I love to travel an hour or so up the mountain from our home to enjoy the beautiful NC mountains. On Tuedsay I decided to take grandaughters, Rahlee, Chloe, Michaela and son Kelly, for a little day trip. We stopped first at the cabin of my daughter Kristen and her husband Billy who were up from Florida. It is so good to have them owning their own place near us so we can feel close to them all the time.
Next we stopped at Banner Elk to eat our lunch at the McDonalds right on the highway. Banner Elk is famous for its two ski slopes, Beach and Sugar mountain. In the summertime it is full of tourists enjoying the cooler weather in the mountains. We filled our tummies and so.....
....On to Valle Crucis, a tiny town near Boone, NC. It has a very old general store "The Mast Store" that has been turned into a tourist attraction. They have kept it just as it use to be but now sell all kinds of old fashioned items just like the old folks bought at the store over a hundred years ago. I bought a set of retro dish towels for my kitchen and a nostalgic-like sigh to put on our new back porch. I will make a post to show you my purchases later. It even has a working post office that is unchanged from the past. The little girls loved our other stop in VC, at the Candy Barrel where you can go from to barrel with a basket and fill it up with your favorite candy. Of course there is a price to pay at the cash register. Kelly's candy added up to $11.00. I was glad he was paying for his own. I told the girls that they could choose 10 candies each. It is surprising how long it takes kids to make their choices when there is so much to choose from. I just started Weight Watchers, so it was very hard for me to pass up the dark chocolate malt balls. I did settle on one "Ice Cube" and one "Reece's Piece". Need I say that it was not very satisfying, but I stuck to my diet anyway.
We went on to Boone, a nice college town (Appalachian State University) with lots of things going on at any given moment. If you get a chance to visit Boone, be sure you go to the older section where you can visit lots of shops and enjoy the unusual (at least for me) sights of people and aura of an old college town. The Boone Drug Store is a good place to grab an old fashioned hamburger and coke.
On to Blowing Rock and the park that is on the main street across from all the little shops that each sell different items. The girls, Chloe and Rahlee had a fun time doing the kids "zip line" and climbing rock.
We were all finally worn out from all the "fun", so headed home which was about fifty miles away. A summer day well spent in the beautiful NC mountains!
