Travel to Charlotte

We traveled down to Charlotte yesterday to begin our Thanksgiving holiday with Mom, Mike and Carroll and all the kids. (Dad could not join us this year. They are moving factory equipment up in Minnesota, and he just couldn't get away.)

After a very long seven hour drive, we arrived at Mom's place. We set off at 5:00am, so the first order of business was catching up on some much needed sleep.

While I napped, the kids chilled with Nana in the bonus room.  The cats all took a liking to Eddie, and began grooming him by licking his head.  (My mom has the strangest cats.)

Later in the evening, Mom took us to the Waldhorn German Restaurant in Pineville.  Of course, I chose to make a spectacle of myself by wearing traditional German lederhosen.  Strangely, I was the only one in the restaurant wearing lederhosen, including the staff!  Hmmpfh!  Some authentic restaurant!

Seriously, though, the food was amazing.  For appetizers, we got crab cakes, goat cheese pastries, and gulaschsuppe.   (And I had an enormous Spaten Oktoberfest.)  Then, for dinner, we had jaegerschnitzel, weinerschnitzel, a roasted half-duck, and a gorgeous roasted trout.  (Very traditional and very delicious!)

Then, for dessert, we had schwarzwaldenkuchen, heissen lieben, and apfelstruedel.  (Which I failed to photograph because we dived on them so quickly.)

It was an excellent pre-Thanksgiving eve.  So nice to see Mom again, and it will be a nice restful vacation away from the distillery.