Days 28-32: Nature’s Air Conditioning in the Blue Smokey Mountains

Charleston, was an amazing city, but as we mentioned in our  last post the heat was starting to get to us, so we were excited to get to cooler weather.   We settled into a campsite outside of Asheville before heading in for dinner the first night.   Asheville has to have more breweries per capita than anywhere else in the country.  They were everywhere!  We decided that this was a place where we would enjoy dinners out most nights.  Wicked Weed Brewery was tops for the weekend both in food and beer. 

The first day we did a hike to Chimney Rock State Park. It wasn’t a long hike (3 miles) but there were A LOT OF STAIRS!  The park provided a great vantage point to see the area, and we got a chance to cool off at the base of a waterfall for a while.   Claire did great despite a little bit of complaining and we all had some sore muscles the next day.   Even lucy was exhausted when we were done. 

Day 2 was a trip to Cherokee, NC where Annie and Claire went to a museum about the trail of tears and the Cherokee Indians while I did a little bit of fly fishing.  I caught the smallest trout ever which of course we made sure to get a picture of. 

The Biltmore was on the agenda for day 3.   Having been to many of Europe’s chateaus and castles I can say that the Biltmore is every bit as enjoyable to visit as those other classic homes.  The added audio tour was a worthwhile purchase, and they had  a great kids audio tour that was narrated by Cedric the family’s St Bernard.  We spent a lot of time waiting for Claire to finish at each exhibit.  We were lucky enough to visit while the gardens were adorned with a wide array of  Chihuly art.  It made the gardens even more interesting.   

It was time to say good buy to Asheville, start our travels along the Blue Ridge Parkway and return to more nature and hiking.   Our biggest adventure in this area occurred at Linville Falls where the sky opened up on us at the turn around point of our hike.  Lesson learned:  15 year old rain coats don’t always stay waterproof.  Of course the rain stopped as soon as we got back to the car.   We were completely soaked, but it was nothing a quick change of clothes couldn’t fix before making our way to our next campsite – a national park campground on a beautiful lake where Claire made quick friends with the kids camping next to us.   The next morning we rented Kayaks and went for a hike before driving toward Williamsburg, VA  with a very pleasant detour to do some wine tasting in the Swan Valley region.  

We really enjoyed the change of scenery and weather, and the smokey mountains lived up to their reputation for be being beautiful.  We were very surprised by the shear number of confederate flags being flown throughout both Carolinas, and we were surprised to find a significant increase in the number of rude, unfriendly people in the Asheville area.  Maybe we had just gotten so used to the extreme friendliness of the deeper south regions! Never the less we really enjoyed our time in this area.