Last week our school had teacher workdays and I'd been itchin' to go see some pretty fall leaves, so we decided to take a day trip up the road a couple hours to the beautiful NC mountains. I've lived my entire life in this state but had never visited one of it's most popular sites, Grand*father Moun*tain. We took the scenic route, The*Blue*Ridge*Parkway, and even though it was a cloudy day, we still had some magnificant views. I love how you can see the clouds between the mountain ranges.
Being a weekday, there was still a line of traffic we had to wait through. I guess we weren't the only ones with this great idea so we just enjoyed the scenery along the way.
Shortly after we entered we saw some amazing natural formations.
The Sphinx Rock...
...and Split Rock.
As we ventured towards the top, we stopped at a museum and animal habitat. The otters were resting, you could hardly see the cougar and deer, but one of the bears put on a show.
Madeline was very impressed at the size of her birthstone, amethyst. It helps that purple is her favorite color.
My little bear cubs.
This is a wooly worm. See how long the brown stripe is? From what I was told, it's going to be a long winter. We'll see...
We made it up the hairpin road to the top. Did you know that part of that road is in the movie For*est Gu*mp? When he's running across America there's a scene on one of those hairpin turns. How cool is that?! It was fun to drive too! There we found a one mile above sea level swinging bridge which took a little convincing on our parts to get Kenan to cross. It doesn't really swing, at least not anymore, since it was rebuilt using metal. Now it sings when the wind blows and it was showing off that day because it was soooo windy!
Views in both directions.
The right...
...and left.
Even though we had missed the peak time for the leaves, there were still enough left for me to get my fix and stand in awe of creation.
After our morning adventure, we drove over to Va*lle Cru*cis and the original Ma*st General*Store. We went to the annex building which has a candy barrell and every kind of candy you could think of and some I didn't even know they made.
We let our two loose and they were like...
...well, kids in a candy store!
I saw this sign and it got me tickled.
We had waited to eat lunch because we knew where we were headed next. We piled back into the car for the short drive over to Boo*ne and The Dan*iel Boo*ne Inn. Talk about a feast! Just look at all the food! We had fried chicken, ham biscuits, country style steak, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, salad, cole slaw, stewed apples, biscuits with butter and blueberry jelly, chocolate cake, and banana pudding. It was so good, I would have much rather been rolled out of there instead of having to walk! We didn't need to eat for days after that! It was hard staying awake on the drive home, let me tell ya.
What a lovely day we had spending time as a family and visiting what was in our "backyard". The weather was perfect, the sights were breathtaking, and the food was delish. I can't think of a better 'day'cation!
