Greenville, SC

In response to D., the nearest airport is in Greenville. You can fly Hfx, Newark, Greenville. In looking at options though, we are pretty close to Atlanta (3 hours) and Charlotte (2 hours) both of which are cheaper to fly into (sometimes). Air Canada has been running a $113 one way to Charlotte lately. Just checked, Amtrak runs a route from Charlotte to Greenville for $24 unfortunately the only train is at 2 am. For those who are more carbon sensitive, you can get the train from Hfx to Montreal, Montreal to New York and NY to Greenville.

And there is lots to do in Upstate SC. Greenville is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains so parts of the Appalachian Trail are really handy. As are several National and State Parks and Forests - Great Smoky Mountains NP; Nantahala and Pisgah NF; It is about an hour to Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee and not far from the SC coast - Charleston, Myrtle Beach.

Asheville, NC is a neat place. It is very artsy/outdoorsy with the addition of Biltmore - one of the Vanderbilt Estates there is plenty to see and do in Asheville alone. Asheville is almost at the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. When I was there a few years ago, we went along some of this drive which was amazing - not the Cabot Trail - but certainly well worth the drive. Lake Lure is nearby - that's where they filmed Dirty Dancing - nobody puts Baby in the corner!

Between Asheville and Greenville is Carl Sandburg's home. P. says who is Carl Sandburg? Well, the Pulitzer Prize winning poet had this beautiful farm - Connemara - in NC which is now at National Historic Site. His wife kept champion goats and you can visit their descendants, the goats I mean - the herd is also protected.

So I have hit hiking, history, vistas, for those of you not already convinced to visit us - there is also shopping. There are two outlet areas within a short distance, Gaffney, SC and Commerce, GA. Mum also points out that Replacements Ltd. is headquartered in NC so if anyone is looking for that elusive piece of china, glass, flatware or wants to see miles of it you can check it out.

No matter what, it has to be better than today. I had a snow day since Isabelle's daycare was closed and the roads were terrible, lots and lots of snow and wind. We had a quiet day - didn't get a lot done but had a great visit with Taryn and Macy. Paul borrowed the neighbour's snowblower after dinner and Isabelle played outside while he did the driveway - needless to say since that was her fourth outing of the day she feel asleep pretty quickly tonight.

The exciting news of the day was we are getting a new digital camera - a Olympus Stylus 770SW - waterproof, shockproof, crush proof. It sounds to me like a great camera to have with a busy 3 year old. I got it on EBay, we were very pleased with the last one which we also bought on EBay from Olympus so we thought we would do it again.

Off to work tomorrow with meeting in the evening and another on Wednesday, For a short week, it ends up being pretty long.