Just Say Yes!

Hi All!

We’ve decided this is the year to “just say yes”! What does that mean? Basically, we’ll say “yes” to everything that comes our way that even remotely interests us. Let’s face it, once we move where it’s warm, the opportunity to see the bands we love, hike in the mountains & eat whatever we want will be limited to visits home so this year we’re not going to miss a single thing!

Our year of saying “yes” started with a mid-week trip to Charlottlesville to see a band we both love, Neutral Milk Hotel. Jeff’s lyrics are absolute genius & his band is possibly the most talented group I’ve ever seen. We’ve been lucky enough to see them twice in the past year. Normally we’d turn down a Tuesday night concert that’s hours away but not during the year of saying “yes”! We had some credit card points saved up so we treated ourselves to a hotel in walking distance to tons of restaurants, bars & the show.

We spent the day after the show hiking up a waterfall, through the woods & ending in a deserted meadow where we sat on logs and had lunch. I love being so far into the wilderness that there’s not a single unnatural sound. There was just the sound of rushing water, the wind in the trees, bugs chirping & birds singing. There’s nothing more peaceful. This hike is called ‘crab tree falls’ & if you’re ever in Charlottlesville, I would definitely recommend it. At the top, continue for a couple of miles through the woods to reach the hanging valley where we stopped for lunch. The upper part of the trail was definitely our favorite as most hikers stop at the top of the falls and head back down.

Our year of saying “yes” continued with a long weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. What a cool little town! There’s a great variety of bars and restaurants within walking distance including the concert venues for the shows that brought us to town. Friday night we saw “The Great Lake Swimmers” who we absolutely love! They normally don’t play  outside of Canada and the northern US so when we saw they were playing just 4 hours away there was no way we’d miss it! If you don’t know them, check them out … they can be a bit on the somber side but I love Tony’s voice & lyrics and the band’s mix of instruments pulls their whole sound together beautifully. Luckily, “Built to Spill”, an old favorite was playing Sunday night so we explored the area for the weekend before seeing the show and heading home on Monday.

I loved the way the roots bordered the river

The area just outside Chapel Hill offers some pretty day hikes within a 30 minute drive. We only had one day to hike and decided to visit Eno River State Park. We spent a good portion of the day hiking along the river listening to the rushing water which we don’t have near us & something I miss from my days of hiking in New England. We saw a huge variety of birds & snakes including a water snake eating a catfish! It’s definitely one of our top nature encounters.

It took it over an hour to ingest the whole fish

We capped off the day with beers at a local brewery followed by the best Greek food I’ve ever had! The restaurant had the feel of visiting the long lost Greek family you never knew you had 🙂  Everything we ordered was wonderful & we were able to sit outside on their 2nd floor porch which gave us a great chance to do some people watching while we ate and reflected on the day.

Before checking out and driving home Monday morning we made one last trip to a coffee & breakfast bar just 2 blocks from our hotel actually named after one of us! I won’t post a pic of the sign or the name of the place to maintain our anonymity for now but this place had the BEST biscuit sandwiches & breakfast burritos! We usually like to try out different places when we travel but I’ll admit we went to the this place all three mornings. We also had dinner twice at the same place, The Spotted Dog, which was extremely vegetarian friendly! They had a variety of unique homemade veggie burgers and soy based chicken to sub for regular chicken in any dish. Since we don’t eat meat this was a great find!

this guy came to visit us while we had breakfast on the outdoor patio on our last day.

I’m not sure what our next “just say yes” adventure will be but so far we’ve had a GREAT time!

What could you say “yes” to?

6 days from now we’ll be in Utila, underwater, listening to our own bubbles and exploring the island. CAN’T WAIT!

Until next time …

Warm thoughts to all!