Despite the bad evening, we finally hopped in the car and went a'sightseeing. I had routed two different ways, a shorter distance but a longer time, on a two-lane road, and a longer distance but a shorter time, on what might have been mostly four lanes.

We took "the blue road" tour and enjoyed it. This involved heading through White County farmland and foothills to Barnesville, where we went left. This climbed and then descended in some switchback curves, eventually taking us past Lake Burton, which is a man-made lake with a busy little marina and many homes and covered docks on the edge of the lake. We also passed a little cluster of cabins where crafts are sold.

Then we ascended again, past a condo area called the Waterfall (and there indeed was a waterfall there), and then to the town of Clayton. We spotted a little bookstore there and decided to stop on the way back.

We went all the way out to the town of Dillard, which is in spitting distance of that little arrow of North Carolina that pushes into Tennessee. We were going to the Christmas shop there, which is connected (in the same building) with a General Store. Walked around here for a while, bought a refrigerator magnet and a card for a friend, went downstairs into the antique mall and enjoyed looking at the occasional cast iron stove and Hoosier cabinet, then finished in the Christmas shop.

Ironically, the thing that attracted us most was a squirrel-proof bird feeder! They had a funny video of a squirrel thwarted by the gadget, being tossed off as it revolves. Unfortunately it's $190.

I did buy a little ornament that was birds at a bird feeder, and also a St. Francis ornament.

On the way back we stopped at a Wendy's in Clayton for lunch, then tracked back to go to the bookshop. This was just a little neighborhood place, complete with a bookstore cat, who was sound asleep when we arrived and still when we left, so we didn't bother him. It was a very small place, and although we enjoyed looking about, we didn't buy anything.

We had noticed that the Clayton Pharmacy had a soda fountain, so I offered to treat James to ice cream since he'd been driving all day. Well, turns out they had a grill too—wish we'd known that or we could have had lunch there. A grilled cheese sandwich would have been a lot better than a plain junior burger.

On the way back we stopped at one of the antique stores we had seen. It was emblazoned with a sign that said "Antiques—and man things, too!" James got such a chuckle out of that that we stopped for a picture, but had to go inside. They had real antiques, not replicas, from cast iron stoves to tombstone radios, old books, baking implements to stoves to scales, toys, old screen doors that once graced variety stores, hats, bookends and old containers, and more. You could barely get between the tables.

The ride back was uneventful and when we got back to the complex we lay down for about an hour, although the clouds had thickened a bit and it wasn't as glaringly sunny as it had been this morning.

Labels: shopping, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 4:20:00 PM

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