North Carolina has some super hiking trail. South Mountain is practically in our backyard. The early birds, Dan, me, Steven, Marian, Danny, the grandkids and Nick, Danny's nephew, hit the trails early Saturday morning. We hiked the .7 miles into the falls. Doesn't seem like far or much but they don't tell you that its up and that is almost straight up! After some rocky terrain you climb countless stairs to reach just the first fall which is the biggest. Then more stairs to reach the ponds and more falls at the top. There were lots of photographers from some club in Charlotte taking pictures.
We brought our poles to go fishing but the river below was rather shallow with no fish. So I suggested we go up the road (southern lingo meaning between 0 and?) to Morganton and fish on a river I had seen up there. Well, it was crowded when we got there. Danny saw a sign for Linville Gorge so we went up the road a piece ( southern lingo again between 3-10 miles) because Danny had never been there. We eneded up hiking to the falls at Linville, still no place to fish. We hopped on the infamous Blue Ridge Parkway, which I have never been on and found a place on the Linville River to fish.
Nick kept falling down in the river as he fished. The more I laughed the madder he got. Steven laughed even harder. We caught 2 fish that were not even big enough to get a bite off. I think Nick scared all the big ones off. So we hung out there for a while then headed off on the Parkway. It was really neat. I heard that in the fall when the leaves change the Parkway is full of tourist admiring the colors. I might just try to go back. We drove the Parway till Blowing Rock then head south back to home. We were just plum, tuckered out.
Sunday evening we recieved a call inviting us to go hiking at Stone Mountain up by the Virginia border. So off we went with a group of families from the ward. The hike was amazing and even more amazing were the number of deer we saw as we were leaving the park. Not just one or two but herds of them. There were some people that pulled off the road and and bread they were tossing to the dear. What were they thinking! I don't think they have seen the clip on that show where wild animals attack bystanders. There was even one I watched where a deer attacked a man taking a close up picture. Well there those people were tossing bread to deer, and some had antlers, with their kids and not realizing they could be in some serious danger. I didn't see any reports on the news later so I guess it all turned out all right.
We drove have and crashed on our beds. What a weekend but oh how fun and beautiful.
