Beginning the workshop

Thursday night we arrived at Wildacres, Little Switzerland, NC about 6:30pm. We were late, because of horrific storms that blocked the road with downed power lines, downed trees, and a truck wreck (pronounced wra-yuck in Tennessee) and were rushed to dinner immediately.
Meals were served family-style in the large dining room, seen here from above. Life on a mountain top means plenty of stairs, indoors and out. There, we met Mike, the manager of Wildacres Retreat, who served as organizer, "cruise director," problem solver, and all-round good guy.After dinner, we retired to the library to have our first talk with Terry Gess, our instructor for the week,and then visited the studio, our home-away-from-home for the next six days.











Soon, it was off to our beds with visions of beautiful pottery in our heads. With no TV, radio, or cell phone service and spotty Internet access, there was little to impede our sleep. Open windows kept our bedrooms "air-conditioned by nature" all week, as the old ads for Wildacres used to read.




Need to make an emergency call?
Here's the phone booth.


Our rooms were in the south lodge, shown here from the pathway below, at the foot of the stairs that lead to the patio. Two twin beds, a sink with a long counter, and a private bath were all my roomie and I needed, since we were rarely there.If your tastes run to the outdoors, as mine do, the lodge's wide deck, equipped with plenty of rocking chairs for comfort and conversation, is all you need .
The decks of both the north and south lodges face the stone patio below, and are a great place to sit and listen to the rain.

I sat on the patio often,
watching the ever-changing mountain views.Let the work begin tomorrow ...... today, I'm on vacation.