Our Cary Apartment

We resume our regularly scheduled blog posting. It's been nice taking a month or so off: not much has occurred that is blog-worthy, and there is the usual worry about what do you do with a travel blog when you're not traveling. We are here, in Cary, NC, for the fall, winter, and early spring months, doing the death cleaning thing* and seeing our grand-daughter and her parents. Every day we do some serious walking and have even made a few more distant excursions, by bus, to the state capital and the state fair, both within 10 miles. And we spend considerable time going through our 70+ years of accumulated stuff, listing it on eBay or Craigs', boxing it for trips to the charity shops, or saving it for later. I also spend some time most days going back to posts people have visited the day before, making corrections, enlarging photos, embellishing with new snarky comments. 

Back in August I promised pix of our apartment here. It is now presentable, at least with the understanding that it is part abode, part warehouse, part museum, and part studio. I suppose that could be said of any abode, particularly ours. But it is also all those things in the process of reducing 70+ years' accumulated stuff, particularly books, down to an order manageable for older persons--older persons who still want to spend most of their time traveling--and their descendants. 

Our building in the Cary Greens apartment complex, near Cary Parkway
and High House Road [Google Earth view in a previous post]

Our apartment is on the ground floor, back side of the building, facing

the little wood

There's its ample screened-in porch

Bedroom; a pleasant surprise was that our cherry Queen
Anne furniture squeezed in pretty well [we are open to offers
if you're into valuable OBF]

Thus we were able to re-use much of the decor we'd saved from
houses in Columbus, Dallas, and Missoula; serves also as media
room; note brand-new TV; also view out to warehouse/studio/porch

Bath; double sinks; one of the largest one-bedroom units we've
seen

And tub

Grand Hall; Everest view (from above Namche Bazar)
and prayer flags above the washer and dryer alcove

Kitchen

We 've lived in RVs much smaller than this...

Living area; the T-shirt quilt covers a principal warehousing wall

Study niche/music room

Some of the steadily dwindling library

Dining/study/office

Living room view; note Czech art nouveau stained glass in window;
the table is Vicki's sewing center/studio

Now on the screened-in porch; note remains of Montana
sign forest and new bistro chairs and table

Also the two Diamondback bicycles, his and hers, rescued and now
undergoing restoration

More porch, atelier and art museum

Oxides, c. 1991; more of my art works in later posts

Pretty much every visible metallic surface is covered
in magnets

Cleverly concealed refrigerator; burglars would never

find the vintage Costco poulet roti

Our gardening now is pretty much limited to cilantro
("Cory Ann"), sweet basil ("Basil"), and Thai holy
basil ("กะเพรา"); and some succulents Rachel gave us

*Swedish Death Cleaning; look it up; we are all dying...

It's Intermisson Time, Folks!

We're beween missions...

Interim Update #1,280

So we are in Cary,* NC, settling into our one bedroom apartment, beginning the Death Cleaning project aforementioned, re-acquainting ourselves with suburban life. Such as it is. We have even bought a television; our first in fifteen years. The apartment is larger and quieter than we had imagined, even has a view, sort of, and will accommodate all our remaining but dwindling stuff. The location is very good for us: 2 miles from Rebecca's house, near one of the major bus routes, a few hundred feet from a small strip shopping center with a sizable hypermercado, a few hundred more feet to Bond Park, a large city park (lake, forests, athletic fields, trails...), and within the park, the Cary Senior Center, where we are already taking courses in technology, line dancing, and tai chi (or is it chai tea?). One of my long-held dreams has been to cross-breed line dancing with tai chi, to be done to Pashelbel's Canon or possibly Gregorian Chant...but I digress. Anyhow, we are here until spring, with plenty to do but with plenty still to decide. Like whether or not we should keep this or some other apartment; buy an RV; just keep moving.... We have reservations for Nice/Paris/Belgium/the Baltic for the spring, but, beyond that...well, stay tuned. 

We are actually somewhat below and to the left of the red Google pin; Rebecca, Jeremy and Penelope
are in the Riggsbee Farm area to the left; no relation to Eleanor Rigby

*not named after Cary Grant**
**nor the great Mel Brooks routine (horrible video but Mel Brooks at his best)

Dollywood

We had our reasons for going to Dollywood, Vicki, hers, I, mine. It was for us both most certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And I didn't even go: just being near it was enough. Penelope, on the other hand, loved it: far from being merely a family theme park, it hosts a remarkable collection of extreme roller-coaster and similar rides, some of which she did a dozen times or more. She is at that age. Grandma did several of the extreme rides but mostly served as chaperone. I kept the batteries charged.

Local sentiment; and not without reason

Delivering prizes for the Midway

Easy to spot Penelope: generally first car, hands-up!

On her favorite, the Mystery Mine, which she did 19 times

It's a Dolly thing

In the historical precincts

Get your Jeezus T-shirts here

Return To Deep Creek

The main point of locating in Cary, NC, was to be near grand-daughter Penelope and her family, and we lost no time in getting together. After a week moving in and getting the apartment functional (not settled nor presentable), we took her back to the Smokies for more of Deep Creek and environs, sites in the great park itself, and then to Dollywood, the heart of the 30-mile strip of tawdriness that runs from Gatlinburg through Pigeon Forge to Sevierville: the Pride of Tennessee. Yours truly, being physically unfit for tubing and rollercoaster riding, was excused from these activities and served largely as chauffeur, gonfleur des tubes, and chargeur des batteries. Dollywood will of course require a post unto itself.

About to embark; the Creek was much higher than last year, though
still not living up to its name

Vicki underway; her cheap, flimsy tube was good for just one voyage;
perhaps as she had planned

Penelope underway, navigating a tricky spot

Action shot

Eddying out

Next morning we did a scenic drive into nearby Nantahala Gorge...
bigger creek, serious white water

But were back on Deep Creek that afternoon

We were traveling by rental car and motels but wanted to do
a camping meal, fire, s'mores, etc...so Vicki reserved a campsite
by the creek and we did it all again, sans camper

Next day we drove around in the Park a bit...Clingman's Dome, Cade's
Cove, etc., Newfound Gap...

Boulder-hopping

Scarlet beebalm...reminded us somewhat of the West and
so-called Indian Paintbrush

On the Appalachian Trail, parts of which both her mom and Auntie
Rachel have done

Contemplating the final push to the summit of Clingman's
Dome

Made it!

Bee in Vicki's bonnet

Thus

Happens all the time near beebalm patches

On the painfully long yet dull drive to Cade's Cove, a red fox/wolf/coyote
eyes us in the gridlock

Among the more interesting features of Cade's Cove, which, in 1969 we thought
was really interesting...

Your have been warned...actually, best not to go to Cade's Cove
at all, unless you have a hankering for 1st gear and 1920s pastoral
squalor; and snakes and gridlock