Mighty but Mini

The last several days have been warm here in the Triangle as well as in Asheville. We arrived to snow still in our backyard for the w-e on Friday, but it melted quickly with the 60 degree days we enjoyed Saturday though Monday. We made good use of the warm weather, running around Beaver Lake on Saturday and then walking around downtown with everyone else heading outside to enjoy the sunny day. We ate dinner at the Laughing Seed restaurant which is just about the best vegetarian place I've ever encountered. Everyone else was eating outside at the Mellow Mushroom (a pizza place) which is always full of tourists and towns people who want to sit on their patio when it is warm and sunny like it was this past weekend (despite it being February). We even saw a bit of live music at the French Broad Brewery, but the guy playing wasn't as good as our usual group Brushfire Stankgrass, which plays a mix of acoustic rock and bluegrass. Still it is always fun to catch a live show. The warm days in February and March really make it worth living in the South. Try finding that in Vermont or New Hampshire which are mired in snow and gray skies all of winter and into Spring too.

Sunday we did some hiking in the Black Mtn/Montreat area with Susan, Jan, and their respective dogs. We must have been a funny looking group with Lucy the big, fluffy shephard type dog and Riley, the mighty but mini black and tan dachshund. The trail heads up, up, up as they do over there in the Greybeard area, then flattens out a bit along the old Trestle road and then heads steeply down. Susan sent me an email today asking if we were sore and telling us that her triceps were the most sore. That's what you get for using those fancy hiking poles to help you down the hill. You should have taken your chances and hoped that your downhill muscles would hold you like the rest of us (tee-hee). We did something like 1000 ft of down in only 0.87 mile so you can imagine the steepness of that. I'm just crazy enough about hills to wonder what it would be like to go up it next time. I'm always up for a challenge (no pun intended, really). I'll throw in the photo some nice college gal took of us at the top (though mighty but mini is cut off in the photo, sorry Riley).

I'm reading a terrific book Susan suggested, that has been on the NY Times bestseller list recently. It's "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. She writes about her year traveling to Italy (to eat, what else), India (to pray) and yes you guessed it to Indonesia (to love)-all after suffering through a horrendous divorce which she doesn't really detail except to say that it felt like a car accident EVERYDAY for 2 years. I'm thinking my sister needs to read it too. The author is funny and insightful and not preachy though she really does find God with a capital G. You'll have to read it for yourself, and enjoy it too. I've laughed outloud in many places, always a good recommendation for a book.