Weekend away and making memories

Very seldom do we get away.

Even less seldom do we take a Sunday-Monday getaway.

And even less seldom does that happen without the critters kids.

This past Sunday-Monday was one of those even less and even-less, less seldom times.

We took off early Sunday morning after making certain the kids were up & moving so the oldest could drive them to church.

Then, we headed to borrow a convertible from my parents.  The top was already down when we got there and pretty much stayed down until we parked it for the day in Brevard, NC.

Flat Rock (the bakery, where else?) for a breakfast snack (ginger lemon scone and a sticky bun with coffee and tea!) then tooled down 64 towards Brevard and took a short detour to Dupont State Forest.  The parking lot for Hooker Falls (alternate link on my Flickr page here ) was FULL, so we took a little walk over to and around Lake Imaging.  Not what I expected, but very quaint and relaxing, in a delightfully surprising sort of way.

Impending doom looked certain in the clouds, but we skirted around the thunderheads and went the back fun way to Brevard on our quest for brunch at the Square Root.

We meandered around downtown for a while before heading over to The Red House Inn and parked the convertible for the rest of the day.

The Cottage is a nifty little place that has been re-crafted from an older building adjacent to the main house and has a great little rocking chair back porch on which to relax.

When one wanders, it's amazing what one finds.

I love shadows and dappled sunlight, even on sidewalks.

Back to the Inn for a relaxing evening after dinner and up to see the sights for a few minutes before an amazing breakfast Monday morning!

They have this cool little raised garden bed in the side yard.  It has a healthy crop of herbs.

It was the kind of day when the front door was open more than it was closed - just a great, breezy day with low humidity (yes, it does happen on very rare occasion in June!) which quickly sped us over to see if we could scrounge up a few black raspberries even though we figured it was a wee bit early in the season.

It was, but we managed to just cover the bottom of the bucket as well as scurry away with about 4 lbs of fresh rhubarb!

Then, back to the Inn for some parting shots and check-out (11-ish!)

and over to 276 to explore up on the Blue Ridge Parkway - which is closed, btw, from the Pisgah Inn North towards Asheville due to a rock slide.

We did find this Variegated Fritillary at the Pisgah National Forest Ranger Station and Visitor's Center

where we also were offered to trade vehicles - I had to politely inform the couple that my father might be displeased if I came home with a Honda Odyssey in exchange for his hot rod.

We headed over to Saluda to check out some places neither of us had been in several years and then I introduced my sweetie to the Poinsett Bridge.  She'd never been there, which surprised me.  We soaked our toes in the water and watch some Tiger Swallowtail butterflies mineraling/puddling streamside before grabbing a quick shot of the most colorful Gothic arch I've ever seen

and then heading towards TR and a delicious dinner of Pad See-U from Thaicoon for a picnic dinner at my alma mater before trading the convertible for Chrysleritis once again.

Home in time to hug the kids and enjoy a glass of wine along with some Three Cheese & Basil bread from the bakery!

We definitely need to do these sort of trips more often.

Matter of fact, she's already planning the next one . . .