Babysitting

With the Schoolteacher Daughter and Spouse having a big time in Europe, The Fuzz and His Sweetie had a turn at babysitting the Granddaughter.

The Fuzz says there's nothing like trying to keep up with a young'un to make you feel your age. 

But it is a little reminder of how things used to be.

The Fuzz and His Sweetie were able to relocate to the home for these few days, which was probably an advantage since it was a familiar place.

 In these situations it's nice to have the opportunity for diversions...

And this splash pad  was a handy one.

And there was a playground handy as well.

This little Imp will climb anything!

But it was a good place to hang around.

We won't go into the diaper changes and all that...

Or the fact that you can't take your eyes off her for 5 minutes with out some sort of mischief.

But one of the advantages of Grandparenting is that eventually, you get to go home.

And The Fuzz and His Sweetie were properly relieved from their post.

They were glad to spend a bit of time with one of the younger members of the family- and be helpful at the same time.

But lets just say that they were also glad to be able to get back to the woods!

Falls Park on the Reedy

Another year had flown by for The Fuzz.  At this point it's no big deal.  Turning 18 might be - or 21 to be sure.  But that was a long time ago.  And at Our Fuzz's time of life - it's just one more.

Still....

This day only comes once a year and His Sweetie asked him if he wanted to do anything special to mark the occasion.

After some thought he mentioned a movie he had been wanting to see, and if it was in town, he would kinda like that.  But, being a "limited release" of course it wasn't.

That's one drawback to living out here in the country.

But she had been wanting to take him down to South Carolina ever since she had been to Greenville with some of her friends.  So she suggested that he check online to see if it was playing there.

Having internet makes living in the sticks not quite as bad as some might expect.

Greenville S.C. is a pretty big place, The Fuzz would call it a "Big City".  And the flick was playing there.  And they both enjoyed it.

But that's not the subject of this post.

One reason His Sweetie wanted to get The Fuzz down there was to see Falls Park.

And it was worth the trip.

The Park is right there in the middle of the Big City.

This will be mostly pix-

In case you haven't guessed that by now.

Like a lot of American cities this one was originally built along the Reedy River which provided a handy source of power.

And like a lot of other places, when industrialization came, this area went down.

But as can be seen, eventually people realized what they had lost and decided to try and turn things around.

But why "Falls Park"?

Of Course!

These next shots of the falls were made from the Liberty Bridge.

This is a cool suspension across the gorge with a great view.

And...

The Fuzz had to get a few pix of the bridge as well.

It seems to be a pretty popular place.

And interesting with the curve...

And the cables.

Falls Park is a nice place to pass an afternoon.

The gardens are beautiful.

This small stream flows in from one side.

How about these natural stone stairways?

Then it was time for a burger & beer before getting back to the woods, and home.

 

Port City-Big City

The Fuzz and His Sweetie had decided to have a bit of Big City time, just for fun.

Wilmington, N.C. is not far from Topsail Island, and in comparison to Topsail Beach, certainly qualifies as a Big City.

But it is a bit of a "you can't get there from here" situation.

The Fuzz does realize that this simply means that one must first get someplace else from here, and from thence, to there.

Topsail Beach is of course located on Topsail Island.

And Topsail Island is of course, an island!

Whereas the "Port City" is in fact, not.

So  this will require either a ferry, or a bridge.

The closest actual bridge is located up the island at Surf City.

And so we have this situation.

First a drive up to Surf City and across the drawbridge over the ICW.  Then out to the highway and south towards the Big City.

The first stop was the "Goodwill" store, and then, while The Fuzz still had a bit of his sanity left, downtown.

 

The traffic in Wilmington can get a little unpleasant at times.  But The Fuzz's Sweetie grew up in a Big City and handles it pretty well.

Finding a parking spot on Front St. can be a problem.  So they just decided to bite the bullet and pay for a spot on a parking deck...

With a view.

There are a lot of shops and all in this area.  In fact it's sort of the Tourist Destination while at the various beaches.

The Fuzz's plans called for a stop at

"Old Books on Front St."

The Fuzz highly recommends a stop here if one is inclined towards these things-

But be prepared to spend some time!

The Fuzz and His Sweetie were not particularly interested in the other shops, as they had been through here during summer beach trips before.

But a bit of lunch was called for.

So they walked up the street to the Front Street Brewery, and had some lunch and a pint.

It was very good.

Besides the beer, they seem to have quite a bar going on.

The Fuzz was tempted to use this for a Mystery Pix, but managed to get over it.

After taking care of the hungries, it was time to go down to the Riverwalk for some fun.

Whilst His Sweetie amused herself with her sketching, The Fuzz got out his camera and took a walk.

Here's a look at a bit of the waterfront.

And since this is the "Port City"...

Here's a look down river toward the "port."

Wilmington is also home to the Battleship North Carolina -

Which is right across the river.

The Fuzz could have stopped here...

But didn't!

If the reader is inclined so...

They may continue for a bit below

☟

A Breezy Afternoon

After his Sunrise Morning Excursion, The Fuzz pretty much holed up back at the Hotel.

It was cold out there.

But by the evening he was ready to give it another go.  So he bundled up, and headed back to the beach.

With all the wind, the sea was kinda rough.

But that wasn't stopping the birdies.

The Fuzz has a thing for trying to catch those guys in flight.

And they were out there right in the surf.

While he was out, he decided to check out the other side of town.

For those who might be unfamiliar with Topsail Beach...

There's not really that much to it.

Of course, that is part of the attraction - at least for The Fuzz.

The "other side of town" is the "Sound" side of the island.

It's a whole different thing.

More birdies, but less flying.

But by now it was getting late and more rain was moving in.

So it was back to the Hotel for The Fuzz.

More Looking Back (Trips)

When we left Our Over Confident Fuzz and His Sensible Sweetie, they were looking for a Hotel on their way to Oklahoma.

They found a pretty nice one.

After a good night's sleep- sans windstorm- they got back on the road.

It seemed that their timing for this part of the trip put them in the middle of tornado season or something.

Maybe it's always tornado season out there.

So...

They dropped the idea of the KOA campground and set up in another hotel.

This was becoming a trend!

Here they had an all too brief visit with family.

But they did get to enjoy some time at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

They saw the bueatiful glass art of Dale Chihuly.

It would be hard to describe-

So here's a picture! 

Next it was back on the road to visit more family in Texas.

They spent a few days there near Huston and even made it to the zoo.

It was a nice visit.

But then it was back on the road again.

This time for Mammoth Cave National Park, in Kentucky.

They couldn't make that all in one shot, so there was another stop for lodging in Arkansas.

This was another nice quiet little place.

And the next day after just barely touching Missouri, the made it to the park.

That was a nice campground.

It was good to get back in the camping mode again after all those cities and hotels!

Lots of wildlife.

Being retired, The Fuzz and His Sweetie don't have to confine their trips to weekends.  And this was still early June, so kids would mostly still be in school.  So they had the place mostly to themselves.

Of course there were people going into the cave-

As did the Fuzz and His Sweetie.

The next stop was supposed to be in Tennessee, but that didn't really work out all that well.

Since that hadn't worked out, they went on to spend a couple of nights in the North Carolina Mountains at Cheoah Point Campground.

That was pretty nice also.

Amazingly, this is right next to the infamous-

Dragon's Tail motorcycle route.

But the Fuzz didn't have his bike, so he'll have to come again some time.

When The Fuzz stepped into the "facilities", he found this on the door.

Later he googled "Leina Kunst and found this.

Well, Art in a Toilet.

From there it was back to Their Home in the Woods!

That was quite an adventure.

But there were more ahead.

But we'll have to look into those at another time.