Day 6: Sunday

A retired friend of mine once told me that Sunday was the only day of the week of which he was certain because the newspaper was thicker. It's true!

I think that I'm getting the hang of this sleeping-in thing. Today I rolled out of bed at 9:38 am. (Maybe getting back from the concert after midnight had something to do with it, you think?)

For lunch, the CFO wanted to experience the Little River Grill herself. No bikers this time. No Tiki. Nice lunch, thought.

After lunch we made the 6-mile hike down the fire road/horse trail from the Blue Ridge Parkway to Longbottom Road at Basin Creek. The upper part is pretty dull except for the shear cliffs on one side of the road or the other.


Nearer the bottom, however, it crosses a number of nice trout streams. The hike was most remarkeable in that we did not met a single soul in three hours.


The Great Laurels are now in bloom. To me, they are even prettier than the Catawbas and Mountain Ivy.

In the "you learn something new everyday" department, Monarch butterflies really love horse manure! Some of the fresher "road apples" were completely coated with butterflies. Just goes to show you that you can sometimes even find beauty in horsebleep.


I found a horseshoe on the road. It's now hanging over the front door as a good luck charm.

We finished the hike at 7:45 pm and decided to eat out but it was that Sunday thing and nothing was open. So we went home and enjoyed a pitcher of margaritas with "Black and Blue" hamburgers at sunset. The blue part was some really great Australian blue cheese that cost about ten times as much as the hamburger meat itself.

Hey, man, you have to keep your priorities straight!