Highlands, North Carolina – The Lick Log Mill Store

Happy Memorial Day Weekend to everyone! I hope your holiday has been wonderful so far.

I know that Memorial Day has special significance to many people. If you live in the United States, the purpose of the holiday is to honor the men and women that have served in the military and fought for our country. Obviously, many of our citizens have lost loved ones over the years, and therefore, it is a particularly special and perhaps, difficult holiday.

Many of us also associate Memorial Day with the beginning of Summer, barbecues, and gathering with family and friends. For Roger and I it has meant the beginning of the summer season in Highlands, North Carolina for the last nine years and getting together with great friends and sharing fun times.

We have been visiting this mountainous area since I first moved to Georgia. Highlands is approximately two and a half hours from Atlanta, it is at 4200 feet elevation (reason why I did not make my Daring Bakers Challenge – the baking is nearly impossible here) and it sits on a plateau that is designated as one of the few temperate (not tropical) rain forests in the lower forty-eight states.

You can always count on temperatures to be at least 10 to 15 degrees cooler here in the summer, so it is a welcome change from the sweltering heat in Hotlanta come July and August.

There are also a few great farmer’s markets that I love to frequent. I cannot always get the really unusual stuff (like I do in Atlanta), but the trade-off can be worth it for some of the fresh strawberries (as in my Strawberry Tart with a Shortbread Crust and Strawberry Freezer Jam), South Carolina peaches (Peach Cheesecake Pots with a Biscotti Crumble) and other great produce that will be coming our way soon.

Well, this weekend, we have decided to say good-bye to Highlands. We have been thinking about leaving here for some time, but have finally made the decision to do something different with our lives, so this weekend now has some bittersweet meaning for us.

In honor of the great times we have had here over the last ten years, I have decided to share some of the best the mountains has to offer while we still are able to spend some time here. So, I will be doing some hopefully fun and different posts this summer. Of course, in this real estate market, it might take us a year or more to sell, so this occasional odd post for our site could go on for awhile!

You may or may not know that Roger has been through colon cancer twice and recently had heart surgery (right before Camp Blogaway). He recently was declared cancer free and is doing really well. Highlands has been a very peaceful and restful place to come to during the past seven years of recovering from health issues, but now that he is feeling great, we are going to shake things up a bit! We hope to travel more, get back to business pursuits and enjoy everything that life has to offer.

Lick Log Mill Store

For almost ten years we have passed this odd little building on the side of the road coming up the mountain to Highlands. As you can see on the photo at the top of the post, the original building dates back to 1851. We knew it was a store of some sort, and assumed it was probably antiques. We were curious, but never bothered to stop. We know many people that have done the same. Well, one Roger decided to take some photos of the neat old car outside the building, so rather than just snapping away, we decided to go inside and let the owner know what we were doing.

The owner Karen writing up our “I Owe You” for our purchases!