for our first big spring break adventure, we dragged the kids out on a three-ish mile hike to the wesser bald fire tower. it was relatively uneventful. derek wasn’t feeling great and ike was nursing a sprained ankle, so they took their time, while i forged ahead with the girls. we started out a little […]
mountains
stone mountain with the best girl.
on one particularly lovely day, it was determined by ruby and i, that we would go up to stone mountain for a hike. we had a fantastic time. the only thing that went wrong was we took a wrong turn at the beginning of the big loop, which meant we ascended mostly via stairs and […]
grandfather mountain hiking adventure.
derek’s parents generously gifted us a weekend at a resort in blowing rock for the last weekend of october. my only request (demand) was that we plan one outdoor activity, and not just end up eating out and shopping the entire time. derek did the research and settled on a hike at grandfather mountain. before […]
autumn leafy mountain day
on a beautiful, sunshiny, october day, we packed up the fam and headed down the road to blowing rock, to partake in a little colorful autumn leaf admiration. our first stop was an overlook on the blue ridge parkway, where we hopped out to take a few pics and check out the scenery. from there, […]
lenoir camping, etcetera.
we ended up not staying in lenoir for very long. the two weeks in the outer banks preceding it, combined with upcoming halloween and a visit from my parents caused us to cut it a bit short. but, we packed in a few good hikes (previously blogged), took some good drives, and had quality downtime. […]
fall hike at the chimneys.
for our last fall leaves adventure of 2020, we decided to go for vista views over waterfalls. we deliberated between finding a new spot or revisiting an old favorite hike, but in the end “old favorite” won out and we returned to the chimneys in linville gorge. the drive to the hike is an adventure […]
linville falls.
derek didn’t have as much time off during our time in the lenoir and linville area, so i took a few solo trips with the kiddos. one such adventure was to linville falls. this is also a pretty heavily trafficked area, but we went on a weekday and took a more difficult trail than most […]
fall at crabtree falls.
after our trip to the outer banks, we had a one day layover at home, doing laundry and switching out wardrobes, before heading to lenoir for a few days in the mountains. it was peak leaf season, so we wanted to see some beautiful fall color, but we also wanted to balance that with other […]
the chimney tops. (almost).great smoky mountain national park.
once we moved to the north carolina side of the park, to smokemont campground, we had a long deliberation about what hikes we wanted to do. we had to take into account the length, elevation, danger, our kids level of motivation, weather. all the things. eventually we decided on the chimneys hike. it’s not super […]
abrams falls hike.great smoky mountain national park.
originally, we had planned to lay low on our first day, a sunday, in the smokies. even though we were still in the midst of a pandemic, great smoky mountain national park is the most visited park in the us, especially on a weekend at the more heavily trafficked spots. but then. the weather was […]