Gee, I should write more often

I'm ready to vote. Early voting has begun in North Carolina, and an early-voting site opens Tuesday near my house. I printed out the sample ballot, and I know who will get my vote, even on the judicial races. I plan to cast the real ballot one day this week.

A trip and a music festival

Chris and I went to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia Oct. 8-11. Our 21st wedding anniversary was Oct. 10. The colors were pretty. Click on the photo at right. We walked down to a waterfall, but I didn't get all the way to the bottom. I am fat and woefully out of shape. We stayed at the Big Meadows Lodge, built by the CCC in the 1930s. We had stayed once before at the Skyland Lodge, just up Skyland Drive. We saw lots of wildlife this time: many deer, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks and three bears (a mother and cubs, it appeared). We also drove down to Luray and to some other towns near the park, including the Civil War battlefield at New Market.

On the way to Virginia, we went to Mount Airy, the hometown of Andy Griffith and the model for Mayberry. We had pork chop sandwiches at Snappy Lunch, a place I had heard about for years. Mount Airy is filled with touristy stuff. I'm glad that Andy's success on TV trickled down to his hometown. Without that connection, there would not be much reason for people to come from all over the country to visit Mount Airy.

We came back on Oct. 11 and went to the Shakori Hills Festival. We saw one of our favorite acts, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. The Del McCoury Band put on a very entertaining set. McCoury forgot the words to one of his songs, and nobody on stage could remember, so the guys kep playing while he ran backstaget and checked the lyrics. It was charming. We also saw jazz singer Nnenna Freelon, who was lovely and in fine voice. The festival drew a big crowd that night. For the first time, we had to park in the overflow field.

In other news

At work, we are proceeding with the CCI project. We are to begin with producing one daily Life section on CCI on the week of Nov. 17. We should have all the Features sections on CCI before the end of the year. We hope.

Other stuff I just want to note:

• We are switching from cable to satellite TV because Chris is fed up with the new software from the cable company. (It rebooted twice right in the middle of Colin Powell's appearance on "Meet The Press" today.) The installation is scheduled for Oct. 28.
• Jake plans to go to the State Fair this week, probably on Thursday.Chris and I don't have any plans to go this year.
• Chris and I saw W. yesterday. The movie is much more sympathetic than you'd think an Oliver Stone film would be. The cast was very good, especially Richard Dreyfuss as Cheney.
• We had dinner at the relatively new T.G.I.Friday's in Garner.