Highlands NC

My daughter, Susan, and my daughter-in-law, Laura and I decided to take an overnight mini vacation to Highlands NC. Rich and I used to go quite often many years ago. It's a get-a-way for many Floridians and Atlantans because it's always 15 degrees cooler than Atlanta in the summer.

The ride up (and back from Highlands to Dillard) was interesting because I forgot to change my navigation avoidances (back roads, etc.) on my GPS. Garmin is losing my business after many years because I have noticed many local directions are dead wrong. I guess since new cars are coming with their own GPS systems, they have gotten lazy. At any rate, I've bought my last one. While the girls will swear I was making wrong turns (okay, one), the ride home was proof that a change in the navigation preferences fixed everything. I rarely drive anyone anywhere so I do go back roads, which can be interesting, I'll admit. Laura is from the New York City/Jersey area so the dirt roads were a surprise, but she took them like a trooper. Susan, not so much. We were deep in the woods part of the time back from Highlands to Dillard where we stayed at the Dillard House. We had a very large room with a place to sit out. It was in a newly renovated section of the hotel. They had not renovated the toilet, however, and didn't leave enough towels in our room. Laura, the negotiator, thought we should have free breakfasts for the inconvenience, and they accommodated us.

Outside the back door of our room

Pretty girls, huh?

Using my walker helped me a lot and allowed the girls to wander through the shops that line the streets of Highlands. Plus, the town has a lot of benches to make it comfortable for people to rest (lots of husbands waiting for wives shopping in the boutiques). I enjoyed sitting when I needed to and watching everyone having a good time. I happened to sit on one bench and this was directly in front of me. Not bad, but I thought it might be a little more interesting as a photo.

It's just a pleasant place to be with all the little shops and restaurants.

We stopped to relax for a while at a wine store and some good conversation. Then after some more shopping we went to dinner at Paoletti, a lovely Italian Restaurant. We highly recommend it. I remembered the pretty churches in town.

This one used to have a pretty red door. I wondered why they changed it.

Highlands is very dog friendly (water bowl at every shop and dogs in the shops), which made Susan very happy since she's planning to take her dog everywhere when she gets him or her. The Dillard House also welcomes dogs overnight and there's plenty of hiking opportunities. There are horses and chickens, etc. and hiking trails. It's actually a farm and petting zoo, too. Rich and I have been in Highlands in all seasons, but I particularly remember spring when the woods were full of Rhododendrons. We had taken Lizzie there which is why I wanted to see if it was still a place to get away with one's pup.

The weather was cool and we had a short rainstorm that cooled us even further. Very pleasant weather. It's a good people watching town. There are shops for dogs, pretty jewelry and clothes.

Anyone know what these are?

I remembered that Rich and I had been to all of the many waterfalls in the area and some cliffs. We didn't have time to hunt for the cliffs, but we did make it to Dry Falls. You can walk under them. The water was deafening at times.

I took a lot of videos of the falls. Just love the sound of rushing water. I'm a bit tired and probably should have waited until tomorrow to write this, but I'm glad that I can take short trips, once in a while, to have something to post about. Lifted my spirits. 😊