North Carolina Day Trippin': Midland, NC

Finally! A perfect Carolina blue sky day. My husband and I opted to spend our Sunday together in Midland, about a 40 minute drive from our house in Cabarrus County. There is not much to this this 2 stoplight town. The only restaurant we found open was D'Anna's Kitchen Family Restaurant. Nothing fancy but we were pleasantly greeted and the decor was homey. The menu consisted of the usual fare ... but we went for the chalkboard offerings .... every Southerner's favorite meal ... meat with 2 sides and cornbread or biscuit and of course sweet tea! We both got the country fried steak and mashed potatoes and gravy. For my second side I know I should have gotten the greens or some sort of vegetable but instead I couldn't resist the macaroni and cheese. I am so glad I did! It was really delicious. But whoa! I'll have to spend more time in the gym to work off this meal!

We then drove into "downtown" Midland which consisted of 4 or 5 abandoned buildings. This apparently was once a town midway on the railway system between Charlotte and Oakboro which is how the town got it's name but apparently not much else happened in this sleepy town. Cool little buildings though.

The town does boast 2 attractions though worthy visiting .... Reed Gold Mine http://www.reedmine.com/ the site of the first documented gold find in the US and Rocky River Vineyards http://www.rockyrivervineyards.com/ If our son had been with us we would have done the gold mine but since he had to work his summer job today we decided to be grown ups and go to the vineyard. It's a beautiful setting there ... a small white house with tables in and out to enjoy the wines. There is also a pavilion with rocking chairs overlooking the vines where private parties could be held. We did the $6 tasting that included 9 wines: chardonnay, Cabernet sauvignon, chambourcin dry, scarlet merlot blend, white zinfandel, niagara, white gold, rockin' red and 2 slushy mixes. The muscadine wines were made with the grapes grown on site. I won't pretend to know much about wines but I thought they were all tasty. The peach wine slushy seemed like the perfect summer drink so we ordered a large one and took it out to the rocking chairs to sip and enjoy the view.