Oct. 13-14

Had a little lesson on things that I think are annoyances that can turn into blessings. I'm a bit snobbish about advertising for a company. I don't like clothes that advertise where they came from like Old Navy, Abercrombie, and Gap (although I do break that rule with Life is Good merchandise because, well, because I think life IS good). I don't let David put stickers on the Jeep advertising what aftermarket products he's put on it. I don't even like that auto dealerships put their decals on vehicles. So I was a little miffed when the KOA that we stayed at the other night had us sign in through Facebook to use their wi-fi and automatically posted on my wall that we were at their campground. But sign in I did so that I could get my blog updated. A couple hours later, I got a message on the campground post from Miss Kathy. She is a Glenmary Lay Minister and we had the blessing of working with her all the while that we were at the church in Atlanta, TX. Kathy's message said that we were just an hour from her. We haven't seen her since we left Atlanta twenty years ago. We got to messaging back and forth and changed our route for yesterday morning to swing up to see her. We had a very fun visit catching up with each other's lives. She is an amazing lady and it was such a serendipitous chance to get to see her again.

We obviously need to work on our selfies!

We made it on in to Winston-Salem, and Joe was there to meet us at the campground just as we were getting set up. We met Darlene and Archer at Archer's Tae Kwon Do session. From there we went to Leslie's school and watched a volleyball game. Leslie is the assistant coach. The girls lost, but they played hard and it was a much better match up than the last time they played this team.

Joe and Darlene picked us up Wednesday morning and we went to Mrs. Hanes' Hand-Made Moravian Cookie factory. There are many Moravian churches in the area and the Moravian's were some of the early settlers in the Salem area. As I understand it, they are one of the earliest protestant religions. Here is what it says about them from Mrs. Hanes' website:

"What exactly is a Moravian?"

This is a question we are often asked.Originating in the Czech province of Moravia, the Moravian church was a pre-Reformation church begun by John Hus of Bohemia. His protests and teachings caused him to die a martyr's death at the stake on July 6, 1415. The followers of John Hus organized the Unitas Fratrum (Unity of the Brethren) which became the first fully organized Protestant church in 1457. Many members were persecuted, driven from their homes, and imprisoned. They migrated to Germany and found refuge on the estate of a young nobleman, Count Zinzendorf, who was interested in their beliefs. They were often referred to as "that religious group from Moravia", and thus the name "Moravian" evolved. The Moravians came to America and established a settlement in Bethlehem, PA. From there they came south to what is now Winston-Salem, N.C. Today there are many Moravian churches in our area. Our bakery is located on Friedberg Church Road. The road received its name from Friedberg Moravian Church built in 1773 and where nine generations of my family have been members since the beginning.

I had read about this cookie factory when I was doing research for this trip. The Moravian cookie is a very thin wafer like cookie with an intense flavor for such a small cookie. I'm not sure how long ago the bakery started, but it is a family run business that still HAND ROLLS and CUTS each individual cookie. Each year the factory produces about 10 million cookies! I knew that there were windows in the showroom where you could watch the women roll and cut the cookies and that was all I was expecting, but Darlene and called ahead and arranged a tour for us. A very sweet lady who had worked for the company for seventeen years gave us a tour of the factory with samples of each of the six flavors of cookies. A private tour for four of us! Talk about a personal touch! It was an amazing tour.

Naturally, we bought some cookies to bring home!

From the cookie factory we went to Old Salem which was the original Moravian settlement. We had a delicious lunch at the Tavern then toured some of the buildings. There were folks in period costumes to explain what went on back in the early settlement. There were two men in the gunsmith shop. One didn't say a thing except to wish us a good day as we were leaving and the other one talked our ears off! He had us laughing the whole time!

Mr. Quiet

Mr. Life Of The Party

There was a tavern/inn that was used for the people (mostly men) who came to the area to do business with the local people. At the time, this building was on the outskirts of the town as they wanted to limit the contact and influence that "outsiders" had on the community. This was so strictly followed that the innkeeper's three children couldn't stay at the inn with their parents, but stayed elsewhere in the town except for sharing meals with their parents. One of the interesting things about the inn was documentation that they had of George Washington visiting the inn on a tour of the southern states in 1791. 

So at the end of a fun day learning about a culture that was new to us, we went to Joe and Darlene's for a yummy supper, playing games, planning for our next adventure and plenty of laughter!