Shopping Trip

We took a much needed and long anticipated shopping trip to Charlotte. Though I love living in West Jefferson, there is a serious lack of non-tourist shopping around here. There's no Target or Hobby Lobby or any of those other places that make my world go 'round. So when it came to furnishing our new home, we had to leave town. This was perfectly fine with me, as it allowed us to see a bit of North Carolina. And it also meant I could forego Target and shop at Ikea. Yes!

Our first stop was the town of Hickory, NC. We stopped in their downtown district and went for a walk - as seen above - and ate some fantastic food - as seen below - in a really great pub. Olde Hickory Pub, to be exact. They had this killer spinach-artichoke dip. David and I love spinach-artichoke dip and have it every chance we get. This was by far my favorite ever. And to make it even better, instead of being served with heart-stopping chips, it came out with fresh veggies and pitas. Freaking amazing.

Hickory

Then we went on to Charolette. Ikea. Need I say more?

Of course not, but I will anyway. In that one little trip yesterday almost completely furnished our house. We got a couch, bookshelves and (finally) a desk. Not to mention several fun kitchen items. I'm so excited about our new furniture I could pee. And I think the thing I'm excited about most is the bookshelves. Our dining room will have one wall that is completely shelves, which we will fill with our books (duh) and the fun things we and our friends have collected on our travels. I'm so glad we'll finally have a place to display these things!

Some of these include:

  • Wooden frog collection from Costa Rica
  • Stuffed turtle from Guatamala
  • Abalone shell from San Francisco Bay
  • Jade elephant statue from Malaysia
  • Antique geography book and map of the world; both from the 19th century
  • Oil paintings from France
  • Our insanely extensive wine cork collection

I plan on doing some before and after photos, so keep a look-out!

See more photos from this trip in its Flickr set.

sig