Monday Mug Shot

North Carolina

This morning I made breakfast for David and me. David had eggs over easy, sausage, toast and orange slices with pineapple-orange-apple juice. We’ve been getting the POA juice a lot lately because we both really like it. I had toast and sausage too and of course coffee, but I did a fruit plate with yogurt instead of eggs. My fruit plate was fresh bananas and orange slices with Howell Melon and raspberry Whips yogurt. YUM!

Saturday I met my Dad, Aunt Judy, Sheri and her Dad for lunch at Cracker Barrel in the Motherland. I had breakfast for lunch since David is not crazy about Cracker Barrel and although we do go once in a while, when we are out and about for breakfast it’s for train casing and there is NOT time for a sit-down breakfast. I LOVE Cracker Barrel for breakfast, well, I love Cracker Barrel period, but I hadn’t had breakfast there in quite a while and was really in the mood for biscuits and gravy with turkey sausage!

I was in the Motherland because I was getting together with girlfriends Saturday night and I never pass up the opportunity to make the most of my gas budget when I travel to Michigan. When we left Cracker Barrel, Pop had a gift for me - A huge bag from the Farmer’s Market in Hartland! I’ve mentioned before that one of the areas where David and I are very different is that he wasn’t raised with an abundance of fresh fruits and veggies. Oh, he had plenty of veggies as a kid, just not fresh ones in the variety of kind and preparation that I was raised with. Often times, he’ll stop and pick up grocery essentials on the way home from work. When he calls and asks me what’s on the list on the dry erase board on the refrigerator, I’ll say “bananas” ad he’ll tell me we’ll get bananas when we both go because he doesn’t know how to pick out the good ones. No problem there, because I don’t want him bringing me ten green bananas that will all be ripe at the same time so most of them become overripe! I usually buy three almost yellow ones because like them yellow with no green or brown on the skin.

So, right now, while I don’t have an income, fresh fruits and veggies are an occasional thing. Honestly, that leaves me insanely craving the fresh stuff often! (Except for salad and carrots - David picks those out fine and I always have them!) But Pop, who thinks this non-veggie freak man is otherwise perfect for his princess, totally understands the insane craving for a large and bountiful variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. That need was instilled in me by him and he always has the greatest edible gifts! Saturday, he gave me 2 cantaloupes, ten zucchinis, including 2 yellow zucchinis and a half dozen fresh tomatoes. David and I went grocery shopping yesterday and I added the bananas and oranges for this morning’s breakfast feast and also got some carrots, tabouleh and fresh parsley for the French preparation I’ll use for a tomato dish tonight. I’ll likely post that recipe here some time this week, so keep an eye out for it.

Now I bet you’re wondering what all of this fresh veggie talk has to do with a North Carolina mug? Well, it does tie in! The North Carolina mug is about something David hasn’t done that I did do with my Dad!

David is a well-travelled man! Just in this country alone, he has been to 46 of the 50 states. Easy guess is that Hawaii and Alaska are two of the 4 missing ones. I haven’t been to those either. But the other two? The Carolinas! David hasn’t bee to either North or South Carolina! This mug reminds me of a trip to Myrtle beach, by way of West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina that I took with my parents in 1994.

My Dad is a fan of The Andy Griffith Show. As we were driving on the freeway, we saw signs for Pilot Mountain, the place in North Carolina for which the TV show’s “Mount Pilot,” “the city,” to Maybury townsfolk, was named. Pop chuckled about driving to “Mount Pilot.”

As we got closer to Pilot Mountain, we could see the very define shape ahead and Pop suggested stopping. How could Mom and I say “no?” He was giggling like a star-stuck kid! So, we got off the exit to Pilot Mountain.

Let me first say, that Mount Pilot and Maybury are TV fiction, especially the part where Mount Pilot is “the city!” Pilot Mountain is a woodsy area with a park, picnic tables, trails, not a city or even town at all! We pulled into the park and took the cooler to a picnic table for a snack. We had driven up quite a way and it was just a beautiful area. There was a walking/climbing trail near where we were sitting and Pop wanted to see what there was to see . Mom didn’t want to do the hike, but I was eager to join! So Pop and I went for a walk on the rock trail.

Some of the trail was level walking ground, but most of it was crawling along a mild rock climb. I’d say it was, as far as rock climbing goes, probably junior novice level, but as neither Pop nor I had ever done any actual rock climbing before, that was pretty ambitious for us! We climbed all the way to the summit of Pilot Mountain and for our effort got just a breathtaking view of North Carolina.

Of course, my camera was down at the picnic table with Mom so it wouldn’t get banged up on the climbing parts of the hike, so I don’t have any pictures of that spectacular view. What I do have is a mug with a drawn picture that reminds me of it and the vivid pictures in my mind of the hike, the beautiful view and a special memory of that just father-daughter adventure.