Slacking here...

Yes, I have to admit I have been a slacker lately.  June is nearly done and the mantel is still left-over from May.  Ah well, sometimes life gets in the way and takes many courses.  The hubby and I were suddenly blessed with a respite vacation by hospice.  They placed my mother in a local nursing home and off my Sweetie and I went heading for the hills.  We spent the next few days in the Asheville/Black Mountain area of North Carolina.  It was food for our souls as well as our bodies.   The DH caught me here at Cat Alley in the old part of Asheville.  We were a little early for the shops to open and were out to enjoy the beautiful weather.  I must have been smiling in anticipation of hitting the bead store in a few minutes. 

There is so much that is whimsical in Asheville, and it is a wonderful place for artisans and entrepreneurs of all sorts.  I have always felt it is like being plopped down in one of the small towns surrounding the San Francisco Bay Area of California.  The cat isn't real by the way, but forever frozen in metal to the lamp post.  He has a few pals hanging out over near the railing just out of sight.   There is even a gigantinormous iron for gigantinormous laundry.  It would take a King Arthur to snatch it up out of the pavement as the city fathers bolted it to the ground.  No doubt some daring person would have tried to carry it off if they hadn't.  Our local Jeep dealership lost a life sized cast metal moose a few months back.  Who knows, maybe one day it will end up in Asheville, visiting the cats of Cat Alley.

 We took a momnet to time out in a little city park frequented by street musicians and hot dog vendors.  Real New York style and so mouth watering good, smothered in onion relish and washed down with fresh squeezed and chilled lemonade.  The hot dog man told us he had come down from New York for a 9 to 5 job and after diligently working there for several months the boss offered him a 10 cent raise.  He declined and became his own boss and has been enjoying himself ever since. ,,,That's Asheville for ya!

And as always, there is never enough time to enjoy all the sights when we head for the hills.  That Mountain Dragon energy is alive and well in North Carolina.  I hope that our next visit is not so long off as this one had been.  Love you Asheville!