Ridgecrest Days One & Two

Day One:
We arrived in Ridgecrest, North Carolina after an evening wedding (that Mike performed), a drive to LAX from Cherry Valley, a red eye flight (with very little sleep for myself)to Charlotte, a 20 minute drive into Fort Mill, South Carolina to go to Starbucks (just so we can now say we’ve set foot in South Carolina), and finally a two hour drive to Ridgecrest, North Carolina. The drive was beautiful and we saw a LOT of trees and some beautiful houses and churches along the way. When we arrived at Ridgecrest it was about 10am (7am our time). Basically we entered our apartment and I slept for a good hour and a half while Addison played with everything from the suitcases and Mike took a shower. After this Mike took Addie on a walk trough Ridgecrest to explore. When I got up we decided to drive to eat somewhere and then go to Walmart to get some breakfast foods. We ended up at Sonic, which was pretty good and then off to the Walmart Super Center. It was one of the nicest Walmart’s I’ve ever been to. When we got back to the apartment we all took about a two hour nap, which was super nice. After this we got up and drove into Asheville and ate dinner at Mellow Mushroom. We went to one of these in Tennessee and absolutely loved it. This one was good, but a little different. The food was still good, but we had a strange lady come up to us during dinner and she stood extremely close to Mike and asked if we had bifocals and then preceded to say she knew it sounded weird and kind of slurred her words. I think she wasn’t quite all there. It was just sort of awkward more than anything. After dinner we walked around downtown Asheville a little bit and we were able to enjoy the beauty of the buildings mixed with the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We drove near the Biltmore Estate (it’s the biggest house in the US with about 250 room, I believe) but we didn’t go onto the grounds because it costs way too much for us. After driving around Asheville and then back through Swannanoa and Black Mountain we came back and skyped with my parents and watched some fireflies. It was pretty cool and I tried taking some video of them, but it’s hard to tell when they’re on the screen.

Day Two:
This morning Addie and I woke up at about 10am which was a very nice night of sleep for both of us. We got ready (making sure to put lots of sunscreen on) and Mike came back from a meeting and then off we went to have some BBQ at a place called Okie Dokie’s Smokehouse. It was pretty good, not the best I’ve ever had, but still tasty. We came back to the camp and Mike greeted the youth pastors at registration. In case some of you are wondering what we are doing in North Carolina I’ll tell you. Mike is a consultant for Lifeway Christian Resources (they basically put out church curriculum) and for the last few years he has been asked to come to their main conference centers and train the youth pastors of the students who come to camp. While the students are in specialized tracks, which is anything from hiking to arts and crafts, Mike will be able to hang out and train youth leaders and volunteers from the over 60 churches that are here this year. There is about 1600 students at camp this week. One of the largest I’ve ever heard of and that they’ve had so far this summer (we’re at week 3)!! Is is a greta opportunity for Mike and a wonderful opportunity for us as a family to travel to a state we haven’t been to before. Also, I have to pay for my flight and this is the last time we can fly before Addie turns 2 and we have to pay for a seat on the plane. Tonight we will eat dinner in the cafeteria here with a whole lot of southern teenagers.It should be fun and tomorrow we may go to the Arboretum in Asheville so, I’ll keep you posted. We don’t have internet in our apartment here so I have to write this when I’m in one of the many other buildings. I also forgot my cable for the camera back in the apartment so I will have to post pictures and video stuff tomorrow. So sorry! More to come tomorrow.