Weekend Snapshots

Spent most of the weekend on the road with Sara, visiting points west, south, and east. Sights seen included Lake Lure, NC, where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed long ago; Asheville, NC, although only briefly; and Badin Lake, NC, which is a reservoir lake of the Pee Dee River.

Much of the weekend my feet were here:



If you need stuff, the homegrown stuff is better:



It was a pretty day on Saturday to be up in the mountains, and we weren't the only people to think so; lots of tourists and daytrippers up at Lake Lure and Chimney Rock, and we kept seeing motorcycles on the winding mountain roads. Here's a shot of Lake Lure:



After arriving in Asheville we headed back east along I-40, then south into South Carolina on US 221. In Chesnee we passed a car show in the downtown area, lots of the locals were showing off their vehicles, but we didn't even think to take the cameras out while passing through. We stayed in SC until we reached Union, on the edge of the Sumter National Forest, before turning north for home along state road 49. Sara was checking gasoline prices as we travelled, the cheapest was in South Carolina in Chesnee, where we saw it for $2.12.

Sunday we didn't drive as long, heading east to the Pee Dee River area, Badin Lake and Lake Tillery, both lakes formed by dams on the Pee Dee. It was another beautiful day, although blistering hot in the 90's.

Here is a cove of Badin Lake, a public boat launch area:



By travelling along the roads around Badin Lake we eventually reached the public areas, part of the Uwharrie National Forest properties. Here is a public fishing pier, reached after a long drive down a narrow gravel road:



The fishing pier area was busy with swimmers and a man with a casting-net, so we didn't bother getting our fishing rods out of the trunk. We availed ourselves of the public restrooms, though, which proved to be of the composting variety, and pointed up the need for us to always carry toilet paper on these little excursions.

Here is a place where we didn't eat; somehow, I doubt that it mattered to the owners:



We ended up eating at the Ryan's Family Steakhouse in Albemarle, usually reasonable at $6.99 for lunch, but on Sundays a bit unreasonable at $10.99; I did my best to justify the price by eating two hamburgers and a huge piece of fish, but don't think that we ended up recouping the cost.

And so to home, with a stop at a produce stand for watermelons and peaches. Two seedless watermelons for $5, and one of them is in the refrigerator cooling at this very moment.

All in all, a good weekend, although expensive in terms of gasoline, since Sara had to refill the tank three times during the course of it.