Man – this weekend, I have to say, has been pretty fantastic. Aside from being notably unencumbered by technology, it also featured a very good friend of mine, Theresa. She’s my current romantic interest, and that’s putting it kind of mildly. She was my date for my Mom’s wedding, and her parents came up to the mountains to have a mini-vacation for the 4th of July weekend. They were so very thoughtful enough to drop her off for Friday night Game Night so she could see her friends and hang out.
Saturday, her parents called and woke her up (and then she came and woke me up) and we had to rush out to meet them in Cherokee. Once we all got together, we fought traffic and found a parking space and then went in to the fairgrounds and watched several Native American dances. Apparently there was some sort of competition going on. I won’t lie and say it was terribly enthralling – I just don’t think I was in the mindset to absorb that cultural experience right then. I went and got a funnel cake that Theresa and I messily shared. Poor thing, she was eat up by bugs – apparently she’s highly allergic to bug bites. Not emergency, can’t breathe allergic, but they looked pretty irritating.
Theresa’s parents invited us back to swim in the pool, so I stopped and got my swim trunks and went on to the hotel they were staying at and Theresa and I swam in the icy cold pool for about an hour. We also observed some of the bugs and a tiny inch-worm that were visiting the pool that day.
After the pool, I took Theresa out for dinner – we hit a spot called Bella Roma’s in a nearby town. It turns out we both really like Hawaiian pizza and never really get a chance to order it because no one else really likes it that we knew. I suggested it on a whim and when she said it was pretty much her favorite we both got excited.
Final stop for the day was downtown Bryson City to watch the fireworks. There were a few people playing live music around the town, lots of people setup everywhere along the streets under tents and in camping chairs. A few shops were open, mostly food places and ice cream parlours. We found a spot on a bench in front of the train station and all four of us sat down. Theresa’s dad decided to bail and walk back to the hotel to watch the fireworks from the porch. Theresa’s mom watched the bench for us while we went to go get ice cream, and then we came back and people watched until the fireworks show. As fireworks shows go, it wasn’t terrible – it had several parts that made me go “oooh, aaaah” and “neat!”
Overall, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. I said goodnight to Theresa and left her at the hotel with her parents for the night, went on home and practically fell straight asleep. I went to church today, and now I’m home enjoying some leftover Hawaiian pizza and wishing it weren’t all over already. Thanks to the furlough (and a big NO THANKS to Governor Bev Purdue) I’m still off tomorrow and go back to work on Tuesday. I’ll be glad when that nonsense is over.
I hope you all had as good of an Independence Day as I did, and to our friends in the UK – HAHAHA. Sorry. Had to get that out of my system. You guys are cool with me.