There were several things on my 'to-do' list when I started the trip last week. I have to confess I did not get any of them done. But it all worked out for the best, plus now there are excellent reasons to go back to NC again. We stopped in Murphey, right over the state line in North Carolina at a little visitor's center and got a map that is as wide as my car when completely unfolded. Reaching from the driver's side window clear over to the passenger side rear view mirror. Reminding me of the time our family was, for some un-remembered reason, driving the across the state the long way - it took an entire day.
Back in the summer, when we were passing through NC (the short way: south to north) I was navigating with a map, page 49 in the atlas, that was nearly twenty years old. The driver would not stop long enough for me to get an official state highway map - so we just kept going, with me thinking 'if you don't slow down for anything - you will not know what you missed by not having a road map with informative information about all the things that you are whizzing past.' But now that I have a 'real' and Official map, I can go back and see all that stuff we whizzed by in August...
I had hopes of going to the Grove Park Inn at some point and sitting out of the terrace, acting like rich folks, trying to give the appearance of being well-behaved and ordering some shamelessly decadent desserts. Like anything on the menu that would be remotely similar to 'death by chocolate' and ridiculously overpriced. But we decided to just wander around downtown and never got to the Inn - though it is always so fine to go and sit out there as the sun is going down over the golf course, mountains and pretend.
I had great plans for stopping on the road south at the Goats on the Roof - but it's such a unique tourist trap, I am sure it will be there the next time. And while I was tooling south towards Atlanta, passed the sign for Dawsonville, and remember: that is where the 'Kangaroo Refuge' is located. Which should be a legitimate reason to start planning another road trip!
And I meant to go to Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta to see the Gengis Khan exhibit, even though what you just read is all I know about it: having seen billboards along the interstate, I think it is something I don't want to miss. And those poor people who have been dragged through museums in six states should not miss it either. Fortunately Khan will hang around ATL until mid-January, so there is plenty of time to get there. There was an exhibit at the High Museum last year, with some of the terracotta soldiers from the Emperors' Army of China that was pretty impressive, so I hope whatever is traveling with Khan will be equally interesting.
At some point this morning, I unexpectedly, oddly, randomly decided that we would skip the Khan visit today, and get the TN girl on back home. For which I am profoundly thankful: her hubby had a wreck on his bike this afternoon, and she was there to rush to the rescue and get him to the ER for repair work. She reported he had stitches in his upper lip and nose, but will be ok. I don't know what happened, what kind of shape the bicycle is in, but thankful that it was not worse, and that she was there, available for his assistance.Thankfully he can take drugs, rest and get better, and as we all know, things are just that: things, so the bike can be repaired. Thankful.
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