Rocky Mount, North Carolina

Quite a few weeks back now both my boyfriend Jared and I took a road trip to Rocky Mount, NC to visit his family for a few days. While visiting his parents Jared showed me around the tiny town of Nashville, NC where he grew up...next door to his Church in the parsonage.

Below are the photos from mine and Jared's trip:

Along the roads in Nashville, NC there were lots of these metal-silo-things and they just gleamed brilliantly casting the July sun off of it's somewhat reflective surface. I know it's just metal, right? Well, to me it was beautiful metal, with a long history to show and an old tale to surely share.

I love the old barns, nestled up against cotton and tobacco fields down south in the sandhills. I was a sandhills girl, born and raised! Now, I live nestled into the WNC mountain foothills. Being back in the sandy soiled, pine tree ridden territory that's so very close to my own stomping grounds again brought back so many of my own childhood memories. It was nice to hear Jared's childhood memories as well. What's really neat though is that he and I both grew up only about 40min-1hr away from one another without even knowing it. To think we were that close...

This is only one of the lovely stained glass windows in Jared's old Church. This dove in the stained glass window was my favorite out of all of the lovely leaded window panes. Jared and I walked through the Church...because in the sandhills they are very trusting and don't lock their Church doors so we were free to enter as we pleased...and he talked about how he used to pretend he was an animal of some sort as he made his way to the front of the Church on all fours whenever the kiddos were called up before the Church congregation. Being that his father was the Preacher I bet the Church was pretty shocked to see little-bitty Jared crawling on all fours. Silly boy! Haha! Oh, and he also escaped from the Church nursery once. ;)

After we finished looking around in the Church we headed over next door to the parsonage. We knocked on the door of the house and asked the new occupants if they'd mind Jared showing me around. They didn't. I was kind of surprised to see that the Preacher and his family had a deer stand in their back yard...alongside the skulls you see above and below.

Jared spent a few of his younger years learning to grow out of walking on all fours in Nashville, and he also learned to ride his bike...on gravestones in the front yard. Yes, I'm completely serious about the gravestones and all! I would never have believed it myself until Jared took me for a quick walk through the front yard, and then I realized that I was standing on top of a little girl's grave. A graveyard in the middle of a parsonage's front yard is the most absurd, and creepy thing I've ever heard of or seen. Jared told me that he had no clue that he had learned to ride his bike on graves until much later in life though. Can you imagine??

Another inspiring silo/water tower/something with it's displayed pride. This girl loves architecture like crazy!

Alright, so after Jared showed me around the little town of Nashville (where he spent many of his younger years) he took me out for a quick bite to eat at the local Taco Bell (one of my fave places to eat!) and then we headed to the duck pond back in Rocky Mount.

I love how none of the ducks look completely like one another. Each one has a unique feather pattern. Even if some of them all look like they're the same ruddy brown color, they're not.

I confess. I wanted to go swimming with the ducks to beat the heat. Alas, I did not. I let those cute ducks have all of the fun without me!

Look at those orange eyes. Aren't they awesome?

Yes, he is the handsome young man I have had the pleasure of knowing for over two years now. I love him.

Jared and I had a wonderful day out and about, reliving memories and sharing our childhood memories together.