Mountain vacation

So The Husband and I decided to take a short vacation to the North Carolina mountains this past weekend. We’re actually off from work all this week, but we went to the mountains from Saturday to Wednesday. We went a few years ago, to Asheville, to visit the Biltmore Estate, so this time we decided to see some other things.

As I mentioned in my last entry, it’s very obvious that we’re lowlanders. Before we even reached Raleigh, our ears were popping because of the slightly higher elevation and hills. We stayed in Marion, NC, which is about half an hour or so? east of Asheville.

Seeing mountains rising up in the distance always amazes me. I’ve always thought it must be so weird to just see mountains whenever you walk outside your house or drive anywhere through your town. I’ve always lived on flat land close to sea level, so being at higher elevations is a strange thing for me.

We didn’t do anything on Saturday after we got there, just drove through town and then hung out in the hotel room to watch TV. We don’t have cable or satellite at home so we love staying at hotels and getting to watch all kinds of channels. I’m very, very tempted to get cable or satellite just so I can watch HGTV and TLC and Style. That’s what I watched every night after The Husband fell asleep. (He falls asleep really early and I can’t ever fall asleep until late, so I get a few hours of uninterrupted TV time.)

On Sunday we got up early and got ready for our big day out. It was the most exhausting of the trip. We visited Linville Caverns. There are usually blind fish in the stream inside, but our tour guide explained that they recently had to restock the stream because otters got into the caverns and ate all of the blind fish. So the current fish aren’t yet blind.

(That’s looking up toward the ceiling of the caverns.)

It was pretty cool, looking at all the shapes in the rock. And we saw a bat, which was the size of a thumb and thankfully, decided to stay in one spot and not come flying out at us. Also, we weren’t supposed to touch the rocks except in one really narrow spot that they tell you it’s okay, but I saw the family from Uruguay in front of me so touching the rocks several times. In the narrow tunnel in the caverns, you stand on a grate that’s over a bit of water called the Bottomless Pond. No one knows how deep it goes. Many years ago they dropped a weighted line down it and went down 250 feet and still hadn’t touched the bottom, and divers tried to go down but it was too narrow after 60 feet down.

After we left Linville Caverns, we decided to go to Grandfather Mountain. But we accidentally passed the entrance. We discovered that when you’re coming from one direction there are no signs warning you that it’s coming up just ahead, but there are signs from the other direction. We decided to go up to Blowing Rock first, then work our way back down to Grandfather Mountain.

And so there I am on top of Blowing Rock. Can you tell how freaked out I am? I am terrified of heights, even though I hiked to the top of a mountain four years ago and stood at the top of a waterfall. I was still terrified. I kind of crawled onto Blowing Rock instead of walked to lessen my chances of falling.

But the view was great. (You can read about the legend of Blowing Rock here.)

After we left Blowing Rock, we stopped to take our picture at the eastern continental divide sign that we had passed on the way there.

Then it was on to Grandfather Mountain and…dun dun dun…the Mile High Swinging Bridge. My heart was racing as we drove toward Grandfather Mountain. And even more as we drove up it. The road up was so sharply curved that our truck started spinning tires. We ended up parking at a picnic area and then hiking the rest of the way to the bridge because we weren’t confident that the truck would make it okay. Hiking Grandfather Mountain is not a leisurely walk through the park. The signs kept warning us that Grandfather Mountain was the most rugged mountain east of the Mississippi and yeah, I think I believe it. It was the hardest hike of any we’ve ever done. I slipped twice on the path and then The Husband slipped on the way back.

I wasn’t sure that I could make it across the bridge, but The Husband wouldn’t let me not do it and I wanted to, just so I could prove to myself that I could. So with him walking behind me and telling me to “Keep walking, keep walking” I made it to the other side. The scariest part was when people passed me going in the other direction and I could feel the bridge shaking even more. And if you hike up the mountain, you pass some of the cables that support the bridge and you can hear them squeaking from all the weight. Not very reassuring.

But still, great views! (That’s the elusive husband, who doesn’t want me to post pictures of his face.)

There’s also a museum and a small nature center with a few animals father down the mountain, so we stopped there on our way back down. We got to see feeding time for the otters. I LOVE otters. They are so adorable.

(There’s the grandfather of Grandfather Mountain. Can you see his profile?)

We also stopped at Linville Falls before heading back to the hotel, which was a hike up a trail to see the falls. My feet were killing me by the time we got back to the hotel. I’m not used to doing too much walking since I have an office job!

On Monday and Tuesday, we went mining, which was what The Husband had been looking forward to. We decided to drive to this place called Emerald Village in Little Switzerland. What we didn’t know was that Little Switzerland was on top of a mountain. And the only way to get there was to drive up a narrow, winding road, from which we were able to look out the side windows of the truck directly over the edge of the road down the mountainside. Our nerves were frazzled. I was thinking the entire time, “I’ll be SO glad when we get off this freaking mountain!”

But it was worth the drive. The set up at Emerald Village is so cool, with the flumes right in front of the mine. That hole in the side of the mountain is HUGE. That picture doesn’t even show you exactly how big it is.

We had fun searching for gems and I decided to have one of the rubies I found cut and set into a ring. It will be shipped to me in two to eight weeks. I thought it would be nice to have a piece of jewelry made from a gem I found myself.

On Tuesday we went to a place called Thermal City that was a little closer to the hotel and wasn’t on the side of a mountain. I highly recommend going to both Emerald Village and Thermal City. Go to Emerald Village first just for the mine experience–getting to the see the mine and the whole set up. But then go to Thermal City to search for bigger gems. We bought cheaper buckets in Thermal City than we did in Emerald Village and found much bigger gems. The guy running the place even said before we started that he’d guarantee his $20 buckets against any other place’s $50 buckets and I can tell you he’s serious. We were much more impressed with the buckets from Thermal City, although it didn’t have the same mine atmosphere as Emerald Village.

And that was our trip. The leaves started changing colors on Tuesday, just beginning to turn red and yellow. So we were a bit too early for the fall colors, but we had a great time anyway.

But still, we were so glad to get back home! The hotel bed was really soft and comfortable, but neither of us was able to sleep well on it. We kept waking up all during the night.

You can see more pictures from our trip here.

And here’s a video of us driving up to Little Switzerland to show how curvy the road was, lol. That line of trees on the left side of the road was the only thing shielding us from the edge of the mountain.

I used to think it would be cool to live on top of a mountain. After riding around on those roads for four days I’ve decided it wouldn’t be cool at all. Anyone who drives on mountains in every day life is a lot braver than I am. I’ll stick to flat land!