Waiting Out the Rain, and Snow

The weather turned nasty yesterday, with nonstop downpours.  Flash flood warnings were in effect for neighboring communities, but luckily we didn’t have to worry about that.  We decided to stay in Asheville since travel would be a nightmare.

We only ventured out to attend to a few errands, include grocery shopping, and discovered Greenlife Grocery in downtown Asheville.  This store is part of the Whole Foods Market chain and is a wonderful, natural foods grocery store.  Like all of the Whole Foods Markets we’ve visited, it has a café where you can enjoy the freshly prepared foods that you purchase in the store.  That was a perfect spot for lunch.  I love to look at their prepared foods, and we also took home dinner for the next few nights.  Yum!

The weather forecast for today was not much better.  Although the heavy rains were over, rain and snow showers were predicted.  We are on the edge of the rare November snowstorm that is affecting the South.  First a freak Halloween snowstorm, and now one in November.  What next? 

We want to venture farther into the mountains of North Carolina, but travel there was not advisable today, so we are staying in Asheville another night.  We did venture out and visited the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in nearby Flat Rock.  This property was the first unit of the National Park Service to honor an American poet.



Carl Sandburg Home

Connemara, as the house is known, was the home of Carl Sandburg and his wife Lilian from 1945 until his death in 1967.  The rooms look exactly as the Sandburg family had left them.  Endless shelves of books, piles of magazines, Mr. Sandburg’s guitar and photographs by Mrs. Sandburg’s brother Edward Steichen provide insight into the family.  Carl Sandburg published many poems and works of fiction and nonfiction during his years at Connemara, and he earned his second Pulitzer Prize while living here.

Connemara was also Lilian Sandburg’s farm, and here she raised her champion goats.  The National Park Service still maintains a small goat herd, and Tim decided to ask about the park’s goat management plan.  The ranger “sheepishly” admitted that they were still working on it.



Connemara