A child-free day!

Today is my birthday, but I celebrated it with my mother yesterday. We went to Blowing Rock, NC, which is up in the mountains. It was 16*, and snowy and icy up there. We went for a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was terrifying to say the least... SO much ice and snow on the road. All over you could see where other cars and spun out and run off the road. I'm glad I wasn't driving. At various intervals along the drive were areas right next to the road that were like.. sheer drops. Like, death if you were to slip off the road. DEATH. It was pretty cool. The mountains were incredible, but it was very painful on the ears to go up and down them.

We went to Linville Caverns, which was very cool. When I was a kid I went to some cave in PA with my mom, and I really wanted to do that again. The tour was neat, although I could not understand a lot of the guide's voice. He had that mountain man, southern hick kinda accent. Nice guy though. He referred to the cave bats a "chicken nuggets."

Got to see all kinds of cool limestone formations, an underground river, and at one point they herded us all into this narrow, narrow crack in the cave and told us to look down. Turns out we were standing on a very thin metal grate over what they call the Endless Pool. I forget the estimated depth, but apparenly they have never been able to find the bottom because th cave narrows so much even a diver can't fit through. It's perfectly clear, stagnant water. So clear you almost can't tell it's water and not just a glass piece. Very creepy.

Got some cool stuff at the gift shop... A fossilized squid, some shiny rocks for Jaymes, and a rock candy stick for both kids.

Then we went out to eat at the place called Louises, which was pretty good. The original place we were going to eat would have been better, but I'm not complaining. The food was good. My mom didn't like hers though.

Drove around awhile on the scary ice, then headed into Blowing Rock and then Boone for shopping. There were some cool antique type shops, but they were way overpriced. Went to the Mast General Store, an old timey store that was 2 huge floors. I got a soda in a glass bottle, and we wandered around awhile. My mom got me this awesome travel bag, it's blue with purple sequins and an artsy painted set of horses in different colors. Hard to describe, but awesome.

We got tired at this point and headed the 2 hours home. It was a lot of fun, and nice to be away from kids for a little bit. I missed them, but I needed some peace. Jaymes was very snuggly and clingy when I got home, he missed me a lot.

All in all, a good birthday out on the town even though TODAY is my real birthday. Today has been more of a relaxed, lay around, work with Batty, etc kinda day.

So.. I'm 23 today. I hate odd numbers. Jaymes can't tell the difference between 22 y/o mommy and 23 y/o mommy, so I guess I'm not getting old and wrinkled just yet.