Weekend Getaway!

This is my absolute favorite time of the year! Our family has a lot to celebrate in the week of Sept 30-Oct 5th! First it was our 7th anniversary on Sept 30th, then Andrew's 30th birthday Oct 3rd, and then Ella's 2nd birthday October 5th! It helps out with work because we can take off for it all at the same time! This year we decided to go away and celebrate our anniversary and Andrew's birthday without our goose. At first it took some convincing to get my husband to agree to go away without Ella! He never takes off work so I understood how he wanted to spend his off time with Ella when he doesn't get to really see her much during the week. But after some terrible 2 tantrums he agreed we needed to get away LOL! So we agreed we would do 4 days away and then we would still have a week to do stuff with Ella when we got back. This was our first trip away together since I was pregnant! Long overdue!

Andrew had a few requirements for the trip: 

    1. Mountains

    2. Non-touristy

    3. A private camp fire

    4. Hiking
    5. Secluded

So I LOVE planning trips! I started searching online of where to stay. I wanted to go somewhere we had never been that had lots of outdoors stuff we could do. Andrew really wanted to go tent camping but he knew he would have to do that solo. So we compromised and I agreed to find a cabin that would have a fire pit so we could pretend we were camping :) I found us a really nice cabin outside Bryson City that met all the requirements!

On Friday we dropped Ella off at my mom's and off we went! We decided we would take all backroads to Bryson City. It was a beautiful drive! We stopped in downtown Hendersonville for lunch. It is such a cute downtown! There are many cute restuarants and shops to walk in. It felt so weird being just the two of us! We are so used to lugging all the stuff that comes with a child, that it felt like we were forgetting something!
 Of course I can't just eat at the first place we walk up to. I always check online for ratings of places usually on TripAdvisor. We ate outside at Mountain Deli where we had the yummiest sandwiches ever! It was so good and fresh! Then we walked around some of the shops. They had a Mast General Store where we went a little crazy :) We found so much stuff that we knew Ella would love! I mean they actually had a Curious George section! Ella would of been in heaven! Then I also started looking for candy for the candy bar we were going to have at Ella's pink lemonade themed birthday. (That post to come later! It was an awesome party!) They had the little lemon slices I had been looking for to decorate her cupcakes with as well as pink lemonade suckers and lemonade nerds! It was perfect! Andrew thought I was crazy :) After some shopping we went to Sweet Frog for some yummy frozen yogurt! Andrew always makes me look bad at these places because he will have the healthiest bowl you have ever seen with all the fruit and then there is mine.....which is ummm not so healthy. I can take frozen yogurt and make it extremely bad for you :)

Then we got started back on our back roads driving adventure. It was so pretty driving through the mountains and so relaxing! We finally made it to Bryson City and started to try to find our cabin. We turned down the graveled one lane road to the cabin. Then there it was a steep, bumpy uphill gravel drive to the cabin. We used my 4 wheel drive for the very first time! Thank goodness for it! We made it to the top and the cabin was beautiful! It was probably the cleanest rental we have ever stayed in. It was very private being the only cabin on the road. That night we were excited to use the fire pit. I had bought all the necessities for some s'more making which I knew I would be eating by myself. Unfortunately the firewood was too wet to get a real fire going :( I was fine with that though because there was a big rock gas fireplace indoors!

The next morning we went on a train ride on the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad. This was the one reason we picked to stay near Bryson City. We had tickets on the open air gondola and it was a beautiful fall day to be on the train. The train departed at 1030 am for the Nantahala Gorge. The train ride was very nice as it went thru the countryside and over Lake Fontana ending at the Nantahala Gorge Outdoor Center (NOC) . That particular weekend the NOC was having a big guest appreciation festival so there were kayak racing, mountain biking exhibits, music, and vendors selling outdoors equipment. We had an hour layover there. We enjoyed just sitting on the rocks by the river watching all the kayakers coming down.

All aboard!

The train ride was about 4.5 hours. It was so relaxing I think I even dozed off a little bit on the ride back LOL! When we got back to Bryson City we saw a cute little bakery called La Dolce Vita Bakery. I went in with all intentions of getting a smoothie but then there was this amazing spread of yummy gelatos! I got the banana caramel praline gelato! OH MY WORD! It was heavenly! It had huge chunks of candied pralines and oozy thick caramel. And as you guessed it Andrew got the healthiest thing there, the Super Fruit smoothie. Yea I know.... but it was really good!

On Sunday morning I had arranged for a kayak guide to take us out to Lake Fontana. We used Endless River Adventures. We met our guide at their shop at 830 that morning and rode with him to the lake. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. It was so quiet on the lake. We didn't realize how big Lake Fontana actually is. It is 33 miles but is composed of lots of little coves that finger off the lake. Our kayaking tour was 2.5 hours long. Our guide was full of interesting stories. He travels all of the world doing all kinds of outdoor adventures stuff. I told Andrew I had never heard him talk so much in my life to a stranger. Andrew just found the guide's life fascinating LOL. By the time we were making our way back to our starting point, I thought my arms were going to fall off! Andrew of course didn't feel the least bit exhausted. I was sore ALL over! Whew kayaking is a real good workout!

Lake Fontana

Sunday afternoon we went hiking on the Deep Creek trails. I'm so glad the lady that owned the cabin we stayed in told us about these trails. She told us about a short cut from our house that led us right to the trails without having to go thru Bryson City. Thank goodness we didn't meet any other cars on the short cut because it was a narrow dirt road :) There were 3 trails that started at the parking lot and each one was a relatively short hike less than half a mile each to beautiful waterfalls. We started to hike the first one when half way we started to see a lot of what Andrew said was bear scant (poop). I just froze! I wanted to go back to the car but hesitantly decided to continue on and I'm glad I did! The trail ended at a wooden bridge with a bench where you could sit and face the waterfall.

Juneywhank Falls

Lesson Learned: To get the boy to give you a real smile for a picture get him out in the woods :)

Another trail led to this beautiful waterfall.

Tom Branch Falls

Deep Creek Trail

Sunday night we were FINALLY able to get a good fire going! We roasted hot dogs and I finally had  a lot of s'mores!  Lighter fluid and dry wood did the trick!

Monday we decided we would go hike this trail our kayaking guide had recommended. He had told us he thought it was an easy hike and that it led to this beautiful lake by this mountain. So we started on our way. Well it started to seem like this hike was going to be a lot longer than we expected. We were just about to turn around and head back to the car when all of a sudden this huge truck started coming down the trail towards us. The guy hollered out if we were from there and we responded we were hoping he was. Turns out he was trying to find some trail that led to a dam owned by Duke Energy so he could change the sign out with the new logo. He asked us what we were trying to find and we told him Queen's Lake. He laughed and said it was at least another 3 miles down the trail and that there was an old man hunting near there that about shot him. You better believe we high tailed it back to the car :)

We then drove up to Fontana Dam about an hour away. We grabbed some Bojangles on the way to have a picnic and headed up the mountain. You know there were no other food choices for Andrew to eat there LOL. I had to get a picture to document that :)  Tyler we thought you would be proud!

Sent this picture to Ella :)

After visiting the dam , we made our back back home. We couldn't wait to see our little goose! I wish I would of videoed her reaction when we pulled in to my parents' house. She had the biggest smile on her face as she ran towards us!

It was so nice to get away and relax just the two of us! We promised we would have to do it again as Ella had a great time with my parents, sister and her husband. Everyone said Ella was great so we will feel even more at ease whenever we go away next time! Next big trip my 30th in January...hmm where shall we go? I'm thinking somewhere warm :)) We shall see!