Hanging Out in the Sticks

North Carolina is known for a lot of things other than just Duke and UNC basketball, and on Monday morning we headed west to experience country life.

After a stop at Waffle House for breakfast, we hopped onto the highway and passed by numerous chain restaurants that we don't have back home, like Bojangles, Hardee's (aka Carl's Junior), Biscuitville, and even KFC buffet. Our first actual stop was Bill Davis Racing in High Point, NC. BDR may not be as famous as some of the other racing shops in North Carolina, but unlike the others, they allow you to walk directly onto the floor of shop, and to get an up close and personal view of the cars and trucks driven by Dave Blaney, Mike Skinner, and Johnny Benson. Ava was pretty ambivalent about the whole experience, but the mechanics definitely liked her.
Right down the street from BDR are the offices of W. Schillig, where our friends Kristy and John work. W. Schillig makes high end leather couches and sectionals, and MARKET (the giant international furniture trade show) had just ended, so Kristy and John took us downtown to see the W. Schillig showroom. It wasn't just like going to a furniture store. Imagine every furniture store you've ever seen in your life put into huge buildings. From the outside you wouldn't have any idea what was inside, but once there it's one giant showroom after another. Ava enjoyed playing with Kristy, and crawling around all the furniture.
Not far away is the world's largest freestanding chest of drawers (smaller than the chest of drawers at Furnitureland South, but this one isn't just stuck onto the outside of a building).
Afterward, we headed to semi-rural Sophia, NC to the O'Rourke house, which isn't too far away from High Point, but it might as well be a world away. While Kristy and John live in a small development, it's not like any development in Southern California. Rather, they have a nice big house on an acre of land with lots of trees. It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else - just down the road to their house you pass by a cow pasture, and the little neighbor girl drives up on her electric ATV (her gas powered one wasn't running) to ask if Kristy and John's 2 year old Jack can come out to play. While we were there, Ava played with Jack (who looooves bubbles), and with their cat Dakota. Ava had never met a cat before, and wasn't really sure what to make of him, but didn't mind him at all. Sophia isn't too far from Winston-Salem, so we went with Kristy and John to Old Salem. Salem was settled by the Moravians in the mid-18th century, and is now a well-preserved living history sight (sort of like Colonial Williamsburg). We wandered around town, talked with craftsmen like a gunsmith, and had lunch at the olde tavern.It was great to be able to spend a couple days with our friends, and unlike previous vacations we were able to spend a good amount of time just relaxing and hanging out.