What I did on my spring break

I finished my tree jacket... and wore it today for a day exploring little towns in Tennessee with a couple friends. We started out by visiting Falls Mill, a working grain mill that 135 years old and is powered solely by water. They have a unique museum with lots of old tools and machinery and upstairs they have a whole room devoted to fiber - spinning and weaving, mostly. At one time the mill was used as a cotton gin and at that time they had a 1000 spindle woman-powered spinning machine. Unfortunatly, with all the time they spend milling grains, they haven't had time to restore the machine so we didn't get to see it. Their grounds are incredibly beautiful, especially this time of the year and with all the rain we've gotten lately.

Then we headed over to the Swiss Pantry bakeshop to pick up some 'fried pies' - delicious - and then to the Belvidere Market for lunch ($13 for all four of us). Here we experienced true southern hospitality. Michelle didn't have any cash and the store owner told her that was fine, she could just pay the next time she came in! Don't worry, we spotted Michelle the money. The owner offered us a couple cats that she had hanging around (and I didn't even take her up on the offer, if you can believe it!). And then she went on to tell us about a man in the area that rescues retired zoo animals and gave us directions on where we could find camels and zonkeys (donkey + zebra)! Unfortunately, the zonkeys were too far away to get a good look, but the camels came right up to the fence. So naturally, I needed to get a picture of the sweater with a camel, right?

Then we went on to Sewanee, TN, home of The University of the South, a beautiful private college located on the top of a mountain. They own a ton of land and we went for a short hike after a little walk around the campus. This, of course, included more pictures.

It was a really beautiful day - full of random funness and gorgeous spring weather! As always, more pictures at flickr.