Mountains!

Our trip to the mountains of North Carolina was really wonderful- crazy but wonderful. Crazy because we had six children under the age of 5 under one roof for five days and five nights. (Equivalent of 4 year old twins, 3 year old twins, 1 year old toddler and a nursing infant.) Wonderful because we were all together, enjoying the beauty to be found around every corner.

Our journey to North Carolina was rough. We got stuck in traffic and it took us two hours to get out of the city- this on top of a way later start time because Jay couldn't get away from work. Hindsight being 20/20 we now know not to even attempt to leave the city anytime on a Friday besides maybe the butt crack of dawn- and this was a holiday weekend for government employees, which means everybody around here. Groan is all I can say. We ended up having to get a hotel that night and arrived in NC the next afternoon. It was rainy and cloudy but we managed to get in a good hike up to the top of WaterRock Knob (which we reclimbed later), it was just discouraging because all views were obscured.

Day Two was overcast, and what that means at higher elevations is zero visibility because you're in the clouds. We drove around on the Blue Ridge Parkway which is right around the corner from where we stayed. It is one of the most beautiful drives in the US, and even though it was cloudy the woods were so beautiful with all the changing leaves. We did see some mountain views during some breaks in the cloud cover, like the pics above. As we drove around and around on the curving roads, my brother, who was driving his Suburban up ahead of our van, suddenly slowed and pulled over. Alan got out sort of laughing, and my Dad came back and said that Alee (almost 3) and Annabelle (4) had just thrown up. It was a bonafide Barf-o-Rama! So we had some haz-mat clean up and alot of laughing- except from the poor, green-faced bewildered kiddos. Let me just say that Alan drives like a wildman on those curvy roads, and the Suburban is no minivan! Ha! We made it to our picnic destination and had a nice lunch on Mt. Pisgah (and we couldn't even see the promised land!) and the kids played soccer and ran around for a while.

We headed back to the house but my brother saw a promising trail head down at a lower elevation so we pulled off and went for a hike on a nice, level path along a rocky, rushing river- I think it was the North Fork of the Pigeon River. I can't remember the name of the trail, but it was lovely. I even found a spring bubbling up beside the river.