Monday, October 14, 2013

Fall RV Trip Day 2 - Salisbury

We woke up on Saturday to this view:


Yes, I went out into the parking lot with my PJs on and no shoes and took this picture. It was only appropriate given our location ;)

It was time to leave Walmart for our destination for the weekend (you can only park in the Walmart lot overnight). We packed up and headed to Dan Nichols State Park in Salisbury. It was very lovely. However. Do you know where Salisbury is located? It's just north of Charlotte, NC. Do you know what is huge in Charlotte? NASCAR. Do you know what weekend it was in Charlotte? Race weekend. Do you know what that means? NO SPOTS ANYWHERE. Yep. lack of planning. Who knew that there wouldn't be camping spots anywhere in Salisbury, NC. Have you ever heard of Salisbury, NC?


Fortunately for us, Brandon's dad had already contacted the owner of a trucking company that is right next door to his grandmother's house (we can't get into the driveway of her house with this monster). He agreed to let us dry camp in the lot there. Whew!!

So this is our spot for the weekend. Isn't it great? It is right next door to everyone, though, so that's a bonus.


We went to breakfast at .... if you know me, you know where we ate breakfast! We're on the road, for crying out loud. There's only one place for breakfast when you're on the road as far as I'm concerned. Where do you think we stopped?

We went back to the house and the kids played while we figured out our plans for the day. They  LOVED raking leaves and jumping into the piles.















Later on that evening Brandon's mom told me that my littlest one asked her to pretend that she (my daughter) was a slave and that Gran was a slave owner. "Now, you tell us what to do, and we'll rake the leaves and then you're not going to like it and you're going to get very angry," she told her. Cute. My little director. I promise, she will be in some sort of profession that allows her to be in complete control.

While the kiddos played in the leaves, Brandon and I and Angela and Nathan (Brandon's brother and his wife - our sis-in-law - I hate saying "his wife" - sounds so cold) went on the October Tour. This is a tour of homes they have each year. This is an historic town in NC and the homes are gorgeous.

We were enjoying our tours and then we came to this house:


We call it the happy house. Oh my my my. I really should've taken pictures inside to give you a better idea. Little did I know that it would be the highlight of the day!

So we go inside (with many other people on the tour) and the owner of the home proceeds to tell us about his home. Nothing in it is original save the front doors because it was butchered up into apartments at one time and then fell into disrepair for some time before he bought it to restore.

As I was looking around I thought that several of the graphic arts posters on the wall were pretty cool. Until he started talking about them. Oh.my.goodness. Instead of telling us about the house, he told us about every.single.thing. in the house and his collections. And his collections began to reveal something about him. Now, normally we'll go on tours like this and it's obvious when the owners are gay which happens a lot on these type of tours). And that doesn't bother me. But this guy. He was, well, odd. Straightaway we had an inkling that he was gay, but no problem. Until he started to tell us about the Boys D-Lite costumes on the wall that were one time used in Boy Scout camps. And the media room with movie posters where the Brokeback Mountain poster was specifically pointed out. And the working vintage toys (so many of them ... like Michael Jackson's Neverland). It was just kind of odd and I know I cannot communicate to you well just how odd it was.

When we went into the next room I saw a couple stealthily back their way out of the room and the tour and I wanted to be them. We then went into the kitchen. Which was pretty cool. Until. After we were all in the kitchen ready for the docent to speak, we turned behind us and saw "Wake up GAY in the morning" posters. Several of them. And gay bobby pins. And other gay things. I mean that everything on the wall had the word GAY. It was a whole gay wall. Yes. An entire GAY WALL. I started giggling. Because it was so gay. Gay means happy, right? And then the docent began speaking. And telling about the Boy Scouts cereal advertisements on the wall to our right. And I almost lost it. I found a screen door just to my left and I scurried outside. Angela promptly followed. We were laughing so hard that we couldn't speak. I was trying to tell her that what got me so tickled was that the docents were pointing out EVERY.SINGLE.THING. on every single wall in the house and I wondered if she was going to turn our attention to that wall and point out all the gay collections on the gay wall. And I just got tickled. And you know how it is when you're not supposed to be laughing and then you get tickled.

We waited on the boys, who stayed on the tour. Go figure. We talked about this all weekend an laughed and laughed. Maybe it's a location thing, but it still cracks me up. We'll never forget the Happy House.

Then we completed our fall tour and went back home, got cleaned up, and went to dinner.

Oh, I must share picture of the homes:









Dinner was AWESOME. Some of the best food I have ever had anywhere. And I have eaten a lot of good food. It was called Coopers. Fitting since we have a Cooper in the family (the only boy this weekend - bless his heart) and Brandon's mother's maiden name is Cooper.

We went home after a long and fun day and slept hard. I'm hoping are able to explore the downtown Salisbury area a bit today before we head off for God-only-knows-where, Virginia.

1 comment:

  1. Why yes. I do know where Salisbury, NC is but that is only because we lived outside of Charlotte for several years and visited Dan Nichols Park several times. I'm bummed that you guys didn't get to visit there as it is a pretty awesome place but it sounds like you guys have fun no matter what you do or where you go. :) I remember race weekends all to well. Always crazy! LOVEd the fall leaf pics and those houses are gorgeous! Love the Walmart pic too. ;)

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