North Carolina State Fair

 Come one, come all! The North Carolina state fair is fabled for its fried food and good people watching. It certainly proved accurate on both accounts. :) This is my first out of 2 days at the fair, this day with my friend Kristi, she is a Duke law student.

The smorgasbord of deep fried food. And this was only half of the sign! The entire middle of the fair was food vendors. Some of my other favorites were deep fried turkey legs (they were HUGE), deep fried hot dogs and hamburgers, deep fried pie, and really everything else you could imagine!

One of the few petting zoos!

Deep fried Reeses...

I think there is butter in the middle as well...

Fried green tomatoes...

 Funnel cake...

The army jazz band playing some particularly fun 80's hits. These players were actually in the army!

The pig racing, NASCAR style...

Duck and goat racing...

And of course the museum of world oddities. :)

Thank you North Carolina for such a quality time!

Grandfather Mountain

Grandfather Mountain is said to be the most rugged mountain east of the Mississippi. It starts out at Mile High Swinging Bridge. It is named that because the bridge suspends exactly one mile above sea level. :) That peak in the background was the first summit.

It was a bit of a rock scramble and there were cords...

and ladders to assist in the assent.

And a wildly beautiful ridge line!

The scenery from the second peak, on the left, was quite different. It was like an autumn walk through the woods. So beautiful!

Loved the John Muir quotes posted along the trail!

And here you can see Grandfather's profile in the rock.

Fun Trivia: You may recognize a part of the road to Grandfather Mountain in the movie "Forrest Gump" while Tom Hanks was on his run across America. :)

Boone

I spent fall break in the magical mountain town of Boone, NC. Home of Appalachian State University.

Drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway Trail

Take out from Mellow Mushroom for dinner...

And an overnight stay in the Hidden Valley Inn.

Magic!

Tobacco Road

Its that time of year, the start of basketball season in North Carolina! There are four major universities that are together along I-40 that are referred to as "Tobacco Road".

Duke University, 

University of North Carolina, 

Wake Forrest, and 

North Carolina State University. 

This past Friday was the official open of basketball season and each school had a big celebration! I was talked into going to "Primetime with the Pack" at North Carolina State University in Raleigh... and it was crazy...

I will tell you, I felt like I was out of a scene of a fanatical basketball movie! There were fireworks, inside of the arena, as each player came down through the crowd. All the cheerleaders, dancers, Mr. and Mrs. Wolf (mascots) were all on the floor dancing in unison. The coach, flew down from the rafters on a zip line! And then the basketball team had a scrimmage. It was a lot of fun. I look foreword to my first Duke game inside of the famous Cameron Stadium. :)

Kathy's Oktoberfest 2012

Cool autumn starts the first annual Kathy's Oktoberfest 2012! (no beer actually included...)

For fall break, just about a week from now, I am taking a road trip to western North Carolina along the Blue Ridge Parkway to Boone (Appalachian State University), Asheville and the Great Smokey Mountains!!!

Looking foreword another week, sister Jamie will by flying into visit me here!! She is bringing with her almost-ready-to-come-out-of-the-oven baby! I will get to show her around my new little southern home! :)

Happiest October ever! 

Count your many blessings

Today in class, instead of griping we decided to count our blessings. Because there are so many! We counted our blessings and counted deep tendon reflexes... I only counted 10 of those... :)

In other news, as of today my car officially has made the transition to becoming a true North Carolinian! I guess that I am next. This transition however, did not come with out a story... 

So I went to first get emissions and inspections done on my car. It received a "Fail" because my windows were too tinted for NC standards. I was discouraged at first, but after getting some tips from a helpful Jiffy Lube mechanic, I drove back in line, and did a little bit of resourceful window remodeling....

I did not however peel the little back window pictured below. That one was a different story all together. :) That is the story of last Christmas eve when Papa Crane and I went for a late night backcountry ski trip only to come back and find out I had locked the keys in my car. We were stranded in the freezing remote mountains on Christmas eve night!

I thought we would die for sure, but Papa Crane remained astoundingly calm. After a few hours, some desperation and dumpster diving, we smashed in this little back window in order to unlock the car. 

Needless to say, this special little window lost it's illegal tint almost a year ago... and left me with a little memory. :)

Of note that when my car finally passed emissions and inspections, that I was asked out to get drinks by the very same helpful mechanic at Jiffy Lube... when I declined his friend told me to come pass by any time. :)

This was a little sunset outside of the cafe where I studied today.

I love y'all and hope your having good days. If not, maybe count your blessings, or count your deep tendon reflexes... it might make your day better.