Donna and I walked the 1-1/2 miles up to Hopeland Gardens to see the annual light display, but we didn’t go in. We couldn’t. Even though it was advertised as being open on the 24th, it wasn’t. I poked the camera through the fence and took the above photo of the lights that were on and the empty walkways surrounding them.
My brother Paul is down in Hendersonville, NC visiting with my sister and her husband for a week. Since we didn’t have any vacation left the only time we could visit was this weekend, so we drove up last night and spent the day with them. Unfortunately it has been kind of a messy rainy day, but it didn’t prevent us from our usual downtown Hendersonville shopping stroll.
After dark we drove a few miles up the road from the SMH to the same place we went the last time we were here, the Western NC Agriculture Center near the Asheville Airport. In September it was NC Mountain State Fair, but this time it was a Christmas Wonderland. Twenty bucks a carload for 20 minutes of driving around a giant circuit filled with pulsating lights while “synchronized” is piped into your car’s radio.
Would have been awesome in the Miata, but the Emperor was back in his Throne Room in Aiken and it was steadily raining with intermittent bursts of heavy stuff.
On last Thursday, the official opening of the holiday shopping season, I assembled my 2013 Christmas Wish List. After crossing out the hundreds of unreasonable expensive items, I was left with three things, only one of which was going to make it onto Santa’s sleigh.
Item #1 was something that would benefit the entire household for years to come with “blazing” networking speeds and extended range viewing of streaming video, a NETGEAR N600 Dual Band Wireless Router
Item #2 was something that would benefit myself for the next couple of years with “snuggly” warmth and proudly proclaim my allegiance to a certain baseball team, a Red Sox Shoutout Full Zip Hoodie
Item #3 was something with no real benefit and be used for probably about 2 weeks before getting sidelined to collect dust that has “gee-whiz” wonderment and a cool factor that would make me the envy of my small group of peers, a Micro Drone 2.0 With Aerial Camera
After spending the previous 6 days trying to decide which item I really wanted, last night I made my choice. Now, in hindsight, the decision was obvious, if Item #1 would have brought me that much joy I could have easily justified it sooner, Item #2 as a practical piece of clothing, could be purchased no questions anytime, but the only way I could possibly get Item #3 was under the guise of Christmas present.
With 3 days left on the discounted price time frame they had sold out of the Micro Drones! They mention they are getting some more by possibly December 12th. Should I wait? Or is this an omen telling me to go ahead and buy one of the other items?
On a related note, here is a 7-year old’s Christmas Wishlist dissected by her father: My Kid’s Insane Christmas Wish List
We walked the main downtown shopping street in Melbourne twice. Once when we went for lunch and a second time because went back when the “candle light” thing was going on between 5 & 9 PM. There were a fun assortment of stores and restaurants to keep us entertained and fed both trips.
Outside one of the funky little shops there was a colorful flashing, rotating light that danced on the sidewalk that prompted passers-by to dance on the spots.
The red star is My Home Town™ and the blue stuff is the white stuff. Everything is moving northeast and the weather folks say, 1 to 3″ by tomorrow evening, photo evidence to follow.
On my way back from the doctor’s office this morning I stopped and snapped a photo of this Christmas Tree made entirely out of old bicycles in front of a “Flea Market” store. I think I need to go back and shoot from a slightly different angle so you can read the whole sign reading Christmas Store. And maybe a little later in the day, so that there is a hint of darkness which might make the string of lights more noticeable.
After having the weather the last couple of weeks such that making ice cubes outside was possible at midday, this morning when we left for work it positively balmy at 38° and this evening we took a small drive with the top down…
