Return to Seven Sisters

My Thanksgiving travels have taken me to Black Mountain, NC, where I'm spending a few days with my mom, dad, and sister before we travel on to the other side of the mountain where we'll meet the rest of the family for Thanksgiving.

I last explored Black Mountain back when 1996 turned to 1997, and we spent the New Year's holiday here.  The place has changed in many ways.  There are more brewpubs now.  I don't think that there were any here 20 years ago.  Last night, we went to a place that had mostly beers from local breweries.  Twenty years ago, there might have been a beer or two.  Last night, there were about 15, and most of them were on tap.

Black Mountain is still as arts-based as it ever was. Lots of artsy craftsy shops, studios, and people. On one of the main streets, there's a quilt shop and a yarn shop in the same block, which says something about the place. There are also signs in windows reminding people to pick up their pecans that the Rotary Club is selling. It's very charming.

As a person with an extra cottage, I'm happy to have an air bnb experience.  We're staying in a small house.  I thought it would be on a more isolated plot of land, but it's a neighborhood.  The house across the street has hounds in the yard.  The yards are scraggly, but that may be because we're in a colder time of the yard.  The house sizes are very mixed.  Our house has one bedroom on the bottom floor and the attic has been remodeled into a bedroom and bathroom.

It reminds me a bit of our gite in France, where my mom, dad, and I stayed.  That gite had been created out of half a garage--it looked like a garage from the outside, but the inside was charming.  This house is painted bright green and the front yard is very small.  But the inside of the house is much larger than you'd expect from the outside.

Today we'll explore Black Mountain or perhaps Asheville.  Every time I'm in these mountains, I'm so aware of all the exploring we could do and how little time we have.  I expect the same today.  But the exploring that we do will feed me in a way that little else can.

I'm still trying to do my visual journaling and writing a poem each day.  Last night, having been surrounded by the reference to the 7 sister mountain range, I made this sketch:

I am now realizing that I put the sunset at the wrong place.  But since it doesn't look like a sunset, maybe that's O.K.