Hi everyone — welcome back from Thanksgiving break! I hope you all had nice holidays. I’m excited because my friend Lu (her real name is Laura, but everyone calls her Lu) from college is here visiting!!
Lu randomly has a work conference thingy here in Chapel Hill later this week, so she came in a couple days early to stay with me and hang. Yay! She’s from Boston (remember her from my August adventures up there?) so I don’t get to see her nearly enough — especially since last year she spent traveling around the world!
Lu arrived yesterday morning and we had such a fun day playing. We started with a morning walk through the UNC campus and along Franklin Street in Chapel Hill!
The weather was nice and warm — Lu couldn’t believe it was so warm here in November! I told her it’s time to move to NC. 😉
Lots of pretty fall leaves around still, too.
Love this picture of the clock tower and the looming clouds!
After exploring campus and Chapel Hill, we headed into Carrboro for lunch. Lu’s a vegetarian and pretty much swooned when she saw the Weaver Street Market salad bar!
I got an assortment of randomness, as per usual at salad bars. They had a lot of fun grain/bean dishes out yesterday!
Following lunch, it was obviously time for more food: a visit to Maple View Farm for ice cream!!!
I had a feeling Lu would LOVE this place and I was right. 🙂
Rocking chairs + ice cream + an old friend = happy.
I had the sweet potato ice cream — SO good! Yummy spices. 🙂
After our ice cream adventures, it was time for a hike! You can pretty much guarantee two things when you come visit me:
- You will enjoy a lot of delicious food (sometimes healthy, sometimes not).
- You will get a lot of exercise. 🙂
Perfect balance, as far as I’m concerned.
We hit up Eno River State Park over in Durham — one of my favorites in the area.
We spent about 2 hours hiking and chatting nonstop. I <3 Lu. We were on the same freshman floor in college — hard to believe we’ve known each other since we were 17?! Old friends are the best.
We had grand plans of making a fun dinner at home after our hike, but when we got in the car we decided we were starving and would rather go out to eat. 😉 We headed back to Carrboro and hit up the Spotted Dog!
We started with some sweet potato fries to share — mmmm, my favorite.
As for our entrée, Lu and I were both intrigued by the vegetarian BBQ sandwich — made using some sort of soy protein?
It was topped with coleslaw and I don’t know if it was because I was really hungry or what, but it was DELICOUS. Would totally get this again. Tasted surprisingly like real BBQ with the addition of extra BBQ sauce, too!
After dinner, Lu and I came home, changed into PJ’s, and collapsed on the couch to watch “Love Actually.” 🙂 Love that movie. What a fun day!
I had class this morning and just got some work done and now Lu and I are going to play in Chapel Hill a bit more — including a yoga class later today at Franklin Street Yoga! Have a great day, friends. 🙂
