Autumn in the Mountains

Sept. 27, 2013
Well, its time for the next session of Midget Travels.  This is the first of several trips planned for this fall.  We're off to Hendersonville, NC, site of the British Car Club of Western North Carolina's Autumn in the Mountains British car show.  We've never been there, so thought it sounded like it would be a nice trip.

We started off about 7:30 am in very "crisp", clear weather and made it out of metro Atlanta without any problems.  We stopped at the Jefferson House in Jefferson, GA for breakfast.  After a hardy breakfast it was off to NC.

We took back roads, which are surprisingly good, probably due to the lack of big trucks.  Scenery was very nice, past lots of pastures and cattle farms as we drove through towns such as Commerce, Toccoa, Walhalla, across the northwest corner of South Carolina and into North Carolina.  The weather was perfect, clear and cool and the ride through the mountains very enjoyable.  We came to Flat Rock, NC and the area is dotted with spectacular homes.  Just outside of Hendersonville, we saw signs for Carl Sandburg's home, so we made a short detour and took a tour.  It turned out to be pretty interesting.  The house and grounds are now maintained by the National Park Service and the house is pretty much the way it was left when his wife decided to move due to declining health.  The amount of books is unbelievable.  Every room has floor to ceiling bookcases.  Mrs. Sandburg had a goat dairy and had many champion goats.  There are still goats on the farm, but it is no longer a working dairy.

Dining Room - note books

Work space - note books

Doing what goats do best - food in one end, out the other

 From there, we drove to downtown Hendersonville, which turned out to be very nice.  The main street is about 6 blocks with mostly original storefronts.  Most of the store fronts have historical plates telling when the building was built and what types of businesses were in them.  Only one storefront was empty and it appeared to be under renovation.  The street has been landscaped with lots of trees and planters as well as seats and benches.  Also, almost all of the restaurants have seating areas outside on the wide sidewalks.  We ate at The Square Root and it was very good.  Afterwards, we walked along the street and discovered that two blocks had been closed to traffic and there was a car show put on by the Hendersonville Antique Car Club.  Lots of old American cars, muscle cars, pickups and hot rods.  Some very nice cars and some odd ones, like the Gremlin X!  Another interesting thing about downtown Hendersonville are the dozen or so bears that have been decorated by various artists standing along the street!

View of downtown Hendersonville, NC

The Square Root Restaurant

One of the bears on Main Street

Downtown Hendersonville, NC

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, unpacked, cleaned the car up and got ready for tomorrow.

Sept. 28, 2013

Had breakfast at the hotel this morning then drove over to the park, which was just a few miles away, for the show.  The venue is a big city park where the show was on one of the large grassy fields.  The number of cars was disappointing, only about 52 cars.  And, only two spridgets - me and a nice '59 bugeye Sprite.  There were some nice cars, especially an old Riley, a Morris Minor convertible and a Jag 140.  

A nicely restored drophead Riley

A Morris Minor convertible

After the show, we went back to the hotel and found out that they  had a wine and music festival going on all day in the field right in front of the hotel.  You paid for a wristband and got to sample wines from about 5 local wineries.  They also had live music by multiple artists.  It was winding down so we went back downtown and ate at The Cypress Cellar, a cajun restaurant which was pretty tasty.  Then it was back to the hotel to unwind and get ready for the trip back tomorrow.  Should be another great travel day.

Wine and music festival at the hotel.

The Cypress Cellar on Main St.

Sept. 29, 2013

Heading home today, but not in any big hurry.  We decided to go most of the way back, the same way we came, which was a nice drive through the North and South Carolina mountains.  Once back in Georgia, we took a different route just to explore some roads we have not been on.  We stopped for lunch at the Rabbit Town Cafe just outside of Gainesville.  This is a local "meat and three" kind of place served buffet style.  The food is good and reasonably priced.  We got there just in time, as church must have let out while we were eating and the line was almost out the door!  After eating, we continued along new roads through Maysville and Gillsville before getting to Jefferson.  One of our discoveries was the Diamond C ranch, which is a 1400 acre ranch out in the middle of nowhere.  But, the entrance was stunning and we couldn't see the house.  We looked it up when we got home and found out that it is for sale.  You should check it out - just Google "diamond c ranch north georgia".  It is pretty surprising.  In the same area is Craven pottery.  We would never have found these places if we had just gone home the usual way.  That's way Midget Travels is so much fun!  We got home without any problems and are now looking forward to our next trip in five days!