Sunday, October 17, 2010

Just a little motoring

It's a beautiful fall day here in the foothills.  I always wondered why there is both a foothills region and a Piedmont region in North Carolina, since Piedmont is French for foothills, I think.  You see & hear "foothills" everywhere - on the news, names of businesses and so on.  Secretly (or not so secretly), even though they say we're in the foothills, I'm pretty sure we're in the Piedmont.  There are actual mountains to the south, west & north of us (I know they're there, I can see them out the kitchen window), and we're in an area that is anything but flat, but is not in the mountains, which spells Piedmont to me. 

I got off topic before I even got on topic.  Maybe it's the pre-topic.  Think of it as pre-boarding, or pre-ordering, or all those other "pre" things they tell you you're doing before you actually are, hoping you never stop to think that it is impossible to do something before you actually do it.  It's a marketing thing to try to make you think you're special, take my word for it.  OK, that's off topic discussion number 2.  Enough!!!

The real topic:  I went for a ride today in the little red mustang.  I shifted gears with abandon, flew up and down hills (only going airborne a couple of times) careened on two wheels around curves on these narrow, twisty, country Piedmont roads which frequently co-exist within sight (or hearing) of I-40. I laughed maniacally & rudely pointed at all those drivers plodding along on staid, old I-40, driving from here to there in relative safety, speed, comfort & respectability. How boring!  Leaves are starting to change, the air is clear & crisp, the mountains are beautiful and it was good to get out and about & careen around curves.

Hmmm.  So I wrote almost twice as much about things I didn't mean to write about than the thing I did mean to write about.  Interesting.

7 comments:

Patti Anne said...

No wonder the dog and I got left home today. Careening, indeed! Actually, I am glad you felt good enough to go for a ride.

A Valdese Blogger said...

It would have just scared ol' Pickles. Anything over 30 MPH & she gets nervous.

Patti Anne, girl geologist said...

Here is a link with some detail about the Inner Piedmont. We live on the Tugaloo Terrane, next to Cat Square Terrane. But we are west of the Piedmont Suture. We are east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I will let you know more about the Foothills nomenclature later.

http://web.me.com/carogeosoc/CGS/2000s_files/gb%202002.pdf

Anonymous said...

Ah, a man and his toy, err, his car

Heather said...

Here we have the hill country and the basin. Nobody seems to know where one begins and ends.
Glad you got to get out and enjoy the day.

Anonymous said...

looking for some information about early Valdese. Do you know anything about the original town and buildings? I own three of the earliest houses and need their history.

A Valdese Blogger said...

Grace: an lol to you!

Heather: Thanks for the comment. It could be that people just make this stuff up.

Anon: Valdese was founded in 1893 by a group of Waldensians from the Italian Alps. The general history of the town is quite well documented, but I personally don't know too much about individual buildings.

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