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In some ways the downtime after the celebrations but before work starts up again are the best time of the year.
The weather here is warm now, and sunset's just a tiny bit later, so we decided to go for a day trip. Originally we'd thought about a weekend in the mountains, but that seemed so strenuous that we decided just to go up to a little old town, Abbeville, about an hour away. As little towns go around here, it's fairly interesting--the Mennonite community has grown around there and there's a wonderful country-food restaurant, Yoder's. Sadly, I got low-sugar dessert and forgot that I should have urged Bill to get the real thing, since that's what they do best. But otherwise it was wonderful--corn, green beans, ham, and cornbread. We wandered around the beautiful little church, still decorated for Christmas, while the organist practiced, and then went to some antique stores (I bought a face jug--look at http://www.thebaldwinbulletin.com/images/face_jugs.jpg if you don't know what they are). Sadly, this little town is also important in the history of the Confederacy, and the League of the South is headquartered there.
It was like going back through layers of time for me. First, my own personal history--I had gone to college nearby at Erskine for a couple of years long ago, and remember coming to Abbeville for food, church, a taste of urbanity (!) Then too my family had lived there, and although I've lost some of the details of of exactly who and when, I knew there were connections, found tombstones with family names, etc.
Well. We wandered on, first to Due West, where I'd gone to college and where an old family home has not been treated kindly by new owners (parts of the building date from 1840's--how could they paint that old brick?) and then over to Georgia, to Athens, where I'd never been. I guess I was hoping it would be a little more like Chapel Hill, which I love, or Madison, which I also visited for the first time recently. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Athens was more like Columbia: bars outnumber bookstores by more than 20 to 1. Oh, well. But it's a beautiful town, spread out over hills, and I'd like to come back with more time and explore. I have a feeling there are some good things to find there.
Driving on the back roads in the piedmont is so lovely. The red clay and the bare trees, filled with mistletoe. The old wooden farmhouses and the tumbled down barns, and the beautiful goats and horses everywhere.
And Bill, bless him, drove back, so I could finish with a martini in Athens (some bars are good things....)
The weather here is warm now, and sunset's just a tiny bit later, so we decided to go for a day trip. Originally we'd thought about a weekend in the mountains, but that seemed so strenuous that we decided just to go up to a little old town, Abbeville, about an hour away. As little towns go around here, it's fairly interesting--the Mennonite community has grown around there and there's a wonderful country-food restaurant, Yoder's. Sadly, I got low-sugar dessert and forgot that I should have urged Bill to get the real thing, since that's what they do best. But otherwise it was wonderful--corn, green beans, ham, and cornbread. We wandered around the beautiful little church, still decorated for Christmas, while the organist practiced, and then went to some antique stores (I bought a face jug--look at http://www.thebaldwinbulletin.com/images/face_jugs.jpg if you don't know what they are). Sadly, this little town is also important in the history of the Confederacy, and the League of the South is headquartered there.
It was like going back through layers of time for me. First, my own personal history--I had gone to college nearby at Erskine for a couple of years long ago, and remember coming to Abbeville for food, church, a taste of urbanity (!) Then too my family had lived there, and although I've lost some of the details of of exactly who and when, I knew there were connections, found tombstones with family names, etc.
Well. We wandered on, first to Due West, where I'd gone to college and where an old family home has not been treated kindly by new owners (parts of the building date from 1840's--how could they paint that old brick?) and then over to Georgia, to Athens, where I'd never been. I guess I was hoping it would be a little more like Chapel Hill, which I love, or Madison, which I also visited for the first time recently. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Athens was more like Columbia: bars outnumber bookstores by more than 20 to 1. Oh, well. But it's a beautiful town, spread out over hills, and I'd like to come back with more time and explore. I have a feeling there are some good things to find there.
Driving on the back roads in the piedmont is so lovely. The red clay and the bare trees, filled with mistletoe. The old wooden farmhouses and the tumbled down barns, and the beautiful goats and horses everywhere.
And Bill, bless him, drove back, so I could finish with a martini in Athens (some bars are good things....)
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