anniversary day outing

We woke and checked our emails and one of our friends, joe, had put in a video of a young man playing the accordian it was the anniversay waltz - had greg in tears.  touching and i think he is really homesick for all things polish right now.  he is a baking fool, with polish pastries and this am mixing up a serbian hamburger reciepe he found on the web. it had to sit all day to meld the flavors...two parts beef, one part lamb, one part pork, garlic, and paprika, hot. Best burger we ever ate.  Condiments NOT needed.

     so after dancing around to the waltz we took off for tryon, nc.  drive was through lake lure, active now and across I-26 and on into the wee town.   a drive thru and whoops we are on the other side. turned around and found a blueberry pancake house. so breakfast was here and so were many of the locals retirees. so we listened to their news. two women at the next table kept including us into their conversation. very friendly.

we left well fed on corn beef hash and eggs...and visited a large old style hardware store.  they had wellies for very good price.  this is a horse town so i am sure there is a big need for these to muck about in.  we bought a rake handle and some cotton twine, which i never see anymore. The town has a feeling for me of as if it could be the setting of an agatha christy miss marple village.  I could see me writing one in this place.

after this we headed down to Landrum.  we are now into SC where the gas prices are 25 cents cheaper than NC. we are going to top up here. you betcha...(sarah's one and only contribution to ameica) found the town friendly and good quality shops.  we just ambled around.  there is a wonderful salvage building materials shop facing the highway 176? love the items but OMG not the prices... they are really hallucinating there ... hurts my lust big time.  then because the name is so romatic, i think we headed south to campobello.  there is nothing there....well an amash diner. but geeze...where is everyone....

         so headed back north after filling up the jag with a full tank. it has not had this in a very long while.  visited thrift stores, found jeans for g and shirts he found. new clothes...  by now we are in need of caffine and a sweet. found both in lovely lunch room back in tryon.  they had wonderful looking cakes and scones. raspberry and crumbles.  this was lunch. the place is right next to a wine shop.  La Bouteille.  the lady there told me about the local winerys around there. I asked her how she liked living in tryon.  "Oh, I don't live here, I live in Campobelo."  "You do?" i said.  "Yes, I love it there. there is NOTHING there, nothing to distrube me when I get home. Just me and my family and quiet."

Ahhh I thought. Oh well, so funny when i had been disappointed miles back because there was no fun stuff to do there.  I too like this at our home but never really thought about from her point of view.  I lived out and our work had been just down the road. so it was not a choice of actively seeking the solitude.

it is about 2 ish and we are thinking about heading back to our home. then i see a road with fun big colored iron arrows pointing up a road which would over look the down town area. "Lets try this road." i said. so g, headed up and there it was. the book store I had been thinking about.  I love little book stores and one of the towns should have had one some where but all this morning I had only seen one, which was closed.  I so had wished it open.  It was beside the christian science reading room on the main st. in tryon. 

i felt as if all had just fallen into place. The bookshelf -- betsy goree, the owner was there happily doing whatever...and we were the only ones in there.  "Why are you not on main st. I have been looking for a shop like this all over our travels today", she laughed and said" all my customers know where i am and the really curious visitors find me."  it is across from the post office so i guess it does get the traffic she needs. 

We got into books and mysteries and started trading authors for each other try out.  arthur upfield and james d doss were my contributions and she told me of an author on self pub. your own book.  fun time. greg went to sleep in the comfy chair in the back room where the children books are.

well stoked on this little gem of a book store we headed home.

there was a package at home from calif. filled with special teas...from a friend who knew i would appreicate this. lovely to come home to.

   we did up dinner and opened the special laid back for sp. times bottle of red wine my son-in-law had bought up for us the week before. so it is breathing while g does up the polish bergers.

    we ate them with fresh onions from our garden, sauteed on top of the burger which was going to be as if it were a steak, no bun or mustards and the ususal fixings...it was wonderful...like nothing i have ever tasted. the taste lingers on and i want more soon. wow what a neat food adventure.. easterns europe it getting closer.

   later, i walk out to sit on the deck to just enjoy the evening coming on...and there coming up the drive way is a back door neighbor. I went wow, what a surprise, he said "i thought you saw me." "no, i was just coming out to enjoy the outside."  greg comes out to join us and we sit and talked.  watched the all most full moon emerge over the distant trees down the valley across the road, listened to the whip-poor-wills. and talked about how we love hearing them and the owls.  "how are the baby chickens" "doing well, in their own pen now and growing very fast." he said.

       the moon is topped out now and our neighbor, says time to walk back up the hill to his house and we get up to retreat into our house.   such a pleasant day and ending with friends and begining with a friend's anniversay waltz.  it was as if we had gently waltzed through our day....