We arrived in Boone Saturday afternoon after a leisurely trip west along I-40. Our friends Craig and Lisa are sharing the vacation home with us, and we divided our group by gender between each minivan.
We stopped for a picnic at an outdoor playground outside of Wilkesboro, where the kids got to stretch their legs. It was a welcome break, and quite pleasant – just the kind of place we were looking for.
The home itself is at the top of Leisure Acres Dr, a rutted gravel road stretching up a mountain near the Boone Mall (off of Winklers Creek Road). It was built in the 1950s or 1960s, from my estimation, and has a few wrinkles but is roomy and comfortable. It’s very
quiet up here, with only the occasional bird call disturbing the peace. There is no contact with the outside world here, outside of Craig or Lisa’s cell phones. There is no
cable or satellite TV, no Internet service, and the phone line doesn’t work. We’ve been creeping down the mountain to find WiFi hotspots to use, settling on the one at the Boone Mall’s Panera Bread.
After unpacking and looking around the house Saturday, we got the kids ready for bed and did some reading and chatting. It didn’t last long, though, and we were on our way to bed before long.
The night was a little rough, as putting Travis and Carson in the same bed just didn’t work. They both woke up at 4:45 AM Sunday morning, ready to start playing. I put them back in but it didn’t last. About 30 minutes later, Kelly found a full-out party going on in their room, this time with the girls joining them.
After breaking up that party, we put an ultimatium down that the next time we heard a peep the boys would be split up. Sure enough, it wasn’t long that more voices were heard. Kelly fetched Travis while I put sheets on a twin bed in a spare bedroom. Travis settled down without a fight.
I dozed off until I heard the sound of feet and a door swinging open. Carson was standing in the hall outside of Travis’s room. He was shaking with fear and cried that he was scared being in his downstairs room alone. I turned him over to Lisa at that point and went back to bed.
Sunday morning, Craig and I spent some time at the Panera while he took care of some “paperwork” and I sent an important work email. We then stopped by the Harris Teeter store to bring back food for dinner.
Posting an update to Facebook and my blog, friends in Raleigh expressed jealousy about the cool weather we were enjoying. Boone’s high of 87 may have been hot for this mountain town, but it was cool compared to Raleigh’s high of 100.
When we got back to the house the rest of the crew was waiting to go swimming in a river.
We left the house to discover a baby bird had fallen out of its nest in the gutter. We found some cardboard with which to scoop him up, after which I climbed a ladder and gently placed him back near the nest next to his brother. We left them cheeping amongst themselves as we hopped in the vans and headed to the river.
We drove to the edge of town, where one of Lisa’s friends has a home on the New River. We spent the next few hours picnicing on the bank of the river and wading in the river: looking at snails, small fish, and crawdads and floating down the river on our backs (all but me – the water was too cold!). Occasionally a group on innertubes would float past us and wave but we mostly had the place to ourselves.
The river is a magical place, with soaring green trees on each bank, sunny blue skies with occasional puffy white clouds, and the sound of laughter filling the breezy air. It was the kind of scene a Renaissance painter would’ve captured long ago. Quite fun.
Around 5PM the kids began to get grumpy so we drove back to the house. We found both baby birds, lifeless on the ground when we returned. Sometimes nature has other plans, it seems. The kids accepted it quite well. Maybe their fatigue came in handy.
Kelly and Lisa made a dinner of chili, rice, and zuchinni to feed a hungry crew. Then the kids got baths, got tucked in bed, and the grownups retired to the den again with beers and books. I think I was in bed by 10 PM, drained by the day’s activities and the sleepless night.
I awoke with a head full of dreams, having slept peacefully with the bedroom windows providing cool mountain breezes during the night, though as Kelly said today these beds are not the most comfortable in the world.
We’re heading over to Grandfather Mountain today for some hiking and sightseeing. It should be another fun day.