Christmas 2002 We fly to North Carolina, visiting family in Charlotte and Asheville | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| In Charlotte - some of the specialized small machines that my dad made himself, for creating his miniature furniture. |     Alex, Juanita, Tom, Eric and I went out to a Vietnamese restaurant - I ordered a basil seed drink that I didn't like all that much. Very interesting texture, though. We were celebrating Juanita's birthday - she's just one day older than me. |   Christmas Eve we spent with my mom, Les, and Tom. |   Eric playing with Kormi | This stucco job in the South Park area was one of my father's biggest, back when he was doing stucco work. |   December 25th we drove to Asheville to spend the rest of our time with Eric's family. We actually got some snow, which you can see on the ground outside! |   Kevin with Jessie. | Jessie got some presents as well. |   Eric's parents Ann and Ken behind a wall of presents. |   For dinner that night - Beef Wellington. This picture was taken on our new tripod, a gift from Kevin. | Working on a train jigsaw puzzle - actually, Ken's gift. |   Visiting the Grove Park Inn |   Mr. Grove made his money selling patent medicine. There's a display of some of the old advertisements for the medicine. |   There was also a gingerbread contest. Some truly amazing creations. It was fun to look at the individual elements, and figure out what food it was from (sticks of gum were used as shingles, etc.). A common element was lots and lots of frosting. |     The grand prize winner |   A view of the new spa area. |   Huge covered patio |   A nice view of the Blue Ridge mountains nearby |   This must be about the biggest fireplace I've seen |   At the Smith McDowell house museum. I believe this is the oldest brick home in Asheville. |   They did a good job of disguising the light switch here. | Visiting Dillsboro |   At a model train musuem in Bryson City |   The founder of the musuem | Afterwards, Ken bought a set of railroad overalls. |   Dinner - orange roughy | We also took an overnight trip to visit Chapel Hill, my alma mater. This is Ruffin, one of my dorms. I was on the top floor, in the corner. |   Another view of Ruffin | Alexander, my first dorm, was undergoing a tremendous construction job. |   Davis library - I spent many hours here. |   Inside the library |   I worked at this desk for one semester. | ...and sorted these newspapers a lot! |   The stacks | The student union, with a view to the pit. |   Davis Library and the student union (which was closed). | Greenlaw. This is where I had some English classes. |   Bingham, another of my classroms. | The undergraduate library is completely renovated, so I don't recognize anything. |   My honors thesis is kept at Wilson Library. It's entitled "Reading the Word and the World - A Comparison of Literacy Programs". Rereading it, I'm amazed how left-leaning I was in those days. | An excerpt from my thesis |   The campus is attractive, but run down. |   The Old Well. |   Franklin Street. There was a beggar about every 20 feet, it seemed like. | The laundry that I used when I was a freshman. We walked in it, and it was a mess - all kinds of trash and leaves on the floor. I said loudly, "What a pigsty!". Turned out there was some maintenance workers right in the next room, with the door open. |   Gimghoul Castle | From the back |   Very small windows. In the words of one visitor - "Light is not its forte". | Front door |   Back porch | The neighborhood around Gimghoul Castle is now on the Historic Register, and has lots of interesting old homes. |       Visiting Mike and Vicki Lake | They have some huge quartz boulders in their yard |   Kevin with Jessie in front of his townhouse, which he'll soon be selling. | There was an amazing sunset on the way back to Ashville. |   Walking around Kimberly Road, saw some interesting houses and lots of evidence of the ice storm |       A hike with Brian to the Dupont state park. It's an interesting area with lots of exposed rock |     I was surprised that a lot of the trail was sandy, and not muddy at all. |     We met a guy with some ferrets at Hooker Falls. | Some nice views on the drive home. |    I had to stop and get a picture of this nativity scene, using department store mannequins | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||