I just returned from a weekend in Hotsprings with friends and lizards. :) Audrey and I had the great and rare pleasure of seeing a Hellbender (possibly two, although we suspect it was the same guy simple reappeared nearby) in the French Broad river. I explained to her that they are threatened and unique, rare, and she commently-- truthfully-- that they are, well, "ugly." :) For a brief, good video of hellbenders in NC, check this link out. For Aud's blog entry regarding the "weekend of lizards," go to: http://audreythoughts.blogspot.com/ (and yes, I am the "somebody" who came to rescue her from the house lizard).
Later in the weekend we played in a little creek by the Rocky Bluff campsite-- a tributary of the French Broad-- and saw no hellbenders, although Sarah and Tye ran into some vicious yellowjackets (Sarah even got stung on the forehead!) and I ran into a rather hard underwater rock, which caused me to fall hiliariously and get a notably un-hilarious bruise on my leg. Sadly, none of us chewed tobacco so Sarah and Tye had to suffer all the way back until they got some baking soda and homemade wine to allieviate their pain.
Overall, the weekend was wonderful. We returned to the original scene of the crime-- "Grandma's house"-- where we had Jes's batchelorette party last year. The jokes of Hot Springs being "the sexy capital of Western North Carolina" continued, their humor not at all effected by the year's passing.
This year the bridesmaids were all joined by their partners-- Max, George, Tye, and Audrey-- and the odd bunch got along well, enjoying Blockus-strategerizing, Yatzee-playing, marshmellow-roasting, fireworks-gazing, rock-hopping, and other hypenated activities. :) Jes made an amazing rhubarb pie and I made my usual staple-- cherry & blackberry. I was impressed that something as strange as rhubarb (which I've always thought looked like sinewy muscles) could actually taste good, and I swore to replicate Jes's feat when I returned to Knoxville... nevermind the fact that rhubarb is a yankee pie. ;0 But Christen made Thai food (red curry pineapple and shrimp) for our Sunday potluck, so I decided to hold off on my pie adventures for another week.
This weekend we leave for Mexico, and I feel more than ever as if my life is a whirlwind of travelling. But somehow, it's all worth it-- to spend that precious time with random friends and family, and-- for me-- Hotsprings is just close enough to home to satisfy that itch for blue hills and blue sky.
*For pictures from the Sexy Capital of Western North Carolina (a.k.a. Grandma's house, Hot Springs, NC), go to my flickr site and scroll through the Chicago pics to the next page... http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunar_ellipsis
Later in the weekend we played in a little creek by the Rocky Bluff campsite-- a tributary of the French Broad-- and saw no hellbenders, although Sarah and Tye ran into some vicious yellowjackets (Sarah even got stung on the forehead!) and I ran into a rather hard underwater rock, which caused me to fall hiliariously and get a notably un-hilarious bruise on my leg. Sadly, none of us chewed tobacco so Sarah and Tye had to suffer all the way back until they got some baking soda and homemade wine to allieviate their pain.
Overall, the weekend was wonderful. We returned to the original scene of the crime-- "Grandma's house"-- where we had Jes's batchelorette party last year. The jokes of Hot Springs being "the sexy capital of Western North Carolina" continued, their humor not at all effected by the year's passing.
This year the bridesmaids were all joined by their partners-- Max, George, Tye, and Audrey-- and the odd bunch got along well, enjoying Blockus-strategerizing, Yatzee-playing, marshmellow-roasting, fireworks-gazing, rock-hopping, and other hypenated activities. :) Jes made an amazing rhubarb pie and I made my usual staple-- cherry & blackberry. I was impressed that something as strange as rhubarb (which I've always thought looked like sinewy muscles) could actually taste good, and I swore to replicate Jes's feat when I returned to Knoxville... nevermind the fact that rhubarb is a yankee pie. ;0 But Christen made Thai food (red curry pineapple and shrimp) for our Sunday potluck, so I decided to hold off on my pie adventures for another week.
This weekend we leave for Mexico, and I feel more than ever as if my life is a whirlwind of travelling. But somehow, it's all worth it-- to spend that precious time with random friends and family, and-- for me-- Hotsprings is just close enough to home to satisfy that itch for blue hills and blue sky.
*For pictures from the Sexy Capital of Western North Carolina (a.k.a. Grandma's house, Hot Springs, NC), go to my flickr site and scroll through the Chicago pics to the next page... http://www.flickr.com/photos/lunar_ellipsis
No comments:
Post a Comment