We had to hike up these here stairs which lead to even more stairs and at the top of the stairs we still had to walk a little bit to our site. We got there on Friday and as we all know I have a pretty firm no working out on Friday. Hauling all our crap up the never ending stairs and along the path to our campsite was almost more than I could take. I blame the fact that it was Friday and my body was freaking out because of all the work it took. To say that I am in such great physical shape that I wasn't breathing hard or sweating like I had just finished a workout would be a lie. Not to mention Little B liked walking up and down the stairs, but wanted to hold your hand. I'm not from Africa, I can't balance a cooler with a tent on top of it , on my head. Instead unloading was a painstakingly long process since I had to keep one hand free to hold his hand. Once we got the tent to our site, B stayed there to put it up and Little B wanted to stay with him. Tender mercy right there folks! M, K and I finished bringing the stuff up from the car.
We were camping with two other families from our ward. We got there the same time as one of the families, so we both unloaded at the same time. The third family got there after us. When it's not your stuff you're taking up to the campsite, the hike didn't seem as bad.
This was taken Friday. When we looked at the forecast it said that it was supposed to rain all weekend. It had rained on the way up and we worried that the rain would stay, but we all prayed really hard and it had stopped by the time we got there. We were able to set up, do a fire and roast marshmallows without the rain. When we woke up Saturday it was clear and sunny. We were feeling so thankful that there was no rain. We weren't in any hurry. Since we had driven to the top, our plan to hike was kind of foiled. The ranger had told us that there was a nature walk that wound around by the tower at the summit. He said it was great for little kids since it was just over half a mile. We decided to give the nature walk a go. We loaded up and drove to the parking lot at the base of the summit.
It was a cool little walk. M and K were happy that they had friends there to walk with. It took us longer to do it because I love having pictures. We stopped pretty often to take a picture of something.
He didn't totally love being in this thing. He kept telling me that he wanted to get down and walk. Thankfully I had fruit snacks I could bribe him with to stay right where he was. There were a ton of trees that had fallen and had moss growing on them. Little B kept pointing at them and calling them alligators. We tried to get a picture of him with his eyes open and looking at the camera, but a lot of the time he either keeps his eyes closed or won't look at the camera. We take what we can get!
We made it! I do wish that it hadn't been cloudy so that we could have seen the view, but it was still really cool! What is the thing in the background that two small children are sitting on you ask? Oh that would be the tomb of the Dr that discovered how tall Mt. Mitchell is back in the 1800's. Creepy right?! That's what I thought. We all took family pictures by the sign and then went back down. We went back for lunch and that's when the rains came!
I feel like it was more like a small monsoon. Calling it a rain storm just doesn't sound fitting. There was a LOT of rain. We're talking flooded tents, soaked sleeping pads, bags and pillows. It was so loud you couldn't really hear the person talking to you from across the table. Little B cried and said,"rain too loud!" It rained for what felt like forever, but that's only because we were outside. When the rains went away we were left with soggy children that were still happy because they had friends to play with.
Aren't they so cute?! They loved to puddle jump and hit the water in the flooded fire pits with sticks.
The P's brought their slack line. The bigger kids loved to play on that. I thought that there would be at least one young one that got clothes lined while playing on here, but they didn't. They loved it and spent a lot of time playing on it.
I just love him! That's all.
Since we were so far away from home, we knew that we would miss church on Sunday. We couldn't go camping here and not go on a hike to a waterfall. That's what we did Sunday. We threw our soaking wet stuff in the car and went looking for a waterfall hike. We found one and of course it was beautiful! Both the hike and the waterfall.
This is what a normal hike looks like. It's so much different than hiking in Utah where there are no trees. It started to rain again as we got there, but the trees acted like our umbrella.
This was only half a mile away from our car. I just think waterfalls are like a surprise. You're hiking along and all the sudden, you're at a beautiful waterfall. The water was shallow, so we walked across the stream and the kiddos threw rocks into the water.
This is the whole gang. We had so much fun spending the weekend with these two families. Our kids loved playing with their kids and we loved talking with the adults. We feel so blessed to be able to live in such a beautiful area and have great friends to go camping with!
