While I worked from an Asheville Hilton, Lily took the kids apple-picking at Sky Top Orchards.
They started the experience with unbelievably good donuts. Lily said they are the best donuts she’s had in her life without any close competition. I had some later in the day when they weren’t as fresh and they were still amazing, but Lily was amazed by how pillowy they were when they were fresh.
After eating, the kids played in some fun play areas.
Apple picking was a lot of fun! They brought a lot back and I loved eating them!
There was also a bumblebee train ride.
If there is one part that I’m particularly sorry I missed out on, it is the apple cannon. The videos at the end of the blog say it all.
This morning, I went for a run, and I loved it. Also, this morning Lydia and Mary delighted us with a slide show about Greek Mythology. You will hear my foot stomp partway through the video. That was to kill a centipede. Bugs have definitely been a thing on our Carolina/Tennessee trip. Our place in Raleigh was riddled with cockroaches and had massive spiderwebs in the backyard trees (that could probably catch birds). A funny anecdote is that Lily commented to me about our Tennessee tiny home that, “it’s way better here, there haven’t been any bugs”. That’s when I broke the news of the centepede I saw during the girl’s presentation, as well as the millipede I saw first thing when opening the door to enter the place for the first time. Still, it was a way better bug situation than in Raleigh.
Then we all went to Dollywood. It is a theme park owned by Dolly Parton that celebrates life and culture in Appalachia and is a super legitimate theme park. We started the day on one of their car rides. Ammon loved it!
After the car ride, we did the train ride and the merry go round. The train ride was super memorable for me. It was a true coal-powered train engine that even served during war time in the US. It was retired at one point and then repurchased and commissioned for this park. It’s name is Cinderella, I think because it’s known for shooting hot cinders out of the top of it. They even told us first aid for what to do if a hot cinder gets in your eye. They said it used 5,000 pounds of coal per day, and when it was running, it produced a massive plume of black smoke that we originally thought might be a forest fire before we knew it was a train. Very neat experience, although obviously mixed with some concern about its environmental impact.
The train was also super super load, as evidenced by Clarissa in this photo.
Lily bought a wooden spoon from this locally renowned wood carver from Southern Illinois. Lily was enchanted especially because the man looked, talked and had mannerisms like Lily’s grandmother Clarissa.The wood of Lily’s spoon is osage orange. It was the hardest wood that he carved (both hard substance and his most difficult one to work with), but it was his favorite wood for spoon-making.
We also happened to catch a bird show about an eagle. I was so blown away by how majestic this bird looks. Very cool that it is our national bird.
At the end of the show, they had a bird that grabs donations from people’s hands.
I don’t remember what line this was for, but I have a vivid memory of a line for a rather intense kids roller coaster. Everyone was allowed to go on it, but Mary didn’t want to. We spent an hour negotiating with her to go, but in the end, we respected her wishes to not go. It was actually quite intense. Ammon, Clarissa, Lydia and I loved it. Ammon and Clarissa especially will be my future roller coaster buddies. Even at their young ages, they are all about the thrills.
Ammon on a fun roller-coaster ride for kidsOne of our last rides was a ride where people pull themselves up by a rope and then gently fall back down. Lydia made a friend in line and offered to share a seat with her since otherwise she would have been alone.Ammon pretending to sleepThey had really cool Halloween decorations up. There were human-sized figures made out of pumpkins throughout the park (very reminiscent of the we-witches figures), and also at night, these hanging pumpkin ghosts and other lit up decorations were very fun to look at.
Below is a picture of the porch where I worked last night until late.
Our Foggy Bottom Cabin in Pisgah National Forest was so cute and the scenery was amazing. Below is the view off of our porch.
We started the day with breakfast. Here I am entertaining Ammon and Clarissa while the food was on the way. This scene didn’t last long as I realized they were a bit too high off the ground for my comfort level.
We then went to the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. We first walked around an old Appalachia farm and walked a river trail.
Here is Lydia working on her Junior Ranger booklet. Lydia is all about the Junior Ranger program.I’m sure Mary loved seeing this pig!
After the river-walk trail, we went to an incredible overlook and walked a mile and a half up the Appalachian trail and then back.
We LOVED the Appalachian trail. Afterwards, we drove to Pigeon Forge, ordered food from the Old Mill Pottery House Cafe, had the best gumbo (on grits) we’d ever had, and saw a neat candy shop and even saw how they make taffy. We ordered a bunch of Taffy to help celebrate Ammon’s birthday season.
Today I worked in Charlotte at a Hilton while the family went to breakfast, a Nascar museum and an art museum.
The kids later told me about the simulator practice with excitementlearning about pit stops I assume
Then Lily took the kids to the Mint Museum in Charlotte (art museum). A lot of her pictures are crooked because one of the first things Ammon did at the museum was jump off of a chair and he got a stern look from the lady selling tickets. So Lily tightly held his hand throughout the museum, thus affecting her photography.
Lily loved this exhibit the most. Normal every-day objects (behind the vail) with tricks of lighting and a vail of glass make them look beautiful and mysterious. Lily relates this to how things in life are not always as they appear.
Lily also loved learning about John Leslie Breck. He was an American impressionist who was tutored by Monet. His work is incredible, but it was not highly regarded in his time and that influenced him to commit suicide.
We all ate dinner at a place we LOVED called Oh My Soul. It was a vegan restaraunt started by people who lived in South Africa and had a vegan restaraun there, and then moved to Charlotte and started one there. The food was amazing and Lily got a turmeric latte and lavender latte that blew her mind. After that, we drove to our foggy bottom cabin, and I worked on the adorable porch until early in the AM to get a handle on some work items.
The restaurant had lots of pig art which of course Mary loved!Andrea texted me this picture, and I loved receiving it. I think of Christina a lot. She is one of the most constantly kind people I’ve ever met. She was always unfailing kind to me, giving me compliments and always reminding me to take care of myself. I always felt so loved by her. She even cooked meals for us right after my parents divorced. She was and is a true angel. I’ve also really enjoyed getting to know Ed more recently. He is a great man, and he and I get along very well. I’m not quite sure who the 3rd person in the photo is.
Today the kids and I went to the Museum of Art. I loved how accessible–and free!–it was. Honestly, I was dreading the experience a little bit because I know that Ammon and Clarissa are hard to keep calm in museums. But I was surprised and delighted to have one of the best experiences I’ve ever had with all of the kids in public. We wandered around the museum together and everyone was actively engaged in the art. I had the best time asking the kids questions about the paintings and listening to their answers. Normally I do not take the time to ask them lots of questions, but art is such a wonderful medium for doing that.
I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of the artist’s plaque for this piece. It was my absolute favorite to analyze with the kids. Here they are doing bodily interpretations of the art.
Mary took my phone and took pictures of her favorite pieces of art. She liked this one because of the textures.Mary loved the paintings with texture and kept asking to go back to the abstract art section.This was a very fun interactive installation with mirrors and lights. The kids loved it and Mary took this picture.Lydia realized this family of children matched our family of kids perfectly. She arranged everyone in the matching poses. The kids loved playing in the ancient art section.Mary spelled her name in hieroglyphics.Clarissa was looking for her name in the hieroglyphics.
After the museum we headed home where I fed the kids leftovers for lunch. Then I cleaned up and took a looooong nap. The kids played, watched screens, did homework, and then started an elaborate game of pretend until it was time to pick up Abe and head to dinner. We ate at Tupelo Honey. The southern food there was rich, delicious, and much too filling. Ammon did a startlingly good job eating his gigantic portion of meat loaf and green beans. The rest of us put in valiant efforts on whatever was in front of us, and we all left satisfied–but with stomachaches.
Then we put down the kids and Abe worked for a couple more hours while I packed everything up so we can drive to Asheville tomorrow. We are headed to the Biltmore estate, which I am looking forward to. I have to say I am excited to leave our Airbnb. It is perfectly located and cute, but it has a cockroach and bug problem. I feel pretty grossed out by all of the cockroaches we see and am quite ready to leave.
Most of my pictures of this day will not load, but these two did. In the first Clarissa is feeding the seagulls, and in the second you can see Lydia and Mary in the background calling to Poseidon as they sit in the waves. They swore after that Poseidon actually responded every time they asked him for a really big wave.
On Wednesday I did five sets of the 400 workout again in the morning and helped Ammon with his massive pile of homework. I also did a lot of laundry, cleaning, meal making, and hair braiding, so we did not leave the house until 10:30. We arrived in Wrightsville a little after 1:30pm, and after picking up beach supplies we spent the next four hours just playing on the beach.
Well, the kids played. I drank a lot of coffee and that makes me extra anxious, so having my kids by the Atlantic was not play for me. I basically stood in front of Ammon and Clarissa and ordered them to scoot back every time they entered the ocean. Ammon’s inclination is always to self-destruct, so of course he wanted to full on immerse and swim in the raging ocean. Clarissa must have been a water nymph in the last life and has always been the most water-obsessed person we’ve ever known, so she has the exact same instinct as Ammon. I was beside myself trying to keep the two of them alive, but I did briefly sense a secondary sensation of satisfaction to see all of my kids enjoying themselves on the beach. The feeling was minor and disappeared almost immediately as soon as Ammon made another beeline for the waves, but at a fundamental level I am aware that going to the one of the most beautiful beaches in North Carolina is a privilege that I am grateful we had.
On the way there and back we listened to Mythos by Stephen Fry to refresh ourselves on Greek mythology. The girls were addicted, Clarissa hated it and Ammon was ambivalent. By the end we had to switch periodically to The Greatest Showman soundtrack to placate the little ones.
At the end of Abe’s work day, he took his team out to a fancy steak dinner at Oak House to celebrate an outstanding Q3.
Brian Gorman, Abe, Matt Frongello, Derek TuimaugaAbe said he ordered steak because he started to just order a salad or something less expensive, but he thought it made the others feel awkward, like they couldn’t buy the more expensive steaks since Abe was paying for most of the meal (team budget only covered $100). When Abe changed to steak, it seemed to put people at ease. Abe said this was the best steak he’d eaten in his life.Abe’s mom has been texting us photos and videos of Basil throughout our trip. We were trying to figure out how to take care of Basil while were were gone and we were down to boarding him with perhaps the occasional stint with a friend. We were so touched when Abe’s mom offered to take him the whole time! She loves animals and has a great backyard and Basil has been so happy with her. Also, it is so nice of her to keep sending pictures and videos to light up our days. We are so touched!
We picked Abe up from the office around 7pm, came home, showered everyone, fed everyone a quick dinner of leftover pasta and salad, and then Abe gave me a long massage while he told me all about work. The massage put me to sleep, but I woke up to go to the bathroom right after and wasn’t able to fall asleep again until midnight. Then I woke up again at 2:55am and haven’t been asleep since, so I have just caught up on blogging and will now go try to sleep again. I think it’s because I drank a LOT of coffee driving. I get sleepy on long drives and the coffee really helped, but on top of the phentramine I now can not sleep at all. It’s 6am now so I will try to sleep a little, but if that doesn’t work maybe I will just accept the fact that today had a very early start. Oh! There’s Abe’s wake-up alarm now!
On Tuesday morning we got an early start. Abe and I actually did the 400–in my case quite a few less than that– and sweat up a storm before the day started. The humidity here is crazy! We then dropped Abe off at work and arrived at the Museum of North Carolina when they opened at 9am. I asked the kids to figure out genuine questions they have about North Carolina and see if they could find the answers in the museum. Mary wanted to know more about North Carolina’s military history, and Lydia was interested in figuring out what distinguishes its culture. If I were only traveling with my two oldest girls, museums would be a dream! They are so interested in all of the displays, they read the captions, and they linger to study the artifacts. It is a great joy to take these two places.
Ammon and Clarissa, on the other hand…are quite a bit younger. They spent the three hours we were at the museum literally running in circles and occasionally screaming with excitement. I had a lot I wanted to learn about North Carolina myself, but that took a back seat to making sure I didn’t lose my youngest children and that they didn’t actually do damage to priceless artifacts and beautiful displays. Sigh.
giant night brightLydia is jumping for joy because the tea caddy on display once belonged to a woman named Lydia.
After this museum we ate lunch at a Lebanese restaurant called Sitti, and the muhammara was deliriously good. I also ate a salad with oranges and figs that I want to try to recreate at home.
Then we headed over to the Museum of Natural Sciences and saw some great skeletons, displays, and watched a 3D movie on volcanoes. Ammon was sure the photographer in the movie had died when the volcano erupted and would not be quieted on this point. Luckily there was only one other group in the theater.
After the museum we spent two and a half hours at Pullman Park where the kids played with local kids. The weather was perfection and I loved the 1920’s music that was piping in against the natural sounds of the park.
Abe walked over and joined us at 6:30, and around 7 we headed to Irregardless Cafe for dinner. We enjoyed amazing food there (Abe said it was his favorite restaurant and meal of the trip) before heading to a gelato place for flower ice cream. I have been neglecting my diet and honestly forgot that I gave up ice cream, which made the gelato that much more tasty!
On Monday the kids and I tried to find a fun breakfast place to eat while Abe went to work in the Raleigh office, but we were too late and everything was closed. So we ate breakfast at Whole Foods and went to Target for some things I forgot to pack.
The kids were confused by why I took a picture of them in the bathroom, but seriously, when traveling, we go to the bathroom a LOT. Ammon made–no exaggeration–five trips to this bathroom in Target alone. Back in our Airbnb the older girls wrote essays to questions I asked them about our Charleston trip. I made edits and after they complete the edits I made I will post them to the blog. I also helped Ammon with the mountainous pile of homework he got right before the trip. I was not planning on having to do three million worksheets while we are traveling and had a slightly testy exchange with his teacher about this. But I am very glad his teacher feels extraordinarily invested in his education. She did not really give an inch when it came to what she expects him to learn and complete while gone. At the end of the day, we are lucky to have her for his teacher and he has been learning an astonishing amount of things from her all year long.
Here is Mary and Clarissa working on a puzzle togetherPlaying with the pecans from the tree in the back yard. We did not know what they were at the time of this picture, but Ammon insisted we all smell them because they do smell, in his words, “amazing, right?!“
On Sunday we wanted to attend one of the historical churches in Charleston, but I was the only person awake on time for this to happen. Saturday was a big day, and after everyone woke up we packed up and headed over to the visitor center at Fort Sumter. We bought tickets for the ferry over to the fort and waited about an hour for it to come. While we waited the kids played on the dock and collected shells next to it.
Fort Sumter, the site of the first shots of the Civil War.This national park guide delivered one of the most moving speeches I’ve ever heard. Abe and I were exchanging astonished glances while he talked, and by the end I had tears in my eyes. I can’t do justice to his speech, but he spoke about the enduring power of Fort Sumter as a symbol to people from the Civil War until today.Ammon enjoyed running all around the fort examining the cannons. I felt sobered by all of the fingerprints of slaves in the bricks.After Fort Sumter we drove over to the Middleton House plantation. We started off part of a garden tour before heading inside for a house tour. At Middleton House I was struck by how cultured the Middletons were–and at the same time how depraved! Arthur Middleton was a signer of the constitution–and yet he owned a thousand slaves. His son or grandson (I forget which) was an ambassador to Russia for ten years, and he and his family were present at the coronation of a Russian Tsar. Their art collection evidences a family with culture and taste. And yet they owned almost two dozen plantations and a thousand slaves.
To me this means that travel, culture, education, and good taste have nothing to do with a person’s worthiness or character. I am very proud of my ancestors who gave up being slaveholders once they woke up to the realization it was morally indefensible. I hope I can have “eyes to see” areas of my own life in need of moral reform and the self-discipline to make vital changes so that my descendants do not have to be ashamed of me.
After Middleton House Abe and I talked a lot and decided we need to cut out red meat (again) from our diets. It’s not slavery, but it’s also not morally defensible. So here we are, trying–again–to edge toward becoming vegetarian. Here’s hoping we actually do it this time. I know it’s a baby step, but it’s also one of the areas of my life that I can both see and change. There are weaknesses I have that I can see but can not seem to change (like losing my temper, swearing too much, being quick to judgement, occasionally to jealousy, and often to imprudence)– but a lot of my weaknesses are personal. Being overly absorbed in my personal flaws is, ironically, one of my major flaws! It’s its own form of self-centeredness. What I am interested in after reflecting on the plantation are changes I can make to extricate myself from involvement in societal depravities that I might take for granted. Or better yet, I would love to wake up to a way I could actively be involved in improving our current societal issues.
Clarissa gave us a great monologue about how the statue was going to give her powers to be a princess. Videos below:
After Middleton House we ate dinner at a restaurant called The Ordinary. It was delicious, delicious food.
After dinner we drove back to the French Quarter to try to get a carriage tour, but they were sold out. So we got more pralines and drove the four hours home. In the parking lot our rental car’s key battery died, so we set off the alarm and could not get it to stop for what felt like forever. When it finally stopped the entire square cheered. (There is a lot of outdoor and rooftop eating around the square, and our alarm was very, uh, loud.)
Here is what Mary captured in her travel journal about today:
On Saturday morning we drove to Charleston, South Carolina. I think most of the pictures from this day are on Abe’s phone, which I can’t find at the moment. (It is 4am and I have been up for hours because I drank too much coffee today and could not sleep, so I’m catching up the blog five days later.)
On the way down we listened to two podcasts from the Charleston Time Machine. One was about the history of pirates in Charleston, and the other was about the rise of slave marts during the 1840’s and 50’s. Before that time slaves were sold openly on the streets. The auctions clogged up roads and looked bad to visitors from the north, so eventually the city’s government felt ashamed enough to try to clean up the appearance of slavery in the streets. Instead of addressing the problem of slavery to clean up its appearance, they decided to build marts so that the auctions could be held indoors–away from public view. This did not sit well with slave traders, and for the next two decades there was a constant flip-flopping of rules about where to sell slaves.
During this trip Abe and I keep discussing the problem with people getting caught up in superficial things like appearances. My appreciation for people of substance, character and integrity has deepened a lot while we have explored what happens when individuals and societies exploit other people for money, power and status. I think the desire to look good to others naturally occurs in most people, but people who recognize this in themselves and discipline their response to this desire have my deepest respect.
After arriving in Charleston, we ate lunch downtown and then walked to the Aiken-Rhett house, the home of a major Charleston slave owner. The audio tour of the grounds included a very moving section on the slave quarters.
Abe and I took turns keeping an eye on Ammon and Clarissa but both found time to complete the audio tour. Lydia and Mary were also both completely absorbed in the tour, and we let them exercise their independence exploring the house and grounds while we lagged behind them.
Ammon and Clarissa both did a scavenger hunt the house provided. Ammon was obsessed with finding everything on the hunt. Clarissa, though less personally addicted to the thrill of finding the objects of the hunt, nevertheless took her cues from Ammon and filled out her pages too.
The kids enjoyed running down the avenues after restraining themselves during the Aiken house tour.We tried going to the visitor center but it was closed. Somehow this happened and I managed to take a picture of the cuteness.
After the tour we drove to the French Quarter where the kids marveled at the enormous draft horses. Then we all took a ghost tour of the city. The guide led us to the city dungeon and told us all about its history with pirates and the American revolution. Charleston is where Stede Bonnet, the “gentleman pirate,” was executed. We were standing next to the wall where his head was then displayed while we learned the grisly details of his story.
We also saw a part of the dungeon where American patriots hid powder from the British. Although the British ended up taking Charleston, they never found the powder. I also learned that the Americans in Charleston had their own patriotic tea party, but instead of dumping it all in the harbor they only dumped one box–and then they sold the rest to fund the revolution. Clever.
After the dungeon we walked to a park by the bay and the guide told us ghost stories about a huband-wife serial killer team who lived during colonial times, as well as about the execution of a woman who had escaped the Salem witch trials–only to be burned at the stake in Charleston by Judge Trotter (the same judge who executed Stede Bonnet).
Walking around Charleston felt almost like walking around a different country. The fingerprints of enslaved children can still be seen on the bricks in the sidewalks and on buildlings, and everywhere seemed to remind us of the time when Charleston was the heart of the slave-holding, secessionist South. It is a pretty city, but its history made that beauty disquieting.
When we finished the tour we spent what felt like an hour trying to find an open restaurant that didn’t have an hour-long wait. We finally settled on an oyster house across the street from a city market. The kids are crazy about shrimp and Clarissa could not get enough shellfish. Then we walked over to a candy shop for some locally made pralines before heading over to the Hyatt in Mt. Pleasant for some sleep.
