Over the weekend I decided to finally get rid of the old office chair sitting around. The youngest and I went out to the driveway with some tools and started dissembling it.
It didn't take long to make this chore into something more fun. What kind of seats could we make more comfortable with this old chair back?
As we were playing around we realized the chair is on wheels and our driveway is a hill. It was time to create the. . .
Chair of DOOM!
"Dad, is this safe?", she asked. I gave her the handles to hold onto.
Next up. . . more victims riders.
If I'm being honest, we were a little nervous about riding down and into the road at this point. So we were doing short rides and crashing into the grass. But that didn't last long. . .
It's so safe we even convinced a nurse to try it. Notice she opted for the extra safety of the handles.
Who knew an old chair destined for the trash would be so much fun? I'm thinking this weekend we all go out with our office chairs and RACE down the hill at the top of the street.
With mild fall weather the past week I spent several of my lunch hours looking for a quiet place to walk.
My first adventure took me to a nearby cemetery where I walked the paths. It was quiet around the cemetery and most of the time I was the only one out there. At one point I approached an area where I could hear the quiet music of some wind chimes.
This was a very peaceful walk and cemeteries are always an opportunity for an interesting story.
Among the graves was this one unique grave stone with the olympic rings etched into the corner.
After a brief search online I found a wikipedia page for this famous fencing athlete. Norman Armitage competed in the olympics during six olympic games.
Another lunch hour adventure last week took me to the campus of Furman University.
Walking around the lake and listening to the bell tower chime made for a relaxing lunch hour.
I found a sign that pointed back into the woods toward a prayer garden. On my way out from the prayer garden I noticed a small platform built in the woods, off the trail. There were two chairs on the deck and a fairly large sign.
I REALLY wanted to know what was written on that sign. I began walking into the woods and found myself at the edge of a muddy area. Without getting very muddy or digging my way through thick brush I was not going to discover the words on this sign.
I stood at the edge of the mud for a few minutes. I had to get back to work and I was not dressed for this adventure. I had to turn back without getting to the sign. BUT I will go back sometime in the future.
Taking some time to discover these quiet spaces makes for some of the most peaceful lunch hours.
The final highlight of our recent trip was a trip into Charlotte to see a NFL game between the Panthers and the Packers. This was our first time to the stadium and we were not disappointed.
Before you even get into the place the atmosphere tells you this will be fun. In every parking lot - tailgating. Fans for both teams wearing colors, jerseys, and cheese on their head (not panther fans). Fans on both sides sharing some friendly taunting about who will win (and who has cheese on their head). A drum line outside of the stadium. . .
We found our seats before going exploring and people watching. We were near the endzone - which I initially wasn't sure would provide a good view of the game, but turned out it was an amazing view of the game.
The stadium has a capacity of over 70,000 and they said it was a sold out event. That's a lot of football fans in one place.
A few things I want to mention about attending a game.
1. It's loud. I've been to several NASCAR races and, I'm telling you, the noise in that stadium when Cam Newton threw a touchdown pass is louder than 43 cars in a pack at Daytona.
2. I didn't realize how much the players communicate and give direction before a play.
3. It was fun watching the players interact and play to the crowd after a big play.
4. Oh man! It's loud. The sound is part of what made it so fun.
5. It's pretty rare to use your seat. You stand up and cheer the entire game.
6. Charlotte knows how to move traffic for events. I have been to NASCAR, NBA, and now NFL events in Charlotte and have never once had a problem parking or leaving an event.
Here is a collection of photos and short videos I took during the game:
Carolina won the game last Sunday and remain undefeated this season. We had an amazing time at the game. This wasn't part of our original trip but at the last minute we were gifted these tickets from a great friend. This made for an awesome finish to our trip.
Cari planned an amazing getaway for us this past weekend. By planning she planned a specific long weekend for us to get out of town just the two of us. The specifics were a little light but we are learning that sometimes those trips turn out the best.
We headed up to Asheville on the only day of our trip when rain wasn't expected so we took the opportunity to walk around town with the hippies and check out some yarn stores.
We can also tell you that the best stores were found along Walnut St. Always look for Walnut St on your adventures!
We woke up Saturday to some light rain that came and went with the hour. We decided to head up to the Blue Ridge Pkwy and see what views were available.
There was some sort of mountain marathon happening this day and traffic was picking up at one of the trail heads. We went further down the pkwy and did a short hike on a beautiful morning.
Watch where you step or you may find yourself scraping your shoes on the curb. . .
On the way back toward town we chased the elusive visitor center but never went far enough to find it so we hit the Asheville Outlets. We found the Outlets pretty un-inspiring and looked for another opportunity to be outdoors. A ten minute drive down the road lead us to the NC Arboretum.
We had visited once before but on this trip we took more time walking the nature trail in the light rain.
My fitbit went over 10,000 steps on Saturday.
Sunday morning we were headed to Charlotte to watch the undefeated Panthers take on the Greenbay Packers. This was another part of our trip that was initially unplanned. Just a few days before we were leaving I was telling a friend that we were going to be going away for the weekend. He told me he had two tickets to the Panther game that he couldn't use. He gifted those tickets to us and helped plan the last part of our trip.
That portion of our getaway deserves a blog of its own. . .
At the last minute we made some time in our schedule to stop and carve out some pumpkins on Halloween day. It was pretty close if we were going to make it or not this year.
We turned on some music and headed outside into the sunshine.
Instead of trick or treeting door to door we headed down to the old football stadium in town where churches, businesses, and groups set up tables around the track. We participated in giving out candy at our church's table and the kids had fun running around finding their classmates.
The city estimated that about 1,700 people attended last night. That's a lot of candy!
