"I've been everywhere, man..."
I left home on Thursday morning. Stopped for most of the day in Decatur, We walked the dogs, piddled around and went to the food trucks for lunch. I left ATL mid-afternoonn, got to TN about quitting time. We'd been talking about going to Asheville NC for weeks, making plans to take a hike in a forest I had learned about last fall. And thought that going when the leaves were changing would be a great time to take a walk in the woods.
I was somewhat disconcerted when I woke up Friday morning to discover it was raining - thinking 'hmmm... not so much fun walking in the woods in the Wet woods.But we got up, loaded up and headed east. Amazingly, just about the time we crossed over into NC the rain stopped, the sun came out, the sky was blue, it was a beautiful day. Kinda like when you were a kid and the vacation advertisements had you believing that as you were guaranteed nothing but sunshine as soon as you crossed over into Florida.
We'd made plans to stay with friends who live near Asheville, but i was not so sure exactly where 'near' might be. Stopped at the first visitors/info. center in NC and got a map, to discover the 'Band B'(D. had s little sign that said 'Bed and Breakfast -You Are Cooking!') we booked ourselves into was located on the west side of Asheville instead of to the east as I mistookenly believed. The friends are right off I-40, were very welcoming and provided comfy beds and good entertainment in the form of an amusing little canine. I'm pretty sure he has no idea he is a dog.
I also discovered from studying the map that the place I wanted to go for the hike had been misplaced. I was practically certain it was in a national forest to the east of Asheville - but that too, was located elsewhere. Not only 'way west of where we where, but something that we had pretty much passed in our driving earlier in the day. So ... that's another trip.
In order to fulfill my desire to take a walk in the woods, after perusing my new road map, I found Mount Mitchell State Park, which has the highest mountain in the eastern United States. So that's where we went on Saturday morning. A long, very winding road thought some pretty impressive scenery - especially for someone who has always been in the flatlands of south GA. Got on the Blue Ridge Parkway for about an hour before taking the turn off into the State Park. It is surrounded by National Forest, which I thought most unusual. We decided, as we stopped and read markers that oddity is probably due to the State Park being designated before the National Forest was acquired and protected.
Fortunately, we did not actually have to walk any great distance up a formidable trail (remember Mt. LeConte? I certainly do!), but drove nearly to the tippy-top, and took a smooth, paved path to the highest point in North Carolina. Then wandered along a path more reminiscent of that exhausting LeConte expedition - that was blessedly only about 3/4 of a mile through thickly wooded, rocky terrain. It turned out to be another really pleasant day.
We met a friend of mine from childhood on the mountain. She has been living with her family, up in the northwest corner of NC: I had written her to tell her of plans to be nearby and we stopped at the agreed location and had lunch. Sweet to reconnect. I promised that since I now have a good NC road map I would return for a longer visit.
Came back down the mountain at a much greater speed than when we went up. Amused to watch the batteries in the Prius completely recharged from all that down-hill coasting. And spent several hours in downtown Asheville, plundering around, looking at bountiful handicrafts, trying to keep our cash in our pockets. Mostly successful, except for a pair of cute little sterling silver wire hoop earrings and some exotic chocolates that we were compelled to taste, as we are nothing of not sacrificial, all in the name of science...
The scientific research project consisted of a non-partisan panel of two fully functioning capable adults, willing to participate in determining the best combination of tastes to create the perfect chocolate 'turtle'. Pecans are superior to pistachios, and milk choc. is far better than dark in this combination with caramel adn nuts. Sadly the ones we found in Asheville do not measure up to the ones from the candy store in Ocean Springs, but we are willing to do further research when called upon. Nothing if not sacrificial, all in the name etc, etc...
No comments:
Post a Comment