It was one of those weekends where everything went just right. We had two car club events scheduled for Friday night and Saturday morning, but the remnants of a tropical storm threatened to scuttle our plans. On Friday nights all summer long, our small town does free band concerts called Music on Main. People bring their interesting cars to park on the road, paying a $5 fee to be in the show which goes to charity. We always have a fun time, and go as often as we can. We had a discussion as to whether or not our new car would be welcome, but the Classic Car Club members in charge of the show said yes, they’d love to have us park on the street with the newer models. Our white two-seat convertible Fiat Spider is still a bit rare in this part of the country. The car next to us is a replica kit car.
We parked and walked just a block off Main street to a new restaurant called Olive or Twist on the corner of Barnwell and Church. If you are local, or you come up to visit, have a meal here. The food is really good, and they specialize in small appetizer plates, and specialty martinis. I like having a meal like that, shared with friends, ordering a bunch of appetizers and grazing off all the choices. The four of us at the table had shrimp cocktail, spinach artichoke dip with chips, smoked trout, baja fish tacos, fried oysters and a tuna-tini. This was the second time I have eaten here and the food was consistently good. In the evening, they have a light jazz group playing live music and we enjoyed that before the main concert on the center stage began downtown.
The band was Special Edition, playing lots of oldies from mostly the 1970s and 80s. This is a permanent stage set up to do concerts and events in the summer and fall. It is downtown next to the Visitors Center. I’ve done posts on this summer music series with car shows before, and you can see more on Summer Fun and Friday Night in a Small Town.
Further down, the rest of our British contingent were mostly parked together.
Lots of other old cars were there too, I won’t show you all the pictures I took, LOL, but they will be on our BCCWNC.org website in a couple of days. I need to collect the rest of the pictures the guys took.
The rain stayed west until after the concert was over and we were home. Whew, dodged the first downpour, now for Saturday’s event. We were a bit afraid that the rain would extend into the morning as it rained most of the night, but we got up to mostly clear skies. Meeting up with a bunch more club members in a parking lot in Fletcher, we were in for a wonderful drive. We set out on Mills Gap Road heading up to Hooper’s Creek.
Through lovely green areas with trees and lots of fresh grass, fragrant from the overnight rain. The clouds were building, but we hoped for the best.
Out in West Henderson county, we stopped for a brief photo-op of these huge cow statues. If you are local and want to see them, they are on Old Clear Creek Road. We were told that the Paul Bunyon statue is nearby, but we didn’t look for it.
We wound around the apple orchards, with the trees heavy with ripening fruit. We still have about 8 weeks to go to get fresh apples. With the abundant rain and sunshine, it should be a good harvest.
More of our beautiful roads, our route took almost an hour.
Our destination was Troyer’s Amish Farm. I posted about this wonderful place last year, showing a lot more of the farm and the country store. Click Here to see more. Members parked on the green, and had our lunch in their new pavilion behind the cars.
They have added to the gardens as well.
After lunch, we caravan drove over to a members home, like we do every year, to see Mary Alice’s gardens and have dessert. Her home was on the Garden Tour from Asheville this year, and they estimate that they had about 1000 people visit their garden over the course of the event. You can see why, her gardens are just wonderful, full of flowers and veggies! That is her greenhouse next to their home at the top of the hill.
I’ve shown her gardens before too, click on Mary Alice’s Garden to see more of her gorgeous flowers, along with the treehouse and some of the other features of their home.
She has a new ‘she-shed’ for potting and doing the artistic things she does. It is all reclaimed wood, and recycled windows. Built by husband, Terry, it is a true marvel, right next to the vegetable patch.
Inside is rustic, and the creek can be heard babbling just outside the shed. I love the old glass.
Inside her home on her table, she has a chrysalis house. She has found a number of monarch chrysalis on her plants, and brought them inside to protect them until the butterflies emerge. As usual, she had the perfect thing to keep them, a little metal house with glass panels to use as an incubator.
Thankfully, the rain held off until the club members had toured the gardens and eaten most of the three cakes offered for dessert. We sprinted for the car as the rain came on, thankful that we made it through both events before it let loose.
What did you do this weekend?
Sharing
From My Carolina Home 
Looks like a fun day.
I wrote to you last summer, asking to use your pattern for Scrap Dance Tango for our guilds mystery quilt. Our historian took some (awful) photos of Show and Tell and I have posted them to the Flickr page. Some members had shown theirs earlier but I was unable get photos. Thakyou again. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Susan Gray
Thank you for sharing your fun filled weekend. What a delight Mary Alice’s garden is! Several of the small towns here in Michigan have weekly concerts in the park that we enjoy going to. The talent of local artists always impresses me. I just arrived home from the Shipshewana Quilt Festival in Indiana. It is an annual event including a quilt and vendor exhibit with several well known quilters who give lectures and workshops. I like to attend the “Schoolhouse'” which is held in a local school with qualified quilting instructors showing new quilting techniques, products etc. I always come home with more fabric and ideas.
looks like a fun weekend – this morning I have been busy getting a brunch ready for late morning and sitting around on the porch – a lovely low humidity weekend!!
Thank you for sharing the photos of those gorgeous cars and the garden! Mary Alice is my kind of person. I have a modest garden at my new house in South Carolina, but Mary Alice’s is the kind of garden I would love to have. And I would love to have a she-shed like her! My husband has his Garage Mahal, so maybe it’s time to lobby for my own building. – Sandy
What a wonderful weekend you had! Thanks for sharing it. I loved the she-shed.
What a wonderful weekend, it was so good the weather held off for you. Love the garden and the she shed…the chrysalis incubator is a great idea. My Mum (in NZ) cuts a branch off the swan plant in late summer with the chrysalis on and outs them in a jar of water in her conservatory until the monarchs hatch out. I love seeing them fluttering about the garden. I had a sewing afternoon Saturday and we went to warch the sons play soccer on Sunday, was a two hour drive there and back, so a full day out., but really good to catch up with them. Thank y I u for sharing your great weekend.
Nothing nearly that much fun. =) My husband’s first car was a Spider he got from an ant. He loved working on that car. Yours is a beauty. Thanks, again, for taking us on a wonderful NC trip! I’d love to listen to jazz with dinner.
What a fun weekend, wish we had something like that in our area. Mary Alice’s garden is fabulous and I love her “she shed”. I think I may have found a new project for my own hubby.
Carolyn
Love Mary Alice’s garden. I would be thrilled to find monarch chrysalis. Her shed is delightful.
Looks like that was a lot of fun! Love the big cow statues
Wonderful photos. Thanks for the great card ideas. Love the clock thoughts and sentiments Just came home from a week in NC Taylorsville and Bolivia. We visited my friends Robert and Judy Lineburger in Hickory ,who belong to the British Car Club . We stayed with Ralph and Leona Herman of Taylorsville who have several antique cars they show. Thought you may have come in contact with them on your car adventures. Had many years of fun in my Triumph Spitfire and history of family who worked in the Triumph Factory… Finishing a quilt top made from blocks a special needs girl embroidered. On the frame today and using a simple stippling of pastle varigates thread. Thanks for your wonderful inspiration.
Carole, thank you for sharing at Gardens Galore! Mary Alice’s garden and she shed are just stunning. I will definitely look back at your previous post. The event with the old cars and music is very similar to our First Friday every month. Old cars line our downtown Main Street with live music, food vendors, and lots of family fun!
Hello Carole! I am missing you a lot, but in staying off of the computer, I am accomplishing a lot. I enjoyed seeing all of your lovely photos of your splendid day with your Husband and the car club. My Mom, Dad, Kevin and I all enjoy taking a ride through the mountain roads here whenever we can. It is always relaxing and so beautiful. Thank you for sharing this time with us. I really felt relaxed while reading and looking.
The progress I have made is wonderful, I got completely caught up with the Two Step Mystery Quilt Along. I learned a very important lesson with this quilt and that is that when making a scrap quilt 3 colors is not enough! At least not for me, unless maybe I had another 100 variations in each color I chose. I still think this quilt will turn out to be very pretty, but it would have a lot more pizzazz with more color variations. Now that I am finally all caught up, I can not wait for the next step!
Please, do not give up on me, I still have to put myself on a very strict computer time limit. But, at least now it will be more than just a moment or two. So I should be commenting more often. Have a great day!
Oh, I love going on these trips with you! And the white car is so cute! Hope you have a way to keep it clean, like a garage. After my husband got his second cardiac stent in less than a year, he decided not to wait until he retired and bought a used Porsche. Good thing he didn’t wait until we were any older, as it is already hard to get in and out of for me! But, it made him so happy it was worth the home equity loan, LOL!
Love hearing about the car club and seeing the pictures of all the cars. Banner Elk has a free summer concert series as well. Aren’t small towns great?
Hi there Carole,
Going back thru some of my e-mails and found this one about the Summer Music Trips you had taken and it brought back so many memories. Seen the little red coupe car and it reminded me of my dads
Little 37 chevy coupe he had when I was only about 6 yrs. old and use to ride in the space up by the back window cause there wasn’t very much room in the front, had a lot of fun there watching the people behind us. Dad liked to go for rides in the country down in Fla. when we lived there and then go to a little ice cream shop and hey made home made ice cream that was so good.. Brought back some good memories.
Phyllis