Kayaks, Orchids and Fried Pickles, Oh My!

Paul and D came over this weekend and hung out with us. They got in a bit late Friday evening after discovering the slowest WAl-Mart cashier in the country... Evidently she works at the Shelby, NC location. We talked for a while over some wine and much to Stacey's dismay I was speaking much more loudly then I realized. You see my poor wife went to bed at 9:30 in order to rest up for her 5:30 morning adventure of running 4 miles then biking 20. So about 12:30 a seething bed-headed Stacey stormed into the living room and pointedly informed me of my wrong doings.

So we all went to sleep.

The next morning Paul and D went over to Freedom Park to get a few miles in themselves as they are training for the Knoxville Half Marathon in March.

I slept.

We went to lunch at Cabo (as everyone loves Cabo) and then decided to check out the National White Water Center. Considering the frigid water temperatures, there was not a lot going on other then some people on the climbing wall. We hung out there for a little while then moved on to the brand new orchid conservatory at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens. Now the grounds are not much this time of year, of course, however the conservatory was very impressive. It was not quite what I had in mind, however it was just as nice. The effort to plan and maintain something like that must be tremendous. I only have a few pics here, but you can get the idea.

We trekked on back to the house where we napped for a litle while. Stace was already there, sacked out from her exploits. We decided to keep dinner low budget and made some nice sandwiches for dinner before heading out on the town. We stopped in at a martini bar, Loft 1520 I think it was, before heading up the street to the Visulite Theater for Big Mamma's House of Burlesque Variety Show. Between the crowd, the lack of seating and the cigarette smoke, we left after an hour or so and headed on to the Philosopher's Stone for a night cap and gabbing.

Sunday morning we got up, had coffee, then headed out to brunch at Jackalope Jack's on 7th. The server was a bit ditzy/manic however efficient and entertaining while the food was scrumptious. If you have never had fried pickles, this is the place to go. I thought D ws going to just box up her entree and chow on those instead. Neither she nor Paul had ever had them and were very pleasantly surprised.

Porter was sad to see them go as he took to Paul right away and D won him over by letting him sleep on the bed.

Stace and I napped for a little while before cooking up a big mess of wings and jotting over to Sharon's for the Super Bowl.

All in all it was a good weekend. We hope you had a fun one as well.

Be safe.