Vacation Pictures - Day Two

2007-11-15T18:20:00.000-08:00

We drove about 70 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, from Cherokee to east of Asheville. The trees were full of color and the weather was perfect. We stopped at almost every scenic overlook along the way to enjoy the view.

We hiked to the top of the Devil's Courthouse for a 360 degree view. The hike was short but strenuous (very steep). From the top we had a great view of Pisgah National Forest.

This is a view of Looking Glass Rock taken at different times of the day from different locations. We were able to see Looking Glass Rock when we were hiking and from the road. The face of the rock is smooth and has no trees so it is easy to recognize.

We stopped along the way to hike a trail Robert remembered from a family vacation years ago. We ended up going a different way than he remembered and ended up at the upper falls of the Graveyard Fields Trail after 20 minutes of hiking with no promise of a view. We were pleasantly surprised to find a gently flowing waterfall. The bottom of the waterfall was frozen.

Pictures taken from the Graveyard Fields Trail.

After leaving the upper falls we hiked back and took a turn towards the lower falls. The lower waterfall was much larger than the upper and carried a lot more water. It also had a deep pool halfway down. We hiked over 3 miles in total on Graveyard Fields Trail.

We passed through many tunnels while driving the Blue Ridge Parkway. The tunnels have a stone face and look very pretty with the fall colors surrounding them. I took the picture on the bottom while we were driving so all the trees look blurry and only the opening to the tunnel is in focus. The top picture is fuzzy due to low lighting (taken at dusk).

While the views from the overlooks were beautiful, we enjoyed seeing the trees along the road the most because the colors are so much brighter.

Around 5 the sun began to set behind the mountains and we stopped to enjoy the view for a few minutes. We didn't wait for it to set because we didn't want to be on those winding mountain roads after dark.

We stayed at a beautiful B&B in Black Mountain on Sunday and Monday night. The room had a balcony with a beautiful view of a lake surrounded by mountains.

Vacation Pictures - Day One

2007-11-12T18:14:00.001-08:00

After driving five and a half hours, we stopped in the suburbs of Atlanta to visit the local Trader Joe's and pick up some "refreshments" for my parents (Award winning 2-Buck-Chuck wine.. $2.49 a bottle). If this were any normal store, we'd have looked like two winos checking out, but there were several other people using dollies to carry multiple cases to their car. We'll be stopping back at this store to take advantage of their amazing prices on delicious organic foods.

BTW- We tried the Sauvignon Blanc and it was pret-ty good.

Right before we left Georgia, Robert remembered a gorge he had visited several years ago as we were coming upon it. We managed to turn in in time and get down the trail before dark. The photos are grainy due to low light and a 3.1MP point-n-shoot camera. As we were leaving our car, we heard someone exclaim "GO GATORS!" and were taken aback... a fellow gator noticed our UF vanity plate. We exchanged friendly thumbs-up just like in the UF "Gator Nation" promotional commercials. Definitely weird considering how much we both hate those ads. In retrospect, we probably should have told the guy to go ... do something.

After arriving at our hotel in Maggie Valley in time to watch the Gator game while enjoying a slice of Nikki's raspberry cheesecake (a whole cheesecake, berries, and chocolate topping for less than $15, thanks Trader Joe's!).

Robert and Nikki's Blog

Vacation Pictures - Day Two

Vacation Pictures - Day One