Friday, December 26, 2008

Snoop Dogg Does NC, Part 1

(Note: This was originally posted August 2007 on my personal website.)

Mom and I recently decided to take a trip to North Carolina, and Snoop Dog wouldn't rest until I promised to take him along.

Our trip to NC took an excessive 16 hours to arrive (in what should have taken about 12 hours). Construction nearly the entire way up, one serious accident near the Florida-Georgia border, and a lot of confusion around Atlanta really slowed us down. We finally arrived at Tim and Elaine's around 10:30 PM, after a nerve-wracking and foggy nighttime drive through the mountains with construction.

The next morning, we got Snoop's picture in the room we were staying in. Tim built this area of the house onto his existing home:

Snoop in room Snoop on bed

Snoop and I proceeded to do a little exploring around the area. We first ventured to the front porch, where we found Mom and Elaine enjoying their morning coffee. Suffering from arachnophobia, the first thing that I did was look around for daddy-long-legs, knowing that I would find some. I quickly found them everywhere:

Spider group Spider on pipe


I sat in one of the chairs for awhile, and before too long I found my hair tickling my arm-- darn breeze. I turned my head to look at my arm and brush my hair away, and spotted a large daddy-long-legs climbing up my arm. While I made a fool of myself jumping around and screaming, I am proud to say that I sat back down in that chair. You've gotta get back up and ride that horse again!

Then I decided to explore the yard and roadside out front.


I found an apple tree in the yard that still had an apple or two left on it...

Apple


...and a beautiful white-flowered tree in the front yard (I forget what kind of flower it was now).

White tree whole White flowers


At the end of the driveway, you could head right to head down off of the mountain, or head left to head further up the mountain, which would also take you to cousin Angie's place.


One Lane


I found beautiful flora of all kinds along the roadside in front of Tim and Elaine's, most of it just growing wild:

Orange flower White vine

White with purple Purple flower

Yellow cup Yellow flowers


And this beautiful tree, that I loved the look of. You can't tell here, but it was absolutely swarming in bees. I'm not sure what it is, but it looks like it might be some sort of laurel:

Striking tree Closeup


Even the surrounding mountainside was beautiful:

Mountainside


But perhaps most beautiful was the lot down below. The woman living below had beautifully landscaped her lawn with a pond and trees. It was truly breathtaking. The landowner would venture down every evening to feed the fish in the pond, and would be accompanied by her dog:

Pond Dog

Tree from porch Willow


Next to Tim and Elaine's is a vacant lot with an old shack. I loved this old shack.

Shack



Flora wasn't the only thing to be found. There was fauna as well.

Butterflies would regularly land in the mud to drink...

Butterfly

...bees abounded on flowers, and sometimes bent the stalks in two with their weight...

bee on flower

...bugs crept along leaves...

Bug on leaf

...the bunny could be seen at all hours of the day...

Bunny

...and cardinals flitted about every evening. However, no matter how hard I tried, I could not get a good shot of them during my trip. Finally on my last morning at the house, I caught this shot of a cardinal outside the bathroom window. It is the only picture I got of one during the whole vacation!Cardinal


Everything was beautiful, and especially the mountain view!

Mountains

A little later in the morning, Tim took us in the car and headed over to see the property that Mom had purchased sight unseen.

...and that is where Part 2 will begin...

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