Okay, friends. On to part 2 of our trip. The forecast for the next day (Friday) was looking pretty grim - rain most of the day. Fortunately when we woke up that morning, the forecast had changed to rain in the morning. So we switched things around a little bit and decided to see a waterfall in the morning so that hopefully the skies would be clear for the other two hikes I had also planned for that day.
Our first stop was Linville Gorge - northwest of Asheville.
We took a short hike to Linville Falls and were the only ones there.
The water was pretty brown because of all the rain.
So if you can tell from the panorama a few pictures above, you come down these stairs and the two waterfalls are on your left. Then to the right the river flows down into a canyon. Really pretty. Here's where it flows down.
Kind of hard to tell, but there was a lot of water rushing around these rocks. There were a few other trails you could take to get a better look at the falls. Here's our view from the first one.
Stunning. So we decided to try the other trail, too.
Much better.
Can you see someone in orange near the top? That's where we had been before. The water winds around these rocks and then that's Linville Falls.
Here's the view down the canyon.
After the falls, we drove to our next spot - Hawksbill mountain. It took us a while to figure out how to get there. You had to drive through a neighborhood and then the houses end and the road turns into a dirt road. We took that for a long time without seeing anything, so we turned around to try and find cell reception somewhere (I had written down vague directions, but we didn't want to waste a bunch of time). Anyway, we got back to the neighborhood and figured out that we had been on the right path all along.
So we turned around and tried again. Eventually we came to pull-offs where hikes began. Some hikes were well marked. Ours not so much.
The hike was nice - steep, but not too long. We passed one couple coming down while we were going up, but other than that, we had the place all to ourselves.
Once we were basically to the top, we saw a good sign which confirmed we were hiking the right mountain.
This picture and the one before show our next hike, Table Rock, in the distance.
The clouds started rolling in pretty fast.
And the view looking the other way.
It was so beautiful up there. Definitely my favorite hike that we did. While we were up there, we heard some thunder and high-tailed it down the mountain while the heavens opened and the rains came down.
Dan and I decided to selfishly use spring break as an opportunity to go on a little trip and leave our kids with my parents. Before we did that, however, I tried to be a good mom and do a few fun things around town.
Saturday we went to the temple and made great time. We learned that if you leave the temple by 1 or 1:30, you have enough time to hit the toll road before it closes at 2 and starts heading the other direction. So that's made a big difference for us.
Sunday was Easter, which I already wrote about. Monday I took the kids swimming at our gym's pool. Eli screamed his head off, so I just sat on a bench and held him for an hour while the big kids splashed around and had a great time. Tuesday we went to the park and got ready, then headed over to Earlysville once Dan got off work.
Wednesday morning we headed out. Our first hike of the trip was one recommended by one of Dan's older, Eagle-scout toting co-workers: Spy Rock, near Montebello, Virginia.
Apparently, troops would use the mountain as a good lookout place during the Civil War, hence the name. The hike was mainly a dirt road, which eventually turned into a nice trail. We didn't pass anyone on the hike up, saw a few people at the top, and passed a lot more on the way back down.
It was a gorgeous day, but unfortunately, the foliage still hadn't caught up and everything was still really brown.
After our beautiful hike, we drove the rest of the way to Asheville, North Carolina, checked into our hotel, and headed to dinner.
Dinner was so delicious. I relied on Tripadvisor for most of the restaurants this place did not disappoint. I'm glad I made reservations because by the time we left it was totally full. Our waiter was bad, but the food was amazing.
(Note: Every other year or so, for the last seven years or something, Dan and I try to take a trip. We take turns planning it. This was my year. I didn't want to go too far away since Eli is so little. Plus I'd been wanting to do some hiking so Asheville seemed like the perfect spot! I'd planned everything down to the hour pretty much. And like a month in advance. Where to hike, how long each hike was and how long it would take to do, where to eat, where to pick up boxed lunches, etc. The weather totally messed with my plans and we had to improvise, but we still had a lot of fun.)
After dinner I wanted to try this chocolate place that everyone seemed to recommend.
It was kind of a chilly night so Dan got Mexican hot chocolate with some blueberry ice cream and I got a piece of chocolate cake. It was very cocoa-y. More bitter than sweet, but still good. We don't know if it was caffeine in the cocoa or something, but we had a really hard time sleeping that night. We woke up to rain and mist Thursday morning and decided to stick with our scheduled hikes and see how it turned out.
We headed down southwest of Asheville and hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The mist was so bad in places that we could barely see in front of us.
Nevertheless, we pressed onward to Sam Knob.
I can imagine this hike is really beautiful in the spring or fall on a clear day. For us, it was fun in a different way. Apart from a tent hidden in the trees once we got to the top, we were the only ones on the trail. And it was super windy, which made it more exciting.
I didn't want to pull on my nice camera in this terrible weather, so these are all phone shots. But I love the picture above.
Once we got to the top, the view was breathtaking.
Only because it was so windy it was taking our breath away. Ha!
It was kind of weird to have no idea what we were missing out there. How far away were the other mountains? Was there a drop off? No idea. Here's what our view should have been on a nice day.
Kind of makes me want to weep, but it was quite an experience.
The other hike I had planned for that morning was another summit, which I didn't think was worth it since it was so misty. So we scrapped it and headed back to town the long way on the BRP. We saw four wild turkeys. We hit up another tripadvisor place for lunch:
(Dan is so sweet to put up with me!) and then visited Biltmore. I always want to call it THE Biltmore for some reason. It seems more appropriate.
We took the audio tour. It was super crowded and I felt like a herd of cattle, but the house itself was really cool to see. I loved all the different ceilings.
(That library reminded me of the one in Beauty and the Beast.)
This frieze was pretty amazing, too. Here's just a small part of it. It expanded over three oversized fireplaces in the dining room.
Here's a picture from the Biltmore's website with the whole thing.
After the tour, we walked the grounds for a little while.
Then it started to rain once again, so we headed back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner.
I didn't like this place as much, but it was in a cool old home that was built by Vanderbilt to house some of his employees. That was neat. Dan liked his food more than I liked mine. After dinner we walked around and then grabbed some Dairy Queen to top off the night. At this point we were both getting majorly stuffed, but we couldn't help ourselves. I had a food baby tummy by the time the trip was over!
The Easter bunny came and brought his traditional chocolate eggs for the kids to find.
Mom and Dad Cheney came over and we all went to church together. After church, Dad took a picture of me with the kids before they changed out of their church clothes but unfortunately Dan wasn't home, yet.
Lucky that they're mine.
We had a delicious dinner of corned beef, deviled eggs, pineapple, salad, and rolls. We also had a guy from church over for dinner because his family was out of town. Mom made this fabulous cake and Dad added the decorative peeps and bunnies.
After dinner and dessert, we had another egg hunt for the kids with plastic eggs. We tried to make this one a little bit more tricky.
It was a beautiful day and I'm glad we could spend it with family. We are so grateful for our Savior and what his resurrection means for us. Happy Easter!
I had planned on taking Sam to hike Old Rag back in January, but the weekend of the camping trip we had Snowmageddon 2016, and Shenandoah Nat'l Park was closed. Two weeks ago, the weather was perfect, and Sam's soccer hadn't started yet, so we decided on a whim to go on the camping trip that got snowed out in January.
I got off work as early as I could. I crammed a bunch of stuff in my backpack, and I made Sam cram some of his own stuff in his backpack. We headed out to the Berry Hollow trailhead to Old Rag (Berry Hollow is a 5.5 mile out-and-back route rather than the usual 9 mile loop trail) at about 5pm. We got there at 7pm. Our car was the only one in the 10-car parking lot. It was pitch black, and I'd never been there before. We got our stuff more organized, and hit the trail to look for a backcountry camping spot, which, it turns out, is hard to do in the dark when you've never been somewhere before. I was feeling a heavy fatherly burden to keep Sam from being eaten by a bear or an Appalachian cannibal redneck, so I wasn't sure if we should make lots of noise (to scare away bears) or no noise (to avoid attracting rednecks). In the end, we tried to make a moderate amount of noise (for the bears) but to keep a low profile (for the rednecks).
After walking down the main path for 10 or 15 minutes, we found a small offshoot trail that led to a perfect campsite about 100' off the main path (and out of sight of the main path--part of the low profile). We set up our tent, found a big flattish rock a ways away to cook dinner on, hung our food up in a tree (for the bears, and possibly the rednecks), and went to bed.
This is a picture of Sam standing exactly where our tent was. He was making a funny face, of course. I forgot to take a picture before packing up the next morning. We woke up about six o'clock and were hiking by seven.
Either I have an inadequate sleep system, or I'm terrible at sleeping when camping. I tend to sleep for a couple hours, wake up for what seems like a couple hours, toss and turn a lot, then fall asleep for another two or three hours before waking up for good. By way of background, I have a good 0-degree non-mummy sleeping bag and an inflatable sleeping pad. I use my puffy coat for a pillow. I'm open to any suggestions on improving my camping sleep experience.
There are a few really pretty views on the way up. Here's one:
This is looking west into Shenandoah. Just lots of trees and mountains.
At the top it was really cold and windy. Hence the socks on Sam's hands in the photo below. When we got to the top, there was only one other guy up there. By the time we left there were probably 10-15 people up there.
The summit rock is behind Sam and to his left here.
Looking back east. You can see Sam on the right side of the panorama.
Sam was the only little kid we saw the whole time. He did a great job. We got back to the car at about 11:30am, got packed back up, and drove back home. We stopped at a Tastee Freez in Gordonsville for lunch. It was the only thing I really saw in town. I remember when I was little that Tastee Freez had all sorts of delicious milk shake options. I was excited for my butterscotch milkshake. This one had a grand total of four flavors: chocolate, vanilla, banana (I think), and some kind of chocolate mint. (I think the chocolate mint was somehow in honor of St. Patrick's Day. No idea how banana makes the permanent list with vanilla and chocolate.) Total let down. After we ordered our overpriced stuff, I turned around and saw a Burger King right across the street. Don't know how I missed that.
Another interesting thing about the Tastee Freez was their drawing to win the "World's Largest Easter Bunny." It was a stuffed animal bunny hanging from a hook in the ceiling and was probably 2.5 feet tall. I've eaten larger hollow chocolate Easter bunnies as a child. Why are they always hollow? And why do their candy eyes always taste so gross?
We had a great time on our trip together. Sam's favorite part was the camping. My favorite part was the view from the top.
