Visitors from Indiana

We walked in the morning and spent the majority of the day preparing for the visit with our friends. We went to the visitor's center to see if they had free maps of Haywood County. They didn't. We went to the bank to get some cash and went to Ingal's grocery right nearby to get some two for one ice cream. Evelyn made a broccoli casserole and pineapple fluff to accompany the ham we will have at the potluck/Bible study. Tom and Janet arrived right on time with some Indiana tomatoes and beer sent by Shirley. We sliced some of the tomatoes and went to the home of a congregational member for the study about the history of the LCMS and the dinner. The food was excellent and we came home satisfied. The Grotrian's were tired from the long drive so we went to bed.
Wednesday we walked the lake with Tom and Janet, showing them the roses and the many dwellings that surround the lake. Evelyn had prepared a quiche for breakfast so we were well satisfied as we went to show them the Barber Orchard owned in part by our neighbor Steve Arrington. We had seen him early before he went to work and bought a basket of peaches he had brought from the Asheville Farmer's Market. We saw him at the orchard store where Janet bought four apple turnovers and two apple muffins for tomorrow's breakfast. We came home and enjoyed a sandwich, a supposedly light lunch, and went back to walk the streets of Waynesville and see the quaint shops there. No one bought anything but it is fun to see the variety of items for sale in the shops. We went home, changed clothes and left for Cataloochee Ranch to enjoy a cookout. We had been there two years ago and liked the atmosphere on the mile high dude ranch. They featured horseback riding and a swimming pool located on the mountainside. They have both cabins and rooms to rent. The rooms are rustic and cost $165 per night. The ranch is four miles round trip from the Swag, another mountain resort area. They served the best barbecued ribs any of us had ever eaten. There was an enormous amount of meat on each one. There was also chicken and many side dishes and desserts that were also delicious. We enjoyed a Bluegrass trio called "Black Mountain Railroad", none of whom were from Black Mountain, NC. They were good and played "Fox on the Run", a Charlie Waller tune for me twice because I couldn't hear much of it the first time. Home late with extra full bellies.
Thursday we went to Cherokee to learn about the Indians. It is always an interesting trip over Soco Mountain. We went to the museum but spent most of the time in the lobby and never went inside. Instead we went to the Oconaluftee Village. There we had a guided tour featuring the life style of the early Cherokee. We saw finger weaving, primitive pottery weaving, arrow head making, bead weaving and blowgun making and shooting. One was 10 feet long and the "hunter" could hit a small bull's eye at 50 feet. We were all impressed. We had two group lectures telling about the dances and the heritage. They have seven different clans and are the only North American tribe to have a written language, developed by Sequoia in the 1700s. They were decimated by English induced small pox and later were removed from this area to Oklahoma by the dastardly Andrew Jackson. We left there and had native American Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. We searched around town for a colorful native piece for pottery for Janet. The Cherokee did not make much colorful pottery so she settled for a brown wedding vase. I forgot to tell how hard it rained while we were in transit from place to place. The blessing is that it almost never rained when we were out of the car or in a shop. We started home only to encounter a line of cars stopped due to a power line that had fallen on the hood of a car. The car was not drivable but the police directed the traffic around the power line across the highway. We stopped at Cabbage Rose in Maggie Valley and then came home for a nap. Since we had not eaten lunch until 2:30, we just had popcorn and ice cream for supper. We played Protestant Poker in the evening and then went happily to bed.
Tom and Janet left after I made eggs for breakfast, and we enjoyed lounging around most of the day. It rained a lot so there was not much we could have done anyway. I did find a video of "South Pacific" I had bought at the library book sale last week and we watched part of that. We ate a light lunch of leftovers at 3:00 so we would not be loaded up for the snack buffet that would be served at the ball room dance we planned to attend in the evening. There was not as much as offered at the dance last month but an adequate amount. We met several more nice people and talked at length with a retired Methodist bishop from Kansas and his wife visiting their son-in-law who is the pastor at Long's Chapel where our builder, Sharon, worships. We may see them again because they told us about a tennis club they play in. We came home and returned to bed where we had spent most of the day.