Today we visited Hart Square Village for their 1-day-a-year 34th Annual Festival. Tickets were purchased online months ago at $45 pp. That's pricey, but we had an amazing time. I would highly recommend this to anyone who can walk and see and has any interest in history or architecture. It is rough terrain with roots, rocks and mud for walking and every building has stairs but there were plenty of golf carts ferrying those who needed it longer distances. They aren't marked on the map but there were regular signs at selected benches for golf cart stops. We actually got offered a golf cart ride back to our parked car this afternoon which was a lucky stroke. The good news was that we actually remembered exactly where we'd parked and directed the cart driver right to it. It still saved us about a half-mile walk at about 2-2:30 pm.
Our most important stroke of good luck today was the weather. Earlier this week today's forecast had been about 62 F and rain. The system either slowed down or tracked further north because it will hit tomorrow now. Today was warmer and sunnier than we were prepared for clothing wise. We worked up a sweat we weren't expecting. It was about 75 F and mostly sunny. It was beautiful weather. We may have seen what will pass for peak color in fall leaves this year. The colors have been late and scarce this year with the leaves just falling off without a colorful display.
Back to the buildings... each has a theme like wool spinners, flax spinners, cooper, tinsmith, chair caner, soap maker, gunsmith, wheelwright, broom makers, rug hooker, etc. Every building was outfitted and had volunteers plying some skill or craft. The buildings weren't originally used that way but they were all some trade or craft theme now. It was amazing. We got to sample a lot of food too as there were volunteers cooking through out. There were working potters and molasses makers. We got to pan for gold. We saw bee boxes from the 1800's. We tried wood fired cornbread, fresh-pressed apple juice, brunswick stew, apple butter, butter, boiled peanuts and beer. We saw a working still, but no samples! We saw a working gristmill grinding corn. We saw a cotton gin, but sadly it had stopped working. Hart Square may be North Carolina's most secret treasure. It was one man's personal log structure obsession and well done.
Since we left at mid-afternoon, we drove out to another Catawba County historic site, Murray's Mill. There we saw the water wheel was not turning and skipped touring another mill. We shared a grape Nehi at the General Store. We got back to Hickory around 4 pm. We went to Tony's Pizza for dinner. It was good. New York Style. We shared a 10" pepperoni and sliced Italian sausage pizza. We drove over to Sweet Frog's for dessert in the same shopping center. I had a S'mores swirl and Clay had a chocolate peanut butter swirl. They were good.
We got back to the Sleep Inn just before sunset and the predicted rain. It was a great day and worth the trip!
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