Where the clouds grow
So how is your summer?
Hot?
Cookouts? Pools and beaches?
Well we wanted to get away from all the heat somewhat and do a duplicate trip to the mountains, like we did last summer, to escape the heat and humidity on the coast.
This year we found a wonderful cabin tucked up in the heart and isolation of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Burnsville, NC.
Blue Ridge Mountains.
Yep, way up there!
Yes we found a wonderful cabin that was loaded with nearby mountain perks.
Welcome to Trillium
This was no hot, stinky Yert, like we learned our lesson from last year!
This house was very nice and comfortable PLUS located on the side of a mountain, only a short walk from their Riverwalk.
Riverwalk was a nice stream-side pavilion with extras to make a mountain stay fun! In the picture you can make out a make-shift zip line chair for the kids, inner tubes to go ‘tubing’ down the local stream, hammocks, grills, and even a nice fire pit area.
That’s one skinny bear
That’s right…the owner let us bring our greyhound up to the mountain too….
to the Blue Ridge Mountains where Clouds and God’s magnificence seemed to grow right in front of you every morning!
But do you think we stayed at Riverwalk and this nice cabin (more on that later) for 3 days?
No!
We had things to do!
The first thing we did was ride back ‘down’ the mountains to go white water rafting on the Nantahala River, like we did last year.
Driving ‘down’ to the Nantahalla River
It was an amazingĀ 2 hour car journey through the mountains taking in more beautiful scenes and clouds literally at eye level…
Clouds hiding in the mountains
We ended up at the Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) for a 2 hour trip on the mild class 1, 2,and 3 rapids. As you can imagine, no cameras or cells here.
The girls thought themselves (miniature) rock stars for navigating the rapids so well!
But also at the NOC was zip lining…
….and “zip line obstacle course”.
Which was a loose way of stating a paid for 30 various-ways-of-torture-and-fear-as-you-as-you-fall-to-your-death play trap.
The kids loved it!!!
Apparently, anyone with good shoulders, and under the age of 50, really enjoyed dangling 40 feet up by a thin rope, as you struggle to put a foot on something sturdy below you, before you plummet horribly to your death, leaving nothing but your guts and stream of horrid loud screams all the way down behind you.
…Like I did when I put my first foot out on the nothing below…
Can you make that out?
She is standing on a rope with the only thing to hang on to are other vertical ropes, spread just past a normal person’s out stretched arms.
Who thinks these things up?
The wooden cylinders hanging from the blue rope above that torture device is what I used to announce to everyone in the park with in the sound of my scream that Andy was attempting this now.
Stepping from one unstable tube to the next. Lets just pretend that is me up there. I was screaming like a baby…
Those tubes are just suspended by a single rope, nothing sturdy mind you, and just far enough apartĀ for me not to be able to reach them with my trembling outstretched knobby legs.
I eventually made it to the end of the first course, collected myself, tried to regain my cool, searched to make sure all my limbs were still in their sockets and crawled to the exit door……where 15 giggling junior high girls were skipping their way up to their version of ‘fun’.
Ahhhhh!!!!!
Class 5 rapids are like a slow jog on the terror meter compared to this place!
Did I tell you I almost fell to my death?
5 times?!!
Each of our girls went through the Obstacle Course twiceĀ š¦
They seemed quite proud of themselves
“Great day Mom! Hey, did you see Daddy’s face when he stepped out on that obstacle course? That was priceless!”
Day two was less of a car ride, as we went 30 minutes up the mountain to a small town called Spruce Pine to the Springmaid Mountain Resort for some trail riding on horseback and other mountain activities.
Horse riding among the clouds
Now, this was my first time on the back of a horse, while our girls have ridden them a few times, albeit briefly at the zoo.
They seemed to take right to it!
Skye’s horse ‘Chucky’ liked to eat!
While Dylan’s horse was more of a Maverick
Riding Hidalgo. Actually her name was Buttercup.
The idea was to do some trail riding though the mountain. ‘We’ just had to guide the horses on the narrow and muddy mountain trails…
trying to take a picture on horseback
As well as across and through some creeks and unspoiled natural mountain lands
Beautiful!
We all had the time of our lives.
And my Tennessee Walker had me feeling like General Custer, Eastwood, and Geronimo all rolled into one.
This was a great recommendation!
(although I still smell like horses)
With a few more hours to kill on the side of the mountain we opted for some tube riding down the local North Toe River there at the resort.
Again, cameras and phones were not an option here but if they were….
IF THEY WERE
….. we all would be having the laugh of a lifetime as one or more of us tried to sit down into an inner tube in a fairly rapid current. I’ll let your imaginations do the rest.
It was Vaudeville meets Davey Crockett.
We had to hike up a mountain trail, with inner tubes in hand, to make it to the launch point. And then the river tubing trip took about a third of the time it took to hike there. But we did have so much fun we decided to hike the trail twice just to have some more fun….and laughs and hilarity(!)
Then it was lunch in downtown Spruce Pines at a Caribbean Restaurant called the Tropical Grill (you can’t take the beach out of the bum) and then back to the cabin we went.
At the end of the three days we asked our girls what was their favorite part of the trip.
For the parents it was a unanimous Horse Trail Riding. But not for the girls. They both enjoyed staying at our fancyĀ Cabin, Trillium the best.
What?
The girls would have been happy enough not ever leaving the cabin and the nearby Riverwalk.
After all, it did have a nice view on the side of the mountain…
It had a little bit of a view
…from the hot tub
Not bad, eh?
The girls were in it every day.
But in this cabin in the mountains, it was not ‘roughing it’.
Inside Trillium
The cabin had all the conveniences of home…
A nice, modern fully stocked kitchen and stairs leading up to the loft
And a nice loft upstairs for the girls to sleep…
view from the loft
This is my version of camping, ahhh, ‘camping’ at its best!
It was a great hideaway, getaway on the side of a mountain in the summer..
The amenities included the Riverwalk with tubing, zip lining, campfires, fishing,..
deer (and bears) in the field…
Early morning with a deer looking for breakfast
and more.
Plus….
it is located in the mountains where clouds begin to grow…
If you live in the southeast and this sounds like a getaway for you click here for more info on Trillium. Just tell the owner Andy sent you….you will not regret it!
Their motto is “Its a Reason for Every Season”.
And fall, winter, and spring just fell on our bucket list here at Trillium.
OUR LIFE IN 3D 