Heading to Brasstown

We left our motel in Sylva heading down US 64 towards Brasstown in the southwest corner of North Carolina to spend a few days with Elmer and Lynda and their son Joel. They hosted the Shindig for our metal art group in 2008, so we were in this beautiful corner of the world two years ago.

The road was not particularly busy and we made good time, arriving in Murphy, the main town in the area and just a few miles from Brasstown.

We took the opportunity to wander around the town and re-orientate ourselves. We were pleased to find the town seems to be weathering the recession well. The Moose Hollow Trading Company is a great store.

We stopped for lunch at The Daily Grind, a coffee and wine shop a place we remember well from our previous trip - it was one of only a few places in town where we could buy wine. One of the cups in the stoe is inscribed "Life's too short to drink bad coffee or bad wine".

After lunch we headed into Brasstown. When we were here in 2008, there were a lot of roadworks and bridge works re-aligning US 64 just north of Brasstown. The roads are all now complete, but our GPS knew nothing about the new road. Fortunately we didn't need it to find our way into Brastown, and we arrived to a warm welcome.

Joel has grown so much in the last two years and is now 7 years old. He is a super little boy.

He loves motorcycle helmets.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing and catching up on the last two years, and talking about our journey. The weather was cooler than in previous days. We were able to enjoy dinner out on the deck as we watched the sun setting.

After Joel went to bed we chatted on late into the night despite the fact that Linda needed to be up earlier than usual because Joel had started school.