It wasn't an auspicious morning: grey, foggy and misty. By the time we were dressed and ready for breakfast, it was time for the rain—Georgia Monsoon Season strikes.

Luckily there are covered walkways. We had a leisurely breakfast—the buffet is quite good— made more leisurely by the fact that there was a cycling club and another group having breakfast. At one point the checkout line was about 20 people long.

The rain slowed enough, and we cut through the lodge to get to the car, where, of course, we'd left our hats. :-)

We didn't have any plans for today, and had a nice time. First we stopped at the Mt. Yonah Book Exchange, which is run by a nice lady and a cat named Daisy. There was a car with a little dog in it near the entrance; it looked so much like Willow except for being mostly white and grey rather than brown that it could have been her sister. I got two books, commentary on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a book about word origins.

We also stopped at the Country Bake Shop, which is a Mennonite bakery. James got a couple of small sandwich cookies for a snack and homemade dog biscuits for Willow.

Then we went on into Cleveland, where James wanted to go into the Stony River Trading Company. I figured I would wander around. Well, in the middle of Cleveland there is what used to be the county courthouse. I noticed a sign on it saying "Open." Okay, let's see what's open.

Turned out it's a little museum of White County/Cleveland now, and a sweet elderly lady offered to give me a tour. I waited for James and we had a nice time wandering around looking at all the memorabilia. Each of the old offices, like the Tax Assessors office and the Sheriff's office were filled with artifacts: farm implements, clothing implements, sadirons, a mule collar made out of corn shucks, a loom, spinning wheels, an old doctor's cabinet, soaps, food, an old hand printing press as well as the type tray, etc. Oh, yeah, and a Duncan Phyfe sofa that had been nibbled by rats but which had been reupholstered with pretty, Monet's Garden type colors. The woman remembered using a lot of the items, like the school desks. They even had a treadle sewing machine like the one that used to be in the basement of my Papa's house.

The ladies recommended the drugstore and soda fountain across the street, so we went there. It had not only stopped raining, but the sky had cleared and it was humid. They still use the old soda fountain and grill for lunches, but the rest of the drugstore is mainly a gift shop. We sat at the lunch counter and James had a burger for lunch, and I had a hot dog, and we had ice cream for a chaser. We looked around the gift shop and were convulsed by two signs: "I'd love to help you out. Which way did you come in?" and "Ahhhh, I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again."

On the way back we stopped at the Hansel & Gretel candy store. Trader Joe's cheated me out of almond bark at Christmas and I wanted some. I also bought some peanut brittle. Yes, it's real Gertie peanut brittle. :-)

We also stopped at a place we'd gone by briefly yesterday, Goats on the Roof. It's a little gift shop/snack shop/goodies shop, and yes, there is grass on the roof, and little bridges connecting each of the store buildings, and there are goats on the roof, at least half a dozen, including one that is spotted. At one point someone came out with some goat feed and cranked it up to the roof via a Rube-Goldbergish device, and two goats ran up to get a treat!

As we were leaving a 1930s-early 40s black sedan drove past the place. We have seen about four Corvairs this weekend already, including a Corvair station wagon, which James says is very rare. There must be an old car rally around somewhere.

Folks clustered in the common area when we return. Off to chat—ta-ta.

Later: We decided to go to a new German restaurant with the Boros clan, Juanita and David, and the Spiveys. Surprise! The Lawsons were there. Jerry and Sue and Aaron were sharing a sampler platter so yummy-looking that both James and I and Juanita and David did the same. Oh, boy, talk about full to exploding. It had several different beef items, but the pork ones were the best: a smoked "chop" (ham), baked pork with a mushroom sauce, and pork schnitzel, which was so lightly breaded even I didn't mind it.

The lodge was quiet tonight. We usually play some type of game on Saturday night, but everyone was more into just relaxing and reading and talking, while the Baskin girls had one of those flying gadgets you can control with a remote; this one looked like a clown fish. Despite that, we were up until 2 a.m.!

Labels: food, friends, museums, shopping, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:23:00 PM

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