Lighting Up Mount Holly

seahorse lantern

Last night was the 8th Annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade, and for the 5th year in a row our community had an entry in the parade. Also for the 5th year in a row we took 1st place in the Group category. This year's theme was "Into the Deep Blue Sea". 

As we plan what we want to do we take a couple things into consideration: What is going to resonate with the kids who line the parade route?, and how can we involve the large number of people who want to walk in the parade with us? We have a core group of 8-10 people who consistently show up each week to build the lanterns. But we normally have 30+ folks who want to walk down Main Street with our group.

This year we decided to do "Baby Shark", the wildly successful YouTube video featuring a family of sharks and a few sidekicks. Mommy, Daddy, Grandma & Grandpa sharks were five feet long, not including their tails. Baby Shark was four feet and his buddy William the pilot fish was three feet. The other main character, in our minds, is Pink Fong who is kind of the mascot for the show. 

Once we built those lanterns, we moved on to ancillary items. We made a seahorse, three jellyfish, three schools of fish containing twelve fish each, seven starfish and four clams that were our first attempt at hand puppet lanterns. A crowning late addition was a coral reef that was worn around the waist of the carrier. It could have been an entry all by itself.

coral                                                banner

An Imagery banner led our entry, followed by a baton twirler with a lighted baton, then a decorated wagon with speakers playing the Baby Shark theme song on repeat. Two residents dressed as the little boy and girl from the video came next, running away from the sharks. We also had four people handing out shark-shaped small bags of candy. At the end of all of our lanterns was a wall of wavy blue streamers complete with lighted bubbles to signify the end of our group. All in all, we had 39 folks in our unit including two of our own parade Marshalls to keep us in order.

Imagery Lanterns

Though the night was a little cooler than previous years, it was a beautiful evening to be out. The parade went off mostly without a hitch. Baby Shark decided to act up and his pole disconnected inside his body. This caused him to drop down on top of my nose. Ouch! I was able to get him somewhat situated before we passed the judges station, but after that I just hand carried him for the rest of the parade. Bad Baby!

It was rewarding as always to be named First Place as we have been working since April to pull this project together. After the winners were announced, the organizer released the theme for next year - the "Wide World of Sports." All I could think was, ugh. The theme does not excite me, and I wonder what we can pull together that makes sense with the theme but will still engage the kids. What a challenge!

Tianyu Lights Festival

Tianyu Lights Festival

Tuesday night several of us who are working on the lanterns for the Mount Holly Lantern Parade attended the Tianyu Lights Festival in Charlotte. Tianyu strives to bring authentic Chinese lanterns traditions to the US and Europe. We thought it would be fun to see how their lanterns are constructed, and also get inspiration for building our own lanterns. We arrived early enough that we could see the lanterns in the daylight, but stayed until it got dark out.

The theme for this year's Mount Holly parade is "Into the Deep Blue Sea", and we already know that we our entry will be based on the incredibly successful Baby Shark YouTube video. We will obviously build the main characters, but are looking for ideas for other items to add. The Tianyu show had quite a few lanterns that were water-related, and that gave us some good ideas.

While the Tianyu lanterns are constructed of wire, lights and fabric, our lanterns are wire, lights and colored paper. But still the ideas are somewhat transferable. The festival was very well done, and included some live performances as well. They had quite a few lanterns that were interactive for the attendees, as well as many that were mechanized. We were all happy that we attended the show, and it was fun to get together in a manner that didn't involve sitting and working on our own lanterns! 

Chinese lanterns

Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade

Lantern Parade

With all the drama surrounding the theft of my rental car (and there are zero updates there), I forgot to post about my community's entry in the 7th Annual Mount Holly Lantern Day Parade. This was the fourth year that Imagery has entered the parade (our community was only formed in 2019).

The theme was "The Fantastical World of Flight", and the options of what to build were endless. Our design team takes into account the fact that we have many people in the neighborhood who, while they may never help in the building process, want to walk with us in the parade. So obviously we would not choose to build one large lantern, like Dumbo for example. We like to have a number of lanterns in our entry. The second consideration is that we want to appeal to the kids, as there are many of them along the parade route. For those reasons we decided to go with Santa and his reindeer.

We constructed a six foot long sleigh for Santa, and built his nine reindeer, each of whom was five feet long. We added ten twelve inch square gift boxes, four lollipops and four candy canes. All of these were constructed of wire, lit with fairy lights, then covered with two layers of tissue paper. We also have a lit banner with our name - Imagery - in from of our entry. We had 32 people in our unit, including two of our own parade marshalls to keep people in line and five of the Singing Elves from our community. 

We had requested to be last in the parade, and our wish was granted. What better way to end any parade than with Santa? We were greeted with many claps and cheers, as well as spontaneous renditions of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" along the parade route. And we won First Place in the "Group" category for the fourth year in a row! 

Imagery Lantern Parade entry

Next year's theme is "Into the Deep Blue Sea". We have our thinking caps on...

July 4th in June

fireworks

Our community of Mount Holly has their 4th of July fireworks show on the Thursday before the 4th, which meant that the fireworks this year would take place on June 27th. That seems pretty early, but that's how they roll here. We decided to go to see them since the weather was not too hot.

But some residents of our community were going to go to Muddy River Distillery at 7:00 that night. Muddy River is the oldest legal rum distillery in the Carolinas. It used to be in Belmont, but the owners purchased the oldest mill in Gaston County and renovated it into a beautiful bar and event space. It happens to be located in Mount Holly, which is great for us as we love their rum.

Muddy River Distillery

We parked on Main Street around 6:20, and walked the short couple of blocks to the distillery. A food truck was there so we grabbed dinner and settled in with rum cocktails. Then our neighbors began to arrive, and we ended up with about 14 people there. It was fun to catch up with everyone.

As it began to get dark, we walked back to our car, grabbed our chairs and some water, and crossed the street to the Mount Holly Community Garden parking lot. It was a good location on a hill, and we had a nice view of the fireworks. The best part was that afterwards we were able to make a quick u-turn on Main and head home. No traffic jam for us this year!

Mount Holly fireworks

Mount Holly Lantern Parade

Imagery and 101 Dalmatians
(photo by Bob Leverone Photography)

I'll get back to my national parks trip postings later, but Saturday night was the Sixth Annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade. For the third year our Imagery community has entered the group category in the parade. This year's theme was Heroes and Villains, and we decided when we heard the theme last October that we would do 101 Dalmatians as our entry. It has wonderful villains in Cruella and the Badun brothers, and super heroes with Pongo and Perdita coming to the rescue of the puppies.

We began the lanterns in earnest in June, and many, many hands participated in making our dream a reality. Cruella reached a whopping 8'6" height, and Pongo and Perdita were built to the size of actual Dalmatians. The remaining puppies were much smaller in scale so we didn't need 101 walkers in the parade.

We put puppies on stars, on poles and on hula hoops to make it all come together. All told we had 42 walkers on Saturday night, and enough people dressed as puppies with painted faces and lit up ears that we ended up with 101 Dalmatians.

The entry was a hit with the crowds as well as the parade organizers. For the third straight year we took first place in our category. That puts a lot of pressure on us for next year, the theme of which has not yet been announced. But I'm sure we are up for the challenge!

Mount Holly Lantern Parade

It's Lantern Parade Time

Dalmatians 

It's time for the annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade. Well, okay, the parade is not until October but it is time for us to start building our lanterns. For the third year in a row, Imagery will have an entry in the parade under the "community" category. The pressure is on as we have taken first place the past two years.

This year's theme is "Heroes and Villains", so that offered an abundance of opportunities for sure. We decided to go with "101 Dalmatians" since the story contains both heroes and villains. There are a lot of families with children who attend the parade, and we felt like they would get a kick out of seeing the Dalmatian puppies. I don't think we will have 101 of them, however! Let alone trying to build that many lanterns, we would struggle to find enough volunteers to carry them the night of the parade.

A small group of us have begun making some puppies because we will have a lantern-making workshop here in the community next Sunday night. It's an opportunity for new neighbors to see what we are up to, and hopefully recruit some volunteers. We will also get a jump on getting some puppies constructed.

We will have four stations at the workshop, and will have completed lanterns at each to show the process. The first station will construct the lanterns with wire, the second will add lights to the lanterns, the third will glue the specialty paper over the lanterns, and the fourth will add the black spots to the Dalmatians.

My specialty is stringing the lanterns with lights, so I will man that station. I did the structural wiring of two puppies in preparation for next week, and I really did not enjoy the experience. I'll leave that to the wiring experts and stick with lighting. One thing that is nice about lighting is that I can bring the lanterns home and do it in front of the television.

lit Dalmatians 

There are a lot of logistics to work out, but we have a very experienced core group working on this so I'm confident we will have a great-looking entry again this year. And the crowd will ask, "Who let the dogs out?" Who, who, who, who, who!

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

For whatever reason our area is caught in a rain pattern right now. We are in our third day in a row of rain, with another three forecasted ahead. While there is a tropical storm out in the Atlantic Ocean right now, it is not anywhere close to the coast of the United States. So I'm not sure what is causing these storms. We did manage to get in a little pickleball early Monday morning before the rain began, but since then all outdoor activities have come to a halt.

Sunday I took my husband out to a local brewpub for Father's Day, and we stopped at the Mount Holly Community Garden to look at the garden beds. The flowers looked amazing, and since I am tired of the gray around me I'm posting a few of my favorites here. They are the only color we will see for a bit.

Mount Holly Community Garden

Granddaughter is here!

Our granddaughter was born Monday evening! She is little, but mighty. As I'm not sure how much the kids want me to share, I'll just say that we are thrilled that everyone is healthy. We can't wait to get our hands on that baby!

My Mohs surgery to remove my latest two basal cells has been scheduled for December 1st. I pray that Dr. Mu will be able to get clear margins after the first cuts. When she did my nose three years ago, it took five tries before she finally got it all. Hopefully that will not be the case this time.

The Mount Holly Lantern Parade took place last month, and our community won First Place in the Group Category for the second year in a row. We are two for two now, and that puts a lot of pressure on us for next year's entry. The theme was Written in the Stars, so we decided to up-cycle our minions from last year. We added space helmets, rockets and stars, and created a girl minion. We weren't sure if the judges would approve of us reusing lanterns, but I think we made enough changes that they could tell the amount of work we put into them.

2022 Mount Holly Lantern Parade

The theme for next year's parade is Heroes and Villains. We are already brainstorming on what we might like to do. Due to the large number of children in the audience, it's important to pick something readily recognizable to them, I think. The minions were a huge crowd pleaser, so we need something to generate that kind of enthusiasm from the crowd. We just had a wrap up celebration party with our team of volunteers. I made sure the minions had one last hurrah by bringing minion cupcakes.

minion cupcakes

Busy Fall Weekend

fall colors

This past weekend was pretty busy - in fact every weekend in October is packed for us this year. Saturday was the Second Annual Fall Festival at Imagery. It was rescheduled from the previous weekend due to Hurricane Ian, so some of the vendors were unable to attend. But it was a beautiful day, and I think the sellers who were able to come had a good day. About half the tables were artists from our community, and there are some very talented people here. I always think that I'll have a booth with my photographs of Mountain Island Lake, but then I don't get around to making it happen.

Sunday was the Second Annual Imagery Rides show. Last year we entered both Jim's car and motorcycle. This year they added the category of electric bikes, so in addition to the car and motorcycle I brought my Trek Townie e-bike along. That required some juggling of vehicles on our part, but we made it happen.

me & my minion

On Saturday evening the Mount Holly Community Development Foundation had their black tie fundraiser. As an added bonus for attendees, the Lantern Parade Chair asked if anyone would be willing to bring a lantern and do a short walk through the event venue. I took one of our minions from last year and joined a dozen or so other lantern makers in the parade. It was fun, and the guests seemed to enjoy it. We were also able to then promote the upcoming Mount Holly Lantern Parade, which takes place on October 22nd. 

Our community is again participating, and we are fairly close to having all of our lanterns completed. It was so much fun last year, and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for this year's parade. The theme is "Written in the Stars", and that is just broad enough that it stumped a lot of people. We are up-cycling our minions from last year, and they will be in spaceships, riding rockets, looking like astronauts and chasing stars. We even added a girl minion this year! We may not win our category again due to the reuse of the lanterns, but it seemed like a good way to get another year out of all of our efforts from last year. 

Getting the Real ID

license bureau line

This morning we made our way to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get our drivers licenses. We are lucky in that our area accepts online reservations, so we picked the location that had the earliest openings. Jim secured the 9:30 slot, while I got the 9:50. It ended up that the office was probably the closest one to our house, so that was a plus.

Due to Covid-19 they are limiting the number of people allowed in the building at one time, but we were still surprised to see these kind of lines. Obviously they take multiple people for the same time slots. The unfortunate people up against the building did not have appointments, and theirs was going to be a long wait.

Our goal was to obtain the Real ID, a new license that complies with federal minimum security guidelines. While not legally required, without the Real ID you cannot board a plane or enter any federal buildings without showing your passport. That's not a huge deal as we have valid passports and don't expect to fly for a long time anyway due to the virus. But if we were going to stand in line, we might as well go for it. I had heard many horror stories from people who tried to get the new ID. Despite bringing what they felt were all the required documents, they were still rejected. In one case the husband used the paperwork and got his ID before passing them off to his wife. Her license agent rejected one of the documents that had been accepted in the husband's case. Everyone's advice was to take more papers than you need just in case.

I triple-checked everything we were bringing with the website, and the only sticking point I could see is that my social security card is laminated. That had been done by my employer 40 years ago, but apparently they don't consider your card valid if it is laminated. I was hoping it would fly through, but figured no big deal if I had to go with a regular drivers license.

When I was called to go inside the building, a man double-checked all my papers to make sure I had everything before he sent me to an agent's window. She looked it all over and said I was missing an insurance card. That was not listed as a requirement on the website, nor had the checkpoint man said I needed it. When you think about it, why must I own a car in order to get the Real ID anyway? At any rate, I wasn't concerned as I had brought our car insurance policy along as proof of my NC address. Unfortunately, it was the policy that had expired Aril 20th and not the new one. Crap! As luck would have it, Jim had just finished getting his license, and he was able to run out to the car for me and get the insurance card from the glove box. Whew! All the other papers were accepted with no problem, including the laminated card.

While we were not required to take a written test or a driving test since we both had valid licenses from another state, I was a little concerned about the sign test as people said it was a little tricky. I downloaded the signs from their website and we studied them. That turned out to be no big deal as most of the signs had the words printed on them. I was thinking, "Is this a stupid test or what?" The only ones without words were the no passing zone sign, stop sign, and upcoming railroad crossing sign (which is the one most people don't know or recognize, but I knew it from the website.) So, lots of worry for no reason, and I am now the proud owner of a NC Real ID, and am registered to vote as well.

JR Cash's Grill & Bar

We decided to go out to lunch to celebrate this little success. This is the first time we have eaten food that was not prepared by us since the lockdown began. We haven't even done carryout food. We went to JR Cash's in Mount Holly because I knew we could eat outside along the Catawba River. The waitresses were masked and gloved, and the tables were more than 6 feet apart. We were the only ones in the entire place for a bit, but it began to fill up. A lady at the next table over sneezed (no mask), and a young girl nearby sneezed twice (no mask). Is it asking too much for people to get up and move away from everyone if they have to sneeze? I don't think so, as you know when one is coming on. Thank goodness we were outside and that far apart, though I don't know if 6 feet is far enough. This is exactly why we haven't gone anywhere, because people can't be trusted. As much as I want to support local small businesses, it will be awhile before I want to eat out again.

Rain, Rain, You Can Definitely Go Away!

We are well into a second week of a rainy pattern here in the greater Charlotte area. It is starting to get to me a bit. It is hard to just stay inside the house, and it's just sad when the thing you look forward to the most is a shopping trip to Harris Teeters. It was my turn yesterday to do the weekly grocery shopping, and I was excited to get out of the house. At the store there were still no cleaning supplies, but there were a few packages of toilet paper for a change. I didn't need any, so I left them for someone who does. Meat was pretty well stocked, except that the deli has no ham. The closing of some meat packing plants in the US due to Covid-19 is starting to impact what shows up in the meat department at the grocery store.

Muddy Rivers Distillery

Speaking of cleaning supplies, there is a local rum distiller here called Muddy Waters. They have converted some of their lines to make hand sanitizer with their alcohol. Isn't that awesome? It is a thinner product while still meeting federal guidelines, so you can not only sanitize your hands with it but can also spray down surfaces to kill bacteria. It smells a bit like rum and is non-sticky, unlike some of the products I've gotten in the past. We picked up a gallon jug of it along with a pump bottle to refill our small hand sanitizer bottles. Oh, and we may have grabbed some rum while we were at it. We like to support small businesses when we can. I'll just have to make sure I don't drink the wrong one. Ha!

We were able to make another trip to the community garden to do some weeding and pruning of the tomato plants. They have many tomatoes and lots of blooms on them. I'm looking forward to a good harvest. We picked quite a bit of the kale to donate to the community relief organization, which uses the vegetables for Meals on Wheels and others in need of healthy food. While we were in Mount Holly, I dropped off a face mask for my hair stylist, who was commenting when I got my hair cut that none of the ones she had fit her well. She is required to wear a mask, so I offered to make her one to try out. If it works out okay, I'll make her a few more as they shouldn't be worn more than one day in a row without being washed.

Mount Holly Community Garden

Here is a pretty cloud formation that appeared late yesterday afternoon during a rare break from the rain. As Joni Mitchell sang, "I really don't know clouds at all."

clouds at Imagery

Phase 2 Hairdo

Uptown Salon

As I have been writing here, we have kept very close to home and limited the number of people we are around since the Mount Holly and Gaston County Stay at Home Orders went into effect on March 27th, three days before the state order went into effect. With Phase 2 allowing the reopening of hair salons, I thought long and hard about if I wanted to chance going to get my haircut. To say that my hair looks like crap is an understatement. My last cut was on March 3rd, and my hair grows fast.

To make my decision, I looked at what the state was requiring salons to do in order to open their doors. Then I read what safety precautions my salon was putting into place. And finally I talked with my stylist about my concerns. After all that, I went in for a haircut at 9:00 this morning. They are required to operate at 50% capacity, so only four stylists were there, each with one customer. No one who is not in a chair is allowed in the salon - you must wait outside or in your car, and the stylist will text you when you can come in. The only things you are allowed to bring into the salon is a form of payment and your phone. No purses or bags allowed.

first haircut in 11 weeks

As the first appointment of the morning for my gal, I did not have to wait, and I used a sanitizing wipe to open the door on the way in and out.  The stylist chairs had been moved further apart with two being placed on each side of a wall, dividing the space in half. The only person who came closer to me than 6' was my stylist. She was masked the whole time, and so was I though I had to hold my mask over my nose and mouth while she shampooed me so I didn't get the elastic of my mask wet. In all honesty, I felt less concern about being in the salon than I do at a grocery store. At a certain point in time, we have to get back to a somewhat normal life, and getting this haircut was certainly a way to lift my spirits, which is important as well.

community garden plot

As our community garden is just down the street from the salon, I dropped in to see how our plot is doing. It is looking so good! I forgot to bring any tools along, so I'll need to go back and prune the tomato plants. They have gotten huge and are shading out the pepper plants. I also need to tie them up some more so the stems don't break. It was great to see all the bees buzzing around the marigold plants.

Last night we had another beautiful sunset over the lake in the backyard. This photo was taken due north. It was as if the cloud grabbed all the sunset and held it inside.

sunset on Mountain Island Lake

Stay at Home Day 53

our backyard

Today begins the 53rd day since our county issued the Stay at Home order. While others in the country, and world for that matter, have had to shelter in place for longer than that, there is no arguing that we have gone a long time without being able to visit family, attend gatherings, play pickleball with our friends, participate in any of the group activities we had become accustomed to in our new community, eat at restaurants, travel, visit local cultural institutions, etc.

To date, there have been 4.76 million confirmed cases worldwide, with 326,000 deaths. In the US there are 1.53 million confirmed cases, with over 90,000 deaths. North Carolina has 18,512 confirmed cases to date, with 659 deaths. Gaston County has one of the lowest virus cases in our area, fortunately. As far as we know, no one in our community has gotten the virus. Having said that, we know that it is out there and we need to remain vigilant.

While Phase 2 may go into play this Friday, lifting some restrictions for restaurants and hair salons, I will need to decide what I want to do about a haircut. I found a stylist in Mount Holly who I really like, and have been to her several times. However, she has chosen to spend her time off this week in a beach community, posting photos on Facebook. She admitted that her location is very crowded. This is the type of situation that puts people at risk, and I would have expected her to spend the two weeks before going back to work in a more controlled environment. There is no way that I can wear a mask when she washes and cuts my hair, and I doubt that she will wear one either in light of her disregard of the stay at home order. I will need to think long and hard about whether I want to be that close to her upon her return. My hair is in desperate need of a cut as I last saw her on March 3rd. All the stylists will be swamped when they can finally reopen, so odds of getting in to see someone new are slim. And I have no idea what any of them have been doing in their time off either. This is our new world, and everyone has to determine what their risk tolerance is going to be.

Yesterday morning Jim and I took our kayaks out on the lake early in the morning. Weekends on the water are a zoo with all the boats and jet skis, so we wanted to go out on calm waters without having to worry about being hit. Or knocked ashore by the waves. It was beautiful and peaceful, and certainly a wonderful way to forget all the pandemic madness for a little bit anyway.

Mountain Island Lake

The other thing that brings me joy is watching the birds in the backyard. The goldfinches have finally discovered my finch feeder with its special finch food. Another bird this morning made good use of the bird bath, and I saw my first hummingbirds out back over the weekend. I picked up a lantana basket at the farmer's market on Saturday, and it drew them right in. My hummingbird feeder certainly hadn't been doing the trick.

for the birds

We shall see what this Friday brings in terms of removing some of the stay at home restrictions. But thinking about the birds reminded me of the John Lennon song "Free as a Bird." Somehow the lyrics seem very appropriate today.

Whatever happened to
the life that we once knew?
Can we really live without each other?
Where did we lose the touch
That seemed to mean so much?
It always made me feel so
free as a bird.

Testing the Waters

paddling on Mountain Island Lake

A group of us from the neighborhood went paddling on Mountain Island Lake Wednesday. We had 4 paddle boards and 12 kayaks. We all arrived at the launch site in our own vehicles, and used our own equipment. We kept 6 feet away from each other the water - or in my case 60 feet away as I am definitely the slowest in the group. Not only do I lack the upper body strength of the rest, apparently, but I also am never in a rush on the water. I like to look at the birds and their nests, and see a view of the area that you don't get when you are on land.

The trip was billed as 8.5 miles of leisurely paddling. I guess my idea of taking our time was different than the others. It just confirms my belief that I have to find my tribe of Piddler Paddlers. Nevertheless, it was a nice day on the water, and I made it the entire way without having to be towed by anyone.

We have been doing some work at the Mount Holly Community Garden. Our garden mentor gave us some mulch to top dress our bed, so we installed that on Friday while weeding and watering. This morning we decided to check out the Mount Holly Farmers Market, which is open only on Saturday mornings. We did not go to the grand opening last Saturday as we wanted to make sure we felt social distancing and other health practices would be in place. The market is doing a really good job in tough times. Everyone must use the hand sanitizer before entering the market, and masks are encouraged. I would say 80 percent of everyone there had a mask on, and the vendors are required to wear gloves. If a vendor does not accept credit cards, then shoppers can purchase tokens in one spot to be used as payment. Overall, we felt very comfortable there. We ended up buying a hanging basket, some honey, and some spring mix lettuce. All of the vendors are located within 75 miles of Mount Holly, so everything is fresh from their farms.

Mount Holly Farmers Market

When we finished shopping we went back to our community garden down the street to help with some bed work. There are two butterfly beds at the entrance to our garden, and they had become overrun with salvia. We dug all the salvia up and placed it to the side for any of the gardeners to take home. Then we raked out all the pine straw mulch in preparation of soil delivery. Once that is done, new plants will be added back to the beds. I did an additional watering of our bed as it is supposed to hit 87 degrees here today. That way we won't have to make a trip back into town tomorrow. Our bed is looking good! Can't wait for the tomatoes and peppers to come in.

Mount Holly Community Garden bed

Little by little, we are getting out and about in the community, as allowed by federal, state and county mandates. We will continue to test the waters to see what our comfort level is with venturing back out into what our lives were like BC - before COVID. This is a long, long way from being over.

Keeping Busy

Imagery by Lennar, the community where we live, has a Lifestyle Director to keep us busy and out of trouble. Ha! All kidding aside, the activities have enabled us to meet many new neighbors, stay fit, and learn about the greater Charlotte area. Jim and I are enjoying the hiking club, and Jim attends the whisky and wine clubs as well. Many new clubs are being established, including photography and Bunco, which I will definitely participate in. We have taken tai chi and the yoga classes are working out well for us. The first of the small refurbished artists' cabins have opened, allowing us to have an onsite fitness and yoga studio as well as a beautiful party center. Additional cabins are under renovation, and will house a library, pottery space, sewing and quilting, a game room and pool house. An outdoor pool is currently under construction.

amenity cabins

On Saturday we drove to Lake Norman, which is less than an hour away from us. Jim wanted to take the Porsche out for a spin, and we decided to celebrate his birthday a couple days early at a restaurant on the water. Many places are seasonal and not open yet, but we found The Landing. It is a retro lakefront property with a fun vibe. Our meals were just okay, but with the location we would definitely give them another try in the future.

The Landing

On our way back we stopped to take pictures at Rock Springs Camp, which is located in Denver, NC. We have driven by it many times on the way to our friend's house but had never stopped. The wood structures look like an accident waiting to happen, but people still stay in them for a couple weeks in August. The camp traces its roots back to 1794 when a Methodist minister held a camp meeting in the area. In 1830 the current property was purchased, and except for two occasions the camp has been held each year. Though they are called tents, the roughly built cabins have dirt floors, no screens, and many have no indoor water. Despite this, the cabins are mainly passed down from one generation to the next. As many as 10,000 people of all denominations attend the religious celebration.

Rock Springs Camp

By far the biggest attraction in the area, though, is the constantly changing palette in our backyard. A new painting is created there nearly every morning and/or evening. THIS is why we bought our new home here.

Mountain Island Lake

Catching Up

Sold!

Many things have happened since my last post. We had a house built within the 55+ community Imagery at Lennar in North Carolina, and sold the home we had owned for 32 years in Webster Groves, Missouri. Located on Mountain Island Lake in Mount Holly, NC we closed on our new home October 15th, and on our home in Webster on October 25th. The moving company arrived at the new house on October 28th.

Since then it has been a flurry of purchasing new furniture for the house (we sold our antiques as they didn't go with the new home feel), getting all the boxes unpacked, and adding the personal touches to make this house feel like home. Because the house and a lot of the furniture are new, we still feel at times as if we are staying in an AirBNB. Especially when we pause (which we do a lot) to admire the view from our backyard.

new house front and back yard

The community here has exceeded our expectations so far. It is brand new, so there are less than 100 homes that are currently occupied. That has given us an opportunity to meet our neighbors on a more personal basis, which has helped ease the transition. The neighborhood is about 40/60 in terms of those of us who have relocated from another state versus those who moved in from a different part of the Charlotte area. But everyone has the same outlook - they want to meet new people and form new friendships. Jim and I took a huge leap of faith moving from the city where we had spent our entire 41 years of married life to a new place where we do not have any family. But the leap was well worth it, and we are busier than we ever imagined.

Because it is a new community, our amenities are not yet complete. But our lifestyle director has made the best of the situation, and we have enjoyed tai chi, yoga, pickleball on our outdoor courts, hiking club activities, ladies lunches and mens breakfasts, cultural events, social events, and casual get togethers with our neighbors. We are so happy here!

We are looking forward to forging many friendships and enjoying many new adventures as we enter Volume II (this is way too big to be called a new chapter) of our lives.