Month: May 2023

At about 6 pm on Sunday, May 14, our homeowner returned to the house in Boiling Springs. We had a great catch up with her and our helpful neighbor before heading off for a short hour plus drive down the road to get a head start on our Monday drive.

Sunday was the end of a lovely 4 month housesit, our longest to date. It was fun to vicariously see Italy, Paris, and Vienna on our homeowner’s travel and/or run adventures. She was so generous during our stay, and with a marathon completed in every US state, she’s an inspiration for my running.

We had a bonus friend on this housesit who lived just a couple of doors down and was always helpful even through a difficult time in her own family.

We loved exploring the area trails, sites, and meeting a number of locals, especially at the YMCA that we joined. It is a lovely area with gorgeous tree covered hills and mountains. It calls for further exploration sometime. We find that everywhere we go. We now know what we didn’t know.

The sweet, cheeky Cooper will remain in our hearts. He was such a good boy, but with just a bit of sass that kept us entertained. There is nothing happier than a dog doing a happy dance, and Cooper’s happiest dance was knowing he was getting to come with you in the car. Walks were nice but going in the car was better. (Of course, there was a sweet happy dance when he reunited with his person on Sunday as well.).

He also loves to be under a blanket. I think he’d be happy under one in the middle of the desert. And then when he starts to peak out he looks like this wise little Yoda creature who is about to impart some wisdom.

He enjoyed walks anywhere, but if we were in the neighborhood, the likelihood increased that he’d find something of such interest that he’d have to sit and watch. If you wanted to continue with the walk, you had to find a way to coax him back up or pick him up for a bit to move on.

I could go on about his speed in squirrel chasing in the backyard, his cuddling with me near dinner time (to make sure he got fed), his joy about bedtime, etc. Suffice to say we were honored to care for and get to know him. Cheers and best wishes to Linda, Cooper, and Marja! They have definitely written another chapter in our travel story.

Bob and I are back in blogging business. Still researching a final solution but have an interim measure in place that will keep us blogging with photos for awhile.

Our time in Boiling Springs will end this Sunday night but before that, we were able to meet up with friends from Austin last Sunday, as they were in Asheville visiting former work colleagues. We met up at a couple wineries in between Asheville and Boiling Springs. It was a great visit. We caught up on their news, news from Austin, as well as the activities they had been doing around Asheville.

Today, Bob and I went to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a tour of the BMW plant there. It’s a popular tour, as we purchased tickets a month or so ago, and today was the only open option before we leave. The campus is beautiful, and we learned a number of fun BMW facts.

1, BMW stands for Bavarian Motor Works. Not being car people, we did not know this before our visit.

2, The Spartanburg campus is currently at 1.2 million square feet, but they will be expanding.

3, The time it takes to create one car, from the 400 pieces of separate metal until it leaves the lot is 28 hours. The plant currently makes 1,500 cars a day and made over 416,300 cars last year.

4, The plant started with about 700 employees and now has 12,000.

The most impressive part of the tour was seeing all of the robotic systems in action, and watching the staff guide the robotic arms or do the manual installations that need to be done. The planning of the entires process and the development of all of the robotic tools seems impressive. I also liked the fact that staff have help cords that they can pull to get assistance from a Service Line Supervisor. The cord doesn’t sound an alarm, but rather a song that each Supervisor selects so that they can tell who is needed. No photos were allowed during the tour, so the photos below are from the outside and inside of the Visitor’s Center.

It has been a bit of an unusual day today. It started with a transformer going out near the house this morning, which caused the electricity to go out. This caused considerable consternation for Beth who was working online and who also had not yet had her coffee. Bob to the rescue for both. First showing Beth how to set up a hotspot with her phone to allow her to finish her job and then running her to Starbucks for the coffee fix. Happy wife, happy life as they say.

After breakfast we headed to the Galilee Church Road Trailhead for the Foote Trail. This trail is part of the Gateway Trail System that we had walked a couple of months ago. At that time, we had walked the three shorter trails in the park near the quarry but had seen the the park trailhead for the 4.5 mile Foote Trail. The Galilee Church Road Trailhead is at the far end of the trail and is located in a rural neighborhood. A deer shot across the road as we were nearing the trailhead, which could have caused any number of unpleasant issues, if we had hit it, but Bob saved the day again.

While we had a great walk, the day ended as it started with a hiccup that we’re still trying to sort out. We have maxed out our media storage for our current level of our blog app. The next level up is significantly more, so we’re seeing if we can make any changes within the current level before changing our membership status. Hope to be back in blogness soon!

First of all, how the heck can it be May already?! Our time in North Carolina is quickly coming to an end, and we’re still checking things out. We will leave much to come back and do.

The other night on the news, which is based out of Charlotte, we saw a story that covered the approval of a Social District, in Gastonia, North Carolina, a satellite city of Charlotte, with a population of about 80,000. The city is trying to revive business in the downtown sector and has created a six block Social District, which will allow adults to buy a drink (in a special cup) at a participating bar/restaurant, and then walk with it throughout the designated district. The designated hours for the district are from 11 am to 11 pm daily, except for Sunday when it ends at 10 pm.

We began our stroll around the district about noon, not to participate, but just to see what the area had to offer. We had a lovely walk on a beautiful day, but there didn’t seem to be much foot traffic, and really very few open businesses. Only one retail shop that we saw, otherwise, just a few bars and restaurants, but hopefully, the effort (and the construction of residential units underway) will attract new businesses.