This past weekend, we had a lovely trip to the North Carolina Mountains. At the very last minute, we realized that the Bele Chere festival was that weekend – it’s huge in Asheville, since there’s a bunch of free music, crafts vendors, etc. We were a little nervous that this might impede on our campsite finding – but, luckily, after a nice dinner at Doc Chey’s, we were able to settle into our old standby Hippy Campground (TM) for the night.

 

We decided to go to bed when we felt some sprinkling… little did we know the next morning we’d wake up with puddles in our tent. I’m hoping this is enough of a cue to Oak to buy us a new tent… lol. My pillow, sleeping bag, and one of my sweatshirts were completely soaked. Luckily most of my clothes were in the car so I just changed into something dry. Taking down the tent in the rain, also a challenge… we had a huge pile of wet stuff. Boo.

 

The next morning we went in search of breakfast. The GPS kept leading us to places that either didn’t exist or were closed, so finally we decided to go to Tupelo Honey Cafe in downtown for breakfast. Oak and I had been hyping up the sweet potato pancakes and french toast for awhile, so I think everyone was excited to give it a try. It was delicious, but I got WAY too much french toast. Seriously it was a half a loaf of bread.

 

Our original intention was to go to Mount Mitchell for a hike, but it was still pouring outside. We drove up there just to see what was going on. At the top of the mountain, all you could see was fog. It reminded me of our honeymoon when we tried to see Haleakala and a few different canyons that were failed attempts. Instead we chilled in the visitor center for a little while – the guys had waaay too much fun playing on a wheelchair. I’m surprised we didn’t get yelled at.

 

So, we had to find something indoors to do. We headed to Linville Caverns. A lot of people seemed to have the same idea, but the wait wasn’t too long to get in. We amused ourselves by buying hot dogs from the church people that set up a little vending station in front of the park. The price was really reasonable, and it was a decent cavern. (I think I’m a little spoiled after seeing Mammoth Caves in Kentucky last summer.) The especially scary part was when we did a squeeze, and then they showed us that we were actually standing on a metal platform, with water underneath us! Yikes!

 

The rain had let up a little bit at this point, so we continued up the Blue Ridge Parkway to Linville Falls. We did a different hike than we did last time, which was much easier. Phew. I don’t think I would have wanted to do the other hike we did last year with a wet ground.

 

After some shopping in a very fancy “Mountain Dawg” (aka Food Lion), we began our search for a campsite. We ended up at the KOA in Boone, which we hadn’t exactly intended on, but we were so ready for dinner by that point that we just plunked down the cash for it. Oak made hot dogs for dinner on the grill, and we roasted potatoes and made s’mores on the camp fire. Yum! Luckily we had a 3rd, huge tent that we could set up and be dry for the evening. Our stuff was still a little damp but luckily it was fairly warm outside.

 

The next morning, we took some very welcome, long, hot showers, packed up, and ate breakfast at Bojangles. Alex and Oak also consumed a few Bingles during breakfast – a twinkie-like confection that is made with red velvet cake instead of yellow sponge cake. It looked pretty shady to me. Our hike for the afternoon was at Hanging Rock state park – boy, was that exhausting! I’ll be happy if I don’t see any stairs for awhile. LOL The views were worth the climb though! We stopped for some nourishment at Foothills Brewery on the way home. We’re back to flat land in the Piedmont for now!

PHOTOS:  from Nirav and Alex!

Posted by Carrie on Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Categories: blog, weekend · 3 Comments »