7/25/08 (Friday): As promised, here's a synopsis of our adventure earlier this week. We left Sunday afternoon right after work and headed for Mars Hill (click here to see it on a map: Mars Hill ). We had dinner in Burnsville (see map) and then stayed at a lovely Comfort Inn. We enjoyed some TV and I had a long bath (I still miss my bathtub!). The bed was so comfortable--it had a memory foam mattress--luxurious!



The next day we headed for Mt. Mitchell, the highest point east of the Mississippi, via the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway is closed just south of Mt. Mitchell due to construction. It's a beautiful drive.

This is St. John's Wort -- the bumblebees loved it!
The wildflowers are in full bloom. These yellow flowers look just like black eyed susans, except the center is green. I read about them in the museum (I forget the name of them). Apparently they only grow in the high elevations.

This is called a "Turk's Cap Lily." It's a native of this mountainous region, and it was everywhere. In addition to the orange ones, we saw a couple of yellow ones.

This red one is called "bee balm" or "oswego tea." They were everywhere, too.

It was warm and sunny when we left the hotel, but as we headed up the mountain, it got really cool and foggy. We had to put on our sweatshirts! We roamed around the visitor center and got a little background about the area. Here's a link to Wikipedia, which has lots of information about Mt. Mitchell. We drove all the way to the top.

We had a great hike (about 4-5 miles). We started on the Old Mitchell trail, then looped back via the Concession trail. We finished off by taking the Alice Camp trail back to where the truck was parked. We should probably have done it in reverse, because the Alice Camp trail was marked "very strenuous," and we were already tired when we started it. But it was a great hike anyhow.

Spectacular views!

After our long hike, we stopped at the highest restaurant east of the Mississippi (in the park) and had peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Re-energized, we headed back up the Blue Ridge Parkway (north) and stopped in the little town of New Switzerland. We found a gorgeous little inn perched precariously on the mountainside and promptly registered for the night. The Alpine Inn was long and narrow (because it was cantilevered out over the mountain), so our room was actually two long, narrow rooms with small beds in each end and the bathroom in the middle.

We also had a great balcony with a gorgeous view of the sunrise.

We enjoyed a yummy breakfast on the balcony while watching the hummingbirds at the feeder. We had fresh fruit topped with cottage cheese (me) or frozen yogurt (Wiley) and two slices of homemade bread. We felt like we were suspended in air--what a great experience!

We took a little drive out the road the inn was on while we waited for the shops in Little Switzerland to open. We say several flocks of wild turkeys (some with young).

As we were headed back toward town, I saw something in the middle of the road. I thought it was a dog, but as we got closer we realized it was a black bear and three cubs! Three cubs is very uncommon. We later talked to someone in the general store, and she said she had seen them before. This isn't a very good picture, because they got back into to the woods before I could get to my camera, but you can see one of the cubs in this shot.

Little Switzerland is small, but it has a couple of neat shops and restaurants. I thought Katelyn would get a kick out of these painted rocks in one of the shops (she painted some rocks she found here).

I have more to blog about, including our stop at a real mine where they got the mineral used to manufacture Bon Ami. But I'm going to stop for now, because Wiley and I are going to a campground potluck supper. Tune in again soon!