Trip to Jonesboro

Photo Album : Linky!!

So… we hopped in the car and decided to go for a drive at about noon today. We have been to Mountain City, Damascus, Bristol, and Shady Valley to the north… To the south, we’ve been to Asheville, Charlotte, Hickory, and Lenoir… So, we decided to head North-West towards Elizabethton, TN.

Well, we didn’t end up in Elizabethton. As we got to the fork in the road on 321, we decided we were going to head towards Johnson City, TN instead. So, we did that. We drove through Johnson City, and of course the downside of taking a Sunday trip is that nothing is open on Sunday. We drove through downtown Johnson City, and it was a ghost-town. We were going to swing around the block to park and walk around anyhow, but the turn we took to go back and park faced us to Jonesboro, TN “The Oldest City in TN”. So, of course we had to go there. The above 2 pictures are from Jonesboro the top is Virginia in the stocks…the lower is a shot of downtown Jonesboro.

Walking around Jonesboro was interesting… Lots of older buildings, as you’ll see below, but in the middle of this old town, was the “International Storytelling Center”. That seems pretty cool. To see what that’s all about, click here.

There is a lot of history in Jonesboro… Which means that there are little signs like this all around, and…

… some of the buildings aren’t in the best shape… But, they do have a lot of character. You can walk around and wonder what was happening in this area 50, 75, 100… even 1 thousand years ago… well maybe not 1000 years ago. There probably wasn’t too much going on back then…

We made this trip just as leaves were starting to come back out, so things were looking rather nice.

We’ll leave off this update with this picture. This is one of my favorites. The plaque is the Ten Commandments, and it’s located to the right side of the main entrance of the Jonesboro Court House. I didn’t think that kind of stuff was legal any more… but apparently, it is.

Long Overdue Posts

Yeah yeah yeah. I’ve done a rather poor job of keeping the blog updated for the past…few months or so. So, below will be a big update… we’ve done some fun stuff, but mostly, it’s just been winter in Boone. So, it’s been cold, it’s been windy, it’s been snowing. That’s just how it is here. Let me tell you how happy Virginia has been… but, the warm weather is starting to slowly poke its head out (as long as you disregard the snow that’s supposed to happen next Monday and Tuesday)

So, other than that, I’ve been busy with school, Virginia has been very busy with school and work. Virginia and I have been working on wedding plans also! Things are starting to shape up there, but I’ll let Virginia get on here to decide what she wants to tell people, and what will stay a secret until the big day.

and… we got a new TV!

It’s a big glorious monster. Virginia didn’t really like it at first, but when she watched “The Office” in HD and Jim was life sized… I think she warmed up to it.

Also, I don’t have pictures, but we went down to Charlotte for a Wedding Registry Party at Crate and Barrel… That was a rather interesting experience. We walked in the door, and they had the place closed down, except for the special couples (like us!) that registered in advance. They gave us a bar code scanner, and set us loose in the store. So, if you happen to wander over to the Crate and Barrel website, you can see the result of what happens when you let us loose with a barcode scanner. In our defense, they influenced our decisions by giving us … I can’t think if the name… those drinks with champagne and OJ… Mimosas. That’s it. They gave us Mimosas and food and let us go wild around the store. After the festivities there, we decided to explore Charlotte a bit, we went to two humongous malls, a horrible little restaurant downtown, and I got a new pair of shoes. So, all in all, a very successful trip.

Things back in Virginia have been a bit rough. My Great-Grandmother died. My Grandpop Trovato fell down the stairs, and subsequently was in the hospital for a month. Dad got a new job. Rachel is leaving Virginia Beach, heading down to my neck of the woods. Soon, she’ll be living in Charlotte. Now… On to the updates!

The American Dream AKA House Searching.

This post will be entirely text. I was thinking about adding pictures of the houses we were looking at, but they really don’t matter.

So. Anyone that looks forward to buying a house someday, has no idea what the process is like. Our lease ends in July, so, we decided that we wanted to move out of our current apartment, into something new. (We have been in this one for 2 years, and I’m sick of working with a 5x10 kitchen with no storage space) So, we thought that the smart thing to do would be to buy a house. We started looking around the Boone area, and these dang people are INSANE. They want $125,000 for a trailer on a .25 acre lot. I kid you not, there is a listing for a house here, about 5 miles from where we live now. It’s not a trailer, it’s a 850 square foot house. 1 Bedroom, 1 bath(kind of). The toilet doesn’t work. The guy uses a hole in the back yard as his toilet. Listing price? $96,000. That house single handedly explains the Boone housing market. So, we started looking in other places. We looked at a cute cabin about 12 miles down the road, the asking price was $125,000 so that wasn’t too bad. Then, we looked inside. The whole place is covered with smoke damage. There is a gas log fireplace, and the cabin was a rental unit for vacationers. It looks like someone put a real log into the gas log fireplace. So, in order to fix the smoke damage, all of the drywall would have to come out, the insulation would have to come out, and all new insulation and drywall would be needed. Our friend Josh put in an offer on that house of $80,000. They guy’s response was “If he expects me to make a counter offer, he’s got to do better than that.” .. So, the seller is a moron. Come to find out, in 2007, the seller paid $70k for the cabin. So, that place is out of the question. Nothing else in Boone really caught our eye, so we started looking outside of Boone again. We ended up looking in Lenoir, which is about 30 miles down the road. We found a couple of really nice houses, and Josh and I went to look at a bunch. Josh and I looked at about 12 houses in one day. After looking, we narrowed the choices down to about 5. Others were weeded out because of location, barking dogs, one had a neighbor with a 30 foot flagpole flying a Confederate flag. So, after narrowing the list down, Virginia and I went to look at the remaining ones. Three of the houses turned out to be really nice. One wasn’t as great as I expected, and one that I expected to be really nice had a leaky foundation and a basement full of mold.

After Virginia and I looked at these houses, we had a nice talk on the way home. It’d be about a 45 minute commute each way, twice a day. We’d have to wake up earlier, spend more on gas, and all of that good stuff. Plus, we don’t know what’s going to happen with the market; everyone says that this is the perfect time to buy, but I see a lot of houses getting listed, and not many selling. Also, I graduate in 2 years. What if the housing market around here is horrible in 2 years? Then, we’ll have to sell the house and move.

So. We’re going to rent for the next two years. We’ll let everyone know when we get a new address.

Valentine’s at The Biltmore!

Full Photo Album: Here

So, for Valentine’s Day, my sweetheart Virginia really did great! We took off and went down to Asheville. Virginia is actually so good, that she booked us a hotel room with Tempur-Pedic beds. I have laid on one in Brookstone and places like that, but never really got to spend any quality time with one. This gave the awesome opportunity.

The main attraction of course, was the trip to the Biltmore. That place is AWESOME.

Here we are standing in front of the Biltmore. For those who haven’t been there, we’re probably 500 feet away from the front sidewalk. Of course, they didn’t allow any photography inside, but if you ever get the chance to go, you should do so. It was a bit chilly and a bit rainy the day we went, but it was still an awesome trip.

After the house tour, we went down to the winery part. I can’t exactly recommend eating at the little “Bistro” next to the winery. There was a hot dog stand on the way up to the winery, I’d eat there, or bring my own food if we go back. But, once in the winery, we skipped the tour, and went straight to the tasting. We got to taste 5 wines, and had a few that were rather tasty. After the tasting, we went to a demonstration on how to make truffles. AWESOME. The only problem was that we got there a little early, so we sat down and ordered a bottle of wine. I normally don’t drink wine, but this was good stuff… A little too good. I pounded 2 glasses of wine, and then had to hold myself back from drinking the rest of the bottle.

All in all, it was a dang awesome trip. Virginia did a great job planning everything, it was relaxing and amazing to see a house of that scale. … … Even if Virginia did get attacked by a killer fish.

I’d recommend looking through the photo album. There are many more pictures from Asheville there, and they are all actually captioned this time!

All for Now

These are all of the updates for now, but as the weather gets nice again, we’ll be travelling again and taking more pictures. I’ve got a new setup this year for storage on the bike, so we’ll see how that works. I think it’ll be nice though!