Bloggy Bayou

Political intrigue Shakespearean style.

What’s a boy to do if his father is the poet Dante?  Pietro wanted only to be a scholar, but instead, due to his elder brother’s death, finds himself drawn out of school to attend his father in his exile from Florence. He arrives in Verona and finds himself immediately drawn into the intrigue as he falls under the influence of the Greyhound, the Master of Verona, and the Greyhound’s sister, who not only captures Pietro’s loyalty but his heart, even if she is far older than he and married.

Pietro finds himself drawn into wars, and intrigue involving warring factions not only within Verona but in other major city-states of Italy.

All the while, Pietro remains in awe of his patron, until, well, I’ll let you find out what’s going on.

If you love complex, intelligent characters, well-drawn and intricate plots, battles and prophecies, I think you’ll love this book.

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Rain, rain, rain. What’s left of Beryl is currently pouring down on our heads here in eastern North Carolina. Just hanging out inside, feeling lazy and sleepy.  We’d thought of going to the store, but don’t see that happening. Tomorrow is soon enough.

Had dinner with Mom and Jim’s brother Sammie last night, and the boys worked on cleaning out Mom’s shed and back porch of collected junk she was hanging on to for a ‘rainy’, heh, day. They’ll take some of it to the dump and a few things to a local swap sale.

I’m spending time reading, currently working my way through The Master of Verona by David Blixt.  Pretty good historical fiction.

Friday we’ll be heading up to Virginia to visit our friends Bill and Dale. Hopefully by then the weather will be much much better!

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We left Charlottesville KOA on Friday morning. Here’s a fairly early morning shot I grabbed when I was walking the dogs:

Just a hint of fog.

We drove to Jim's mom's place in Williamston and got there about 3pm that afternoon.

We had a pig pickin' with mounds of family (they smoked a whole hog) on Saturday.  Sunday we had dinner with Jim's sister and niece and her fiance and kiddos. Today, Sunday, we had burgers and hotdogs with a slew of family again.

Tomorrow, Jim's brother Sammy has a smoked pork shoulder cooked for us.

Here's Cody, chilling out on the bed in the RV. She's not happy I'm pointing a camera at her though: Here's mom's lilies that I thought were pretty: And from under an hour ago, a rainbow as a feeder band from Tropical Storm Beryl was heading toward us. Too bad I missed the massive lightning strike that happened only seconds after I got the shot.

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We left rainy Hillsville VA and drove into Charlotte VA to visit our friends Pete and Carol.

Here’s the first sunshine we saw that day, as we were approaching Charlottesville.

And here we are camping at the Charlottesville KOA:

We visited our friends who, perhaps unsurprisingly, hadn’t changed very much at all. It was great to see them.

We came back to the campground, and Jim built a fire. Then we cooked hotdogs over the fire and called that dinner. Tired now, probably going to bed early.

We’ll leave for North Carolina and Mom’s house in the morning.

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We left Pride RV park in Waynesville NC and drove to Lake Ridge Resort in Hillsville, VA.  Very much mountain driving, with elevations up to 2800 feet. Jim got to use his ‘retarder’ quite a few times. It’s an add-on that helps slow the RV on steep hills so you don’t have to ride your brakes.

I wasn’t able to get very man pictures of the drive though, no places to stop.

This was the view as we left Waynesville, with fog hiding the mountains.

We had rain off and on over the trip and it’s been lightly raining since we arrived in Hillsville yesterday afternoon. Hopefully I can get a few pictures of the area when we do some running around today.

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Chimney Rock is above the Ashville area. You can climb it, which I suppose is fun for some:

Our friend Sheri tells me that there are usually more waterfalls than we saw but still, they are pretty impressive:

Also, below Chimney Rock, after we’d driven through Bat Cave and Hickory Nut Gorge, we got to Lake Lure, where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed:

And I couldn’t resist at least one picture of flowers there:

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We were out and about today.  Our friend Sheri took us up to Chimney Rock, Lake Lure (where Dirty Dancing was filmed) and along the way we saw Bat Cave, NC and Hickory Nut Gorge, NC.

I’ve got a bunch of photos I need to work on.

This is my first shot of Chimney Rock. We leave NC for Virginia tomorrow. We do have a problem as we couldn't get RV reservations near Charlottesville to visit our friends. I guess we're 'camping' in their driveway for a few days. After the holiday weekend we expect reservations to become available againg. Who knew? There are holidays! Oh, and I am now officially an 'old fart'. I turned 65 Sunday.

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Our friend Sherri who lives here in NC (Ashville actually) stopped by late morning and we just sat around chatting enjoying the campgrounds.

She left to do some stuff and meet her friend and the two of them came back after dinner to sit in front of Jim’s fire and chat some more. We also met another couple from Florida, further south than us, and they joined us. I crashed around 1030, the rest of them gave it up about 1130.

The dogs had a terrific day. Baylee and Cody both got to chase some mallards (but we wouldn’t let them chase the momma Mallard with her babies), Canada Geese, and a couple of squirrels. Baylee also saw a muskrat swimming along the far bank of the creek. We’d never have noticed him if Baylee hadn’t sat up and began staring at him.

I’ve got a few pictures, which I’ll put up later. At the moment I’m too lazy.  And, after all, I’m on vacation!

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Last evening, as we relaxed at the RV resort in Waynesville, NC (near Ashville):

We paid a bit extra to camp on the stream. Our RV looks out over the crick! And we had a place ot build a campfire. Uh oh. Jim's ready to go all pyro: Alas, we got chased in by lots of rain. Still, had a great time. A few more shots of the crick: Baylee heard ducks!

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We stayed overnight here: –Lakeside RV Park in Opelika, AL.

The drive today was up through northern Georgia and into the mountains of North Carolina.

The drive was nice, but we had an issue with the GPS and ended up fighting traffic to find a Sam’s Club just outside Atlanta to buy a new one. Other than that, things went great.  A few photos:

The ones above are from northern Georgia just before we crossed into North Carolina.  The last two are from the Great Smoky Mountain Parkway. I’ll have shots of our campground tomorrow. We’re in Waynesville, NC.

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