Hey all,
Presently, I am in North Carolina, sitting on a porch at 4800 feet above sea level, overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. From here, I can see North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. I have to tell you, as a guy who has lived in Florida almost all of my life, this is unbelievable.
It is so beautiful here. What they say here is, "This is God's country." Quite frankly, I believe them.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Vacation in the Mountains
Me and the family began our trip at about 6pm on Saturday, after a great friend's daughter got married. We jumped in our MiniVan armed with two laptops, a 7" DVD player, 7 pieces of luggage, a pac and play, a full baby nursery and half a refrigerator, and began our 9 and a half hour drive to North Carolina. At about 1am, we stopped at a dumping hotel and slept. Then woke up and drove the rest of the way to Sapphire Valley, NC.
We hiked. We saw a ton of awesome waterfalls. We rented a pontoon boat and boated to a bunch of waterfalls off of Lake Glenville. We anchored and swam in the lake. We went white water rafting (very mild stuff - I was with my kids, one of which is a 6 year old).
On about our 4th day here I called my friend who I knew was going to be staying at his place about 3 hours away. He invited us over to his house. So we packed up the MiniVan once again and drove to his place.
On our way to his place, we stopped in Ashville and visited the Biltmore Estate. We all got audio tours and had a blast. This place was spectacular. The house was built in 1890 (that's right, I said 1890) and it had electricity thoughout the house and indoor plumbing. It had a heated indoor pool with lights under water.
After we toured the grounds we came on over to Beech Mountain where my friends have a mountain home. We got here at about 7pm yesterday and had enough time to have some pizza (for the 5th time) and get situated.
We awoke, got our bearings and went out for another hike. The high here is about 68 degrees and the low is about 55. I haven't been to the mountains in about 17 years and I really have forgotten how amazing God's creation is. So here I sit on my friends balcony and revel at it all.
I feel the wind in my face as I look out and see a deer run past and a humming bird hover over the feeder. And all I can do is shake my head in wonder.
I really love it here. It wasn't long before I started asking my friend how much he paid for his house. I started to crunch the numbers and my wife and I think we can make it happen. Only one problem....we have to home school all the kids and sell our existing house and quite possibly the office.
So it looks like I am going to have to wait to get my mountain home but I can dream, can't I? And the dreaming started about 4 days ago.
Have a great weekend.
See you next week,
John
ps. I have about 800 pictures but my camera ran out of battery and I forgot the charger. I can't afford to go and buy another one because I would have to take the money out of the "Mountain home fund." I also forgot the cord that I can upload my photos on to the computer. So I will show you the best of the best on Wednesday.
Hi, I've been reading this blog and it's nice to hear that you're enjoying your vacation. I've never been to North Carolina and from what I read, I might consider going to that God's country... :)
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