Graveyard Fields hike

 On Saturday morning we left the cabin in Brevard. Natasha and her crew were packed up and out the door around 5 am, so we slept in, packed up, and I was just arriving at Aldi to get some food for part two of our trip when Natasha called to say she was already home.

After getting the camping groceries from the Brevard Aldi and filling up the van's gas tank, we drove on the Blue Ridge Parkway to nearby Graveyard Fields for a hike. Since Linville Falls was only two hours away, we needed to kill some time before our 4pm campsite check-in time. We'd done this Graveyard Fields hike about seven years ago with Rob and Kate. I remembered carrying a sleeping Simon on the second half of the hike. Like many things, unfortunately, it wasn't quite as good as I'd remembered. Maybe the trail was more eroded. Maybe I just misremembered. Maybe we've just been so many fun places in the past seven years that I'm not as easily impressed. At any rate, it was a good little hike, but too sunny and exposed for my tastes. Simon enjoyed finding wild blackberries and blueberries along the trail though. 

We got rained on. We always wait until we are too wet before pulling out the ponchos, so then we're wet underneath too. Every hiker we passed in the rain commented on how prepared we were (having the flimsy ponchos that are like a trash bag that I thought every sane person would shove into their backpack before a hike in these mountains which are basically like a rainforest with rain almost every afternoon in the summer....)

After the rain, we were dodging mud puddles and other hikers (the trail was quite busy). We spent some time playing in the river where Simon tried to catch crawdads and salamanders.

Triple Falls Hike with Water Slide

For Friday's excursion, Natasha took us to a trail called Triple Falls, which went a long a river with a lot of waterfalls. The best part was that at the top there was a really big waterfall with a great sliding rock and swimming hole. The kids spend a lot of time playing and swimming there, while I cowered in the shade of a bush and kept an eye on the backpacks (except during my three trips up a secret trail to my nature toilet). Zac and Natasha have more balance and are less fearful of slipping and sunburn, so they went over the tricky river rock path to keep an eye on the kids.

Whitewater Rafting on the French Broad River

 Natasha organized for us to all go on a white water rafting trip on Thursday with the company French Broad Adventures. We had to drive over an hour north to get to them, but it was worth it. The day wasn't too hot, but warm enough that we didn't get cold. The actual rafting was probably about two hours long, with additional time at the beginning and end for training, loading, bus ride, unloading, etc. Simon was very nervous about going, but quickly started to enjoy it and was quite sad when the trip was over. Alice had no trepidations and enjoyed the trip. We stopped once for a jump rock, a bit later for a snack, and once for a short swim. We hit a couple of class three rapids, so there was a bit of excitement but we never felt endangered. Our guide, Marz, did a great job giving us instructions "Two forward....ok great, drift..." and navigating the waters. She also enjoyed telling jokes. 

The only pictures we have are the ones provided by the company, as we obviously did not take our cell phones on the boat.

After the rafting trip, we ate our packed sandwiches at a picnic table, then drove to the nearby small town of Marshall to try and find some ice cream. This task proved surprisingly difficult, but we ended up at a very friendly diner where they served us off-menu ice-cream that they had only to go with the peach cobbler. It was fun.

Picture circa 1996 of Taesen, Stana and Sera up front. Nelson, John & Connie Klein in the back.