When we moved to Charlotte two years ago there were a lot of draws, one of them being the proximity to the beach and mountains. You see the mountains hold a special place in my heart, as well as my husband's, we both have a lot of fond memories associated with this region. Needless to say, we barely made it a month before we planned our first day trip. We had a blast, but knew our kids weren't ready for a whole weekend hiking, fishing, tubing etc. A short two years later, and several day trips later, we decided our youngest was up for it. We booked a small cabin in the woods for 3 nights. Eek, I was excited, but nervous that they wouldn't love it as much as we did. I over thought and over planned the whole visit...
But it was worth it, when we walked onto the front deck of our rental cottage. Just look at that view, breathtaking. Wine at night, coffee in the morning, even playing a 45 minute game of Chutes and Ladders - the view made it all good.
We stayed just outside of Blowing Rock, only 90 miles outside of Charlotte, a quaint little town with tons of great restaurants, shops and galleries.
We tried to balance the adult activities with the more kid friendly activities as much as possible. In other words, before anything else could happen we spent several hours at Tweetsie Railroad, a wild West themed amusement park with rides catered to the little ones in our lives (and some for the young at heart, too).
The girls have fished a couple of times on family vacation up North so we decided to give it a try in the mountains, too. We put the odds in our favor by visiting a stocked pond, Grandfather Trout Farm, but it still took us over 2 hours to hook a fish!
Keeping the kids interested in hiking is always a challenge. We've found having a destination or at least something interesting to look at goes along way. The Moses H. Cone Memorial Park hit all the right notes for us. A grand home, a lake, horses - it had it all - and kept the kids interest for a couple of hours.
For our last day, we ventured away from Blowing Rock for a day of exploration. First stop was Valle Crucis and a look around the original Mast General Store, which didn't disappoint with a live bluegrass band playing on the back porch. We tried to get into the Mast Farm Inn, but alas it was booked solid so we detoured to Over Yonder where I had the best tomato cobbler ever.
Later in the afternoon, we toured Banner Elk and the Beech Mountain resort area as well. While these areas certainly were nothing shy of beautiful, I'm still a sucker for Blowing Rock. What can I say, I'm sold.
The final stop on our day of exploration was the Linville Caverns. We thought the girls would love to see the "inside of a mountain" and we were right - so fun, for all of us.
It's probably fairly obvious, but we had a great time during our Mountain getaway and while the sun has officially set on this trip,we're feeling ok with it because we've already booked another trip in October!
What We Saw/Did:
Where we Ate:
Town Tavern ( great lunch spot with an incredible burger)
Where we Stayed:
