We don't have to go very far to find beautiful places here in North Carolina. To the east we have the ocean and amazing beaches. To the west we have the woods, hills and wilderness. After our regatta in Clemson, we headed for the hills of North Carolina, towards Cherokee and Tennessee border.
Our first stop was a beautiful trail up the Whiteside Mountain. It was Easter Sunday so we wanted to do something peaceful and free. The hike was quite easy but very pretty.
It took us about an hour and a half roundtrip.
No one complained.
Not even Robert.
The boys used all their muscles to make it to the top, apparently.
Here is our whole hiking group. Mark decided to play cool and didn't want to seem to be associated with us.
And here is just us. Again, I wonder if this family picture could qualify to be posted along those other "creepy family pictures" as Mark is just kind of out there. Hahaha:)
We were very excited to get to our rental house in a rural part of NC so we could have our Easter egg hunt and an unconventional Easter dinner. The house came with a beautiful front and back garden, so my mom and I had a blast hiding the eggs all over the front yard for the kids to find (I brought the eggs filled with treats from home).
If it were a painting I'd name it "After the Easter Egg Hunt".
We finished the evening by playing lots of outside games and just hanging out outside.
On Monday morning, we drove about 40 minutes from our house towards Newfound Gap. First, we stopped by Clingmans Dome, an outlook which is the highest point of the Great Smoky Mountains (6643 feet high). The trail from the parking lot to the outlook is quite short, but it's quite steep although paved.
I did not take the following two pictures, they are from RomanticAsheville.com but this is what the very last bit of the trail looks like. Gorgeous!
This was obviously taken on a sunny day, but the day we went it was quite gloomy and super windy on top!
So this is the reality shot with our windburned faces and using whatever hoods and hats we had:)) I am not going to draw attention to Robert's bright green hat, which is actually Mark's favorite Snowdonia hat bought in Wales. But since Mark had two hoodies on, he could let Robert borrow the green hat. Katya decided to freeze rather than be photographed wearing a hood. I believe she has a sweatshirt, a rain jacket AND her warm coat on.
I highly recommend this stop:) Easy to get to (after a few miles of twists and turns) and a beautiful sight to see.
Next we drove a little further to where NC meets TN.
My mom, of course, needed a picture to remember her trip to Tennessee:)
It was not the easiest of hikes and we were all happy to have sturdy shoes. It took us a little while and a few rest stops but we made it to where the trail was meant to end (or keep going to connect with another really long trail). We had a little lunch on top of the mountain and then enjoyed our journey down.
We saw many people huffing and puffing on the way up, many wondering where the trail goes. I was "helpful" a couple of times to strangers who asked me if the top was worth the climb. I said...no, not really-hahahaha. I said this hike was mostly for the purpose of hiking itself as that is the most enjoyable part:)) The outlook on top is nothing extraordinary. People really appreciated my input as they were in a hurry anyway trying to fit too much in in their itinerary.
For dinner that night we drove to Bryson City and had some pizza at Anthony's Restaurant. Anthony must have been out of town because although the pizza was all right, the pasta dish that my mom ordered was pretty disgusting...and it wasn't just her who was saying that. Oh well, it's hit and miss with places that are recommended to us as opinions on food differ.
Wow... I am kind of on a roll of honest reviews here...anyway.
On Tuesday morning we headed out of our cute rental house towards Asheville. We knew we couldn't spend all day there, but we wanted to hit the highlights and walk around downtown. First stop was Thomas Wolfe Memorial Visitor Center.
Why Thomas Wolfe Memorial? Thomas Wolfe was born in Asheville, NC and ever since we found out that we'd be moving to NC, we knew we had to make time to see the place where he was born and be reminded of a very special time in Katya's life:)
We took a guided tour of the house and learned the story of Wolfe's childhood, his parents and his family life. There was a lot of sadness in his story. The tour helped me understand more about his personality that was depicted in the movie that Katya was in, "Genius". It made more sense to me why he was so clingy to Aline Bernstein and why he wrote the way he wrote his lengthy novels.
At the end of the tour, we got talking about the movie "Genius" and we mentioned that Katya was in it. All the people who were taking the tour knew about the movie and all of them really-really liked it! The tour guide told us about how Jude Law came to visit the sight and how he wanted to learn more about Thomas Wolfe in preparation for his role, and how he wanted to stay as unnoticed as possible being driven around town to the place where Wolfe is buried.
After the visitor center, we walked around town for a bit, enjoying the lively vibe. We found a yummy Japanese place where we enjoyed lunch, walked around some more, wandered into the library, bought a few books at their used book sale and then headed home. Asheville is about 3.5 hours drive from us, so someday, I hope we can go there during when the leaving are turning yellow.
And that is how our spring break trip ended:)) I am already thinking about our next year's trip...as I can now only have three more spring breaks to plan before Katys goes off to college! AAAAHHH!!
Lyana.
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