Day 23 - Traveling home

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Weather - Party cloudy, high of 84F

Steps - Shaun: 5,339, Shannon: 5,556

Varmints - 2 deer, 2 turkeys, and several goats all came out to bid us adieu when we were leaving Marshall, while a heron and some hawks were here to welcome us back to Michigan.

Well, folks, that's a wrap on our Great Smoky Mountains adventures! This has been an absolutely wonderful trip. It was a journey filled with the broadest vistas and the tiniest wildflowers, roaring waterfalls and quiet rainfall, cacophonous birdsong and rustling leaves. We saw creatures big and small, from black bears and elk to salamanders and hummingbirds. We got to do everything we love, including exploring gardens and natural spaces, learning about new places, taking time to view and appreciate local art and artists, hiking, and shopping. 

The only thing more perfect than that is that we got to spend the time together, which is a gift worth more than anything. Thank you for going on this journey with us, and until our next trip, we bid you adieu!

Day 22 - Grandfather Mountain

 

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Weather - Cloudy, with a high of 76F and low of 54F up on the mountain

Steps - Shaun:  10,089, Shannon:  6,431 (Shan took her watch off half way through the day)

Varmints - more goats, more bunnies, a chipmunk, a Blue Jay (our first of the trip), a hummingbird (also our first), and some animals in a wildlife sanctuary (2 bull elks, 2 black bears, 1 cougar, 1 otter, and 2 bald eagles)

It ended up that today's only excursion was to Grandfather Mountain. Shannon is a bit under the weather, so we cut our day short in order to rest up, pack, and be ready for the 10-hour drive home.

Grandfather Mountain was quite a bit east of Asheville (as you can see on the map), but Shaun had read about it online and thought it would be a cool way to end our trip. From the park's website: "Grandfather Mountain is a place of amazing biodiversity and scenic beauty that towers 5,946 feet above northwest North Carolina. A part of the United Nations’ Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve, the mountain is estimated to be 300 million years old — with certain rock formations dating back 1.2 billion years."

It was interesting because we actually had to book tickets ahead of time to be allowed to go on the mountain. As a prize, we received a CD that guided us through all the sites on the mountain. The first place we stopped at was a picnic area (with bathrooms) and a 1/4-mile trail through the forest. They have very good signage that speaks to kids and suggests good ways to protect the environment, which I thought was very clever.

Next stop was a pair of rocks called Split Rock and The Sphinx which are over 600 million years old and actually predate the mountain. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but The Sphinx actually does look like the Sphinx in Egypt, but it was formed millions of years before the manmade one. Pretty cool, huh?

The parking lot we used for Split Rock and The Sphinx connected to the third stop on the tour, the nature center, café, and gift shop. We headed there for lunch and then visited the gift shop, where Shaun got another interesting jelly combination—Balsamic Basil Plum Jam. Doesn't that sound delicious?

We had originally decided not to visit the nature center since we both hate to see animals in captivity, but Shaun changed her mind and decided to see the few animals that had been rescued here. There were two bull elks with giant racks that were also molting their winter coat. Next were two cougars, only one of which we could see up in a tree (we didn't get a picture of him, though). Next was a river otter who was scratching himself on a log, so he thwarted Shannon's efforts to capture a picture of him at every turn. Next came an enclosure with two bald eagles, and finally were two enclosures for the bears. We happened to be at the rail for the bears when the keeper started a talk about them, so we had a front row seat. Unfortunately, only one of the four bears came out to eat her treat of walnuts hidden in gas cans (so that she had to work for it). Her name was Flower, and she was really roly-poly. She actually ate the walnuts in two of the bins and peed on the third one, so the missing bears are going to be bummed when they make it out of hiding. The last enclosure was their oldest bear (she is 28 years old), and she was just hanging out close to the wall, so we didn't get any pictures of her.

After leaving the nature center, we proceeded up the mountain, which was really steep with a couple of significant switchbacks. Also, they were controlling how many cars went up, so we had to wait for a few minutes to get to the top. Once we parked, we walked up a bunch of steps to the access point for the Mile-High Suspension Bridge. It is named this because it is actually 5,280 feet above sea level, but the bridge is actually "only" about 80 feet from the ground, but trust me, it was plenty high!

After crossing the bridge with a bunch of other people, we had the "opportunity" to climb over a bunch of rocks to get to a higher overlook that gave a 360-degree view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was cool, but Shaun got nervous around all the crazy people in their flip-flops with their phones held out not watching where they were going. She just knew that she was going to get pushed off the side of the mountain, so we didn't stay in that area long.

We worked our way back off the bridge, by which point the crowd had cleared significantly, so we checked out the Top Shop (the gift shop) and then left the way we came. We decided to go back to the cabin rather than going to Black Mountain, as we had intended, because Shannon wasn't feeling great, and we wouldn't have had a ton of time there. It was just as well because we had our packing to do, and we even got time for a little nappy-poo!

After dinner, we took one more set of pictures that showed the far mountain peaks with a bit of a pink tinge, so we decided that was the perfect way to end this blog entry. Tomorrow we'll be heading home, and with that, our trip will officially come to an end!

Day 21 - Asheville's Gardens and the Blue Ridge Parkway

Friday, May 27, 2022

Weather - Partly cloudy and 74 degrees, but it got cold on the Blue Ridge Parkway (all the way down to 58 degrees!) and it rained a bit on our drive home

Steps - Shaun: 10,018, Shannon: 7,586 (but her watch died part way through the day)

Varmints - Another semi-gargantuan gaggle of goats but in a different place, several more bunnies and turkeys, a deer, and three lizards. One of them was an Eastern Fence Lizard and the other two were skinks; one was a 5-lined skink and the other we can't really tell (but Shaun thinks it's a Little Brown Skink).

This was a four-part day. We started out by driving into Asheville to a restaurant that had been recommended by several sources called The Early Girl Eatery. They had vegan stuff for Shaun and the obligatory homemade biscuits for the both of us, and they even had a few locations to choose from, so we pointed the Jeep down the mountain, and away we went!

As a little bit of an aside, we must report that due to the last 36 hours of rain, the road out of the cabin was very muddy, and it actually had a river running along one half of it. This is a little concerning because it's a very rough road to begin with, so we're going to be really careful these last few times we have to drive on it. Also, once we got into Marshall and saw the big river (called the French Broad River), we realized just how much rain the area had gotten because that bad boy was REALLY high.

Anyway, back to breakfast...while we waited for a table, we checked out a cool store called Mount Inspiration that was a combination hiking store and t-shirt shop. Both of us bought a few things, and then off we went to grab our table. Both of us got really good orange juice, Shannon had multi-grain pancakes and sausage, and Shaun had a tofu scramble with spinach, onions, and peppers. It also came with tomatoes that Shaun had asked them to leave off, but they didn't. When the waitress asked how everything was, Shaun pointed out that the tomatoes didn't get omitted but said it was no big deal because she just scraped them off. The next thing we knew, the manager came to our table and told us that they'd discounted the meal because of the mistake. It turns out that they took off 50%, which we thought was more than generous. We also got molasses-glazed cornbread to have for breakfast tomorrow, so all in all, it was a good meal.

After breakfast, we checked out a few more shops on the same street as The Early Girl Eatery, and they gave us some good ideas for Sanctuary, but we didn't buy anything. Our next stop was just a few minutes away at the Botanical Garden of Asheville, which was a small non-profit garden dedicated to preserving the local plant life for future generations. Unfortunately, we happened to visit in between major blooming cycles, so there wasn't a whole lot to see. The garden had been left very natural, so it was a bit wild, but we did our best to find fun stuff to comment on and take pictures of. The little river flowing through the property was pretty cool, and it was also rushing along at a good clip due to the rain. The good thing is that it was free, and the walk was welcome after our meal, so we had no complaints whatsoever.

Directly from one garden to the next, we went to the North Carolina Arboretum, which happened to be located on Frederick Law Olmsted Way (remember him from the Biltmore Gardens?). It turns out that Freddy Baby's 200th birthday would have been this month, so they were having a celebration to thank him for his contribution to landscape design and for the numerous public green spaces he created around the world. We talked about the one in Central Park and at the Biltmore previously, but he also did the Allee at Smith College where Shannon went to school, as well as the Emerald Necklace in Boston, which is a 7-mile long series of green spaces that begin at the Arnold Arboretum (one of our favorite gardens) and ends at Boston Common. Along with his impact in Massachusetts, Olmsted also did the grounds of the US Capitol and White House, Washington Park in Chicago, and a bunch of other gardens across the country. He was truly the father of landscape architecture, but he didn't see himself as a gardener. He saw himself as an artist, and we totally agree with that assessment!

The North Carolina Arboretum was a much bigger operation than the botanical gardens, and they were even having an outdoor plant and gift sale. Unfortunately, we decided to wait until the end to check that sale out, and it was closed by the time we thought about it again. The arboretum has only been around since 1986, but in that 30+ years, they've really created a beautiful space. It had everything from a bonsai exhibit to a quilt made out of plants, and what really impressed us was the number of and the quality of the signage in the garden. Their goal is to help educate the average gardener, so one area had about 15-20 trees in pots that will grow in most home gardens, along with how and where to plant them. It was really interesting.

There was also an 8-foot-tall statue of Frederick Law Olmsted in an area with a fountain backed by the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It was very impactful. We were lucky because, unlike at the botanical gardens, these gardens were fully curated and the plants had a lot more sun to work with. This resulted in lots more plants being in bloom, so it was a much more exciting visit. The whole garden is over 400 acres, but we concentrated on the central section, and once we were finished with that, we stopped and had lunch at a little café within the arboretum itself. After we finished lunch, we hit the gift shop and headed out to our next destination, which was the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We had only been on the Parkway one other time on this trip, and we really wanted to do it justice, so we decided to go backwards on it towards where we'd traveled on it a couple weeks ago.  As you can see from the map, we covered about 50 more miles and saw a bunch of really beautiful vistas.

Once we had our fill of the Parkway, we decided to head back to the cabin, have dinner, and get ready for tomorrow. We also got to drinking our homemade strawberry lemon/limeade which we'd made last night. It was delicious, if a bit chunky. Neither one of us complained about the chunks, and between that and the strawberry shortcake made from the cat's head biscuits that we had last night, we used all our strawberries from Bryson City. We actually ate a total of 3 quarts of strawberries, so we are completely blissed out with berries this trip. We also bought 7 fresh peaches, so that'll be our fruit of choice for the last couple days. Nummo!

Tomorrow, we've decided to go to Grandfather Mountain, which has a mile-high swinging bridge we can actually walk across, and visit Black Mountain, an artsy-type community east of Asheville, so stay tuned! 

Day 20 - Chillin' on the Mountain (with a twist)

 

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Weather - A total wash out that we luckily were aware of, so it didn't matter to us at all since we never left the cabin.

Steps - Who cares?

Varmints - Just before midnight, we were attacked by a GIANT Polyphemus Moth!  Check him (or her) out:

Isn't this a cool moth?  We've never seen one this big.  He was every bit of 5 inches across, and he must have been drawn in by the light from inside the cabin because he stayed checking us out from the door wall for quite some time.

We spent the day just reading, doing laundry, eating, and watching a movie. In the evening, we played euchre with Dad and Mike (Shannon and Mike won the day, so Shannon is the reigning Intergalactic Champion of the World for this week). 

Tomorrow we plan to tour both the botanical gardens and the arboretum in Asheville, and we're still trying to decide what to do with our last day. More on that tomorrow!