Day 2 - Blueridge Antique District & A Visit with a Dear Friend

"For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

We had a great day in many ways. For one thing, I got the opportunity to visit with a very dear friend of mine. Now I say dear friend with truth. Any of you who have any age on you at all know that there are very few true friends that come your way in a lifetime. I have always told my children that if you could name your true friends on one hand that you are indeed blessed. And my friend Shirley is indeed a true friend. I have known Shirley for around 27 years. It was such a blessing to see her! I really needed to spend some actual time with her. My last time to see her face to face was when my father passed away in 2003. Prior to that was when my then fiance passed away in 1992, and prior to that was in 1986 when I moved away from the town where I came to know her. I will try to share how I came to know her in a future post. Anyway, we had seen each other only three times since 1986. So that is a 21 year span of time with only three face to face visits! But we talk all the time on the telephone and keep each other up to date with all that is going on in our lives and the lives of our loved ones. So, I think that I can truly say that Shirley and I do count as true friends. It was so nice visiting with her and her husband Buck. I deserve a scolding because I didn't even think to take a picture of her and Buck. I am so embarrassed that I didn't! I guess that I was just so busy talking to Shirley, looking at her brand new home and watching Landon enjoying his visit there that it slap bypassed my thoughts. He was busy feeding crumbled bread to the fish in the creek, sitting on Buck's Ford tractor, lawnmower, playing in the treehouse,
riding on a child sized Hummer II

and swinging on the tire swings that Buck had hung from the trees for their beautiful grand daughter, Shayla, to play on.

Later that day, Shirley joined for lunch at a local diner and also to downtown Blueridge. She knows that I love to browse the antique stores and Blueridge is a antique browsers dream!

There were some great stores there. Basically the whole business district was almost all antique stores! Can you believe that I didn't buy a thing? I can't!

There was a beautiful restaurant there in town. If we had not just had lunch I think I would have loved to give it a try.

There was a great little Christmas Shop there called Blue Christmas. They had some of the prettiest ornaments and decorations. The shop owner was kind enough to let me take a few photos. The inside of the building was of pine paneling, so it was a little dark for photos. But, some of the white trees showed up pretty well in the photographs. I love the tiny ornament garland on this tree.

There was an Elvis tree too!

And some pretty white topiaries all adorned with brightly colored ornaments. Much prettier in person!

And they had some nice garland too.

It was a nice day to spend just moving along at our own pace, no hurry. Afterwards, we went to a few thrift stores and estate sale stores that Shirley knew of. And again...I didn't buy a thing!

That evening we kind of just drove around a bit, and ran across this house all decorated for halloween. I took the pictures from my car as we drove beside it. Couldn't get the whole yard but here is some of what I was able to get.

And that was about it for the day!

Come back tomorrow for Burt's Pumpkin Farm!

Hugs,

Barbara