff you get.

After we got back to our apartment, Jim, Olivia, Daddy and I all got our swimmers on and went swimming in the resort's indoor pool. Mummy and Pam went shoe shopping at the local outlet mall. We had a lot of fun at the pool. I brought my goggles and some dive toys and we also played with balls that they had there.

In the evening we had a nice dinner at the Storie Street Grille in Blowing Rock. It was really good.

On Sunday, we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway (a very scenic road up the east coast of the US) to Grandfather Mountain. They have a suspension bridge that's a mile high (although it's only about 10-20 metres above the ground up there). At first I was scared to go across the bridge (it was a little bit windy) so I held Daddy's hand. But after that I was fine and went back and forth without help (it's quite safe). There were great views all around. Then we drove went to the wildlife habitat they have there, and saw a bald eagle, a cougar, and two otters. Daddy took some cool photos of them which he might post here one day (if miracles happen).

We drove back to Blowing Rock and had a nice lunch/brunch there then walk up the street looking at all the shops. We all had some icecream at the ice cream shop (the grownups said that none of us needed it, but Olivia and I disagreed). Then played on the swings and stuff in the park across the street.

On the drive back to Raleigh, I was back in my car and Olivia stayed in her car.

It was a fun weekend. On Monday, the teacher reported to our parents that Olivia and I were fighting just like sisters so clearly we had a good time on the weekend!

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