We also went to Lake Fontana and saw the ginormous dam. (Biggest concrete dam east of the Rockies - fascinating, I know.) The lake is very pretty but the dam is very steep and I refused to walk across it. Alex said I was a scaredy cat. I'm okay with that.
We went to the Ranger Station at the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway and toured the Farmstead they have there, showing Alex the old-timey way things were done. He was horrified to know that they lived without running water, indoor bathrooms and electricity. The last straw for him was video games. This from a child whose only electronic devices are a portable DVD player and a handheld Leapster game. I do not look forward to the teenage years. He did think Mingus Mill was pretty cool. It was also shady, the creek was cold and good for wading and it was at least 10 degrees cooler beside it.
We were happy to make it out of Cherokee without any horrible cultural missteps. Art and I both cringed when Alex had a question in the Indian Village. We were inside the lodge where they held their council meetings and a Cherokee man was explaining their system of government. After sitting quietly throughout Alex piped up when the man was done and asked for any questions. "I have a question." Art and I looked at each other in horror. Oh, no, what could he possibly have to ask. Turns out we shouldn't have worried. Alex was worried about the lodge decor. "Is that bird by you REAL?" Our tour guide pronounced that an excellent question and showed him that the ravens were made of styrofoam and feathers. Whew.
After the village we headed to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. I had no idea how many times we'd explained to the kid that this was something very old and Cherokee. Later that night when we headed to the next town for dinner, he saw an antique car and asked what it was. It was redone and painted dark green and bright red. We told him it was an old car. He asked, "An old CHEROKEE car?" Not so much.
Here are some pictures of the adventure, including our stop on the way home at Dry Falls, near Highlands, NC. They were beautiful and it was cool that you could walk behind the falls.
And last but not least, the things Alex told us along the trip that made us laugh (or try not to laugh). After visiting with the lady who was demonstrating how people preserved food (drying, stringing up beans, etc.) at the farmstead cabin behind a roped off door, we walked away. Alex observed, "She was nice." We agreed. "I wonder if they ever let her out of there."
As we were driving home - and it is a less than 2 hour drive - Alex got bored and was doing acrobatics in his booster seat. Upon being cautioned for about the 100th time to get his bottom out of the air and sit up, he grabbed his rear and commented, "My butt - I got it new." I thought Art was going to drive off the side of the mountain.
Apropos of nothing, Alex asked Art: "When you was a boy, did you go to juvie?" We told him he watches too much TV.
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