By the time I get photos all edited and uploaded I keep ended up sitting here past midnight wanted to get down every little thing that happened in the day & equally wanting to fall over in bed.
Mother's Day was all about family. We drove up to Flat Rock, NC to meet up with my Aunt & Uncle at the resort where my Mum & Stan were married this winter. I rarely get to see my Aunt Nancy & to see here twice in as many months was really wonderful. I know my mom loves living so close to her sister. The brunch we went to was quite nice and we had a very energetic server. I managed to forget my camera, but we drove up there with an amazing fog coating the mountains and it was quite an amazing site.
Later in the day I met a good chunk of Stan's family. Gosh people in these parts are friendly. I had the most delightful time & although it will take me a bit more time to learn names and so forth I feel really happy to have made to first meeting.
Monday was all about touring Greenville and shopping. We headed over to Downtown's Main Street and set about finding the Mice on Main.
We found 5 of 8 little mice sculptures. I love these sorts of projects. I need to get to Ann Arbor at some point to find the fairy doors.
For me the most important shop to go to on Main was Mast General Store. They have a neatest collection of outdoor cloths, shoes, hiking supplies, and old fashion candy and toys. I knew on this trip I wanted to find a good pair of hiking shoes. I ended up finding out that I walk really unusually (I'm 1 in 100. Apparently walking mainly on the outside back of your heel is weird...) and that I'm a little hard to fit in a shoe. Luckily I found a great sneaker style hiking boot from The North Face. They're grey & green and fit my feet really well. My heel completely slipped out of so many of the shoes. I really wanted lower boots since they're for summer and I'm usually in MI where it's flat and ankle support isn't as big of an issue. I really love the shoes I ended up with!
I also found a super cute purse there. Lots of pockets, zippers, and magnets. Plus it's purple.
After shopping we had lunch at a little outdoor restaurant right on the falls.
They we went across Liberty Bridge and explored Falls Park.
Later we explored Cleveland Park, went on a much too long adventure in finding a pet shop (mom's single Red Cloud needed some fishy friends), and finally went home for a break.
I barely had time to get the arch supports fitted into my new hiking shoes then it was back out the door with Stan and the dogs to head over to Paris Mountain State Park.
We planned on a shorter 2 mile fairly easy hike (since I had new shoes that hadn't been broken in yet and had spent most of the day walking). We got to the turn around point and decided to go a bit further. By the time we were done we had hiked 4 miles and had gained (and lost again) 700 feet in elevation (most of that over about a 1 mile section of steep difficult trail). It turns out we hiked the most difficult trail in the park.
I marked our route in red. It was beautiful. I think if I lived here I'd do that hike every week.
Now I'm back to mom's, sunburnt and tired, and I think I'll take some much earned rest.