Catawba County Museum of History

Sunday afternoon, the girls and I spent a few hours at a local museum of history with a friend. It's a small museum devoted to local history but that's what made it so interesting. My genealogy research indicates my ancestors settled in this general area about 200 years ago. While only a handful settled in Catawba County, many were in counties nearby (Alexander, Caldwell, Burke, Wilkes and Watauga).

I used the "manner/museum" setting on my new camera to take pictures without using flash or sound inside the museum. Several of the pictures blurred.

The museum is located in the former Catawba County Courthouse, built in 1924 in Renaissance Revival style. The courtroom itself is beautiful but the girls really enjoyed the marble staircase



We spent time looking at the two antebellum parlor reconstructions and exploring a 1920s doctor's office



and a 1930s jail cell



They found the Clinton Cilley Civil War Collection interesting, especially the portable field desk and the surgical kit.




M is fascinated by weaving so she really enjoyed the gallery of looms and spinning wheels.



The favorite room was the Pioneer/Native American Room with the Native American village model, things to touch and activities to try.





The girls want to go back to the museum and spend more time in the Native American/Pioneer room. That was the last room we visited Sunday and we left a short 10 minutes before the museum closed for the day. We'll keep that in mind for a rainy weekend and perhaps combine it with another activity nearby.

Moses Cone Memorial Park

Saturday's forecast called for gorgeous weather so we took our first hiking trip of 2010. Our destination was Moses Cone Memorial Park, a place we had hiked once before in autumn. It's early spring with bright green leaves popping out on trees around my house but spring is just now sticking a toe in the door up on the parkway. As we drove up, we could see damage from the heavy ice the Boone/Blowing Rock area endured for a good portion of the winter. Many trees had jagged light brown spikes at the tops where limbs had broken under the weight of the ice. Small branches and pine cones littered the carriage trails we walked.



Our chosen route took us from Flat Top Manor to Bass Lake and back again. The girls were delighted to see the manor in the distance from different vantage points.




We walked long enough for the girls to get tired.





The trails at Moses Cone are popular horse trails and the weather was perfect so we saw several beautiful horses. Other than horses and dogs, we didn't see much wildlife just some waterfowl.



We're thinking about heading back to the parkway and Cone Park in a couple weeks to walk "The Maze" and visit the Apple Barn.