North Carolina Mountain Vacation

We actually returned home form our trip a week ago today, but it feels like months ago. I have had a crazy week that included Tom's trip to Helsinki Finland for work, and the extraction of son Matthew's wisdom teeth. It has been a very "Mommy intensive "week!!

Now back to the focus of this post. We ventured to Saluda, North Carolina, a small town south of Ashville nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains and within spittin distance of South Carolina. I have been wanting to go to Ashville for ages and here we were, finally able to go! We stayed in a great cabin (pictured above) at CABIN FEVER. There are 6-7 cabins owned by Lon and Leslie and their 16 year old son Troy. The cabins are rustic and very comfortable, nestled down in the trees and surrounded by a huge stand of wild Rhododendrons. ( We just missed bloom time! :( )

The cabin that we stayed in was named High Top. It was very private and offered a fresh spring water spigot, fire ring, very adequate kitchen and bathroom, wood stove, screened in porchs and great beds, and fans- it was unusually hot!! We could have taken our dogs with us but I am very glad that, in the end ,we decided to leave them home with neighbors!! There was also a wonderful playground with a cool Zip Line for the kids and a great common area full of rocking chairs and marshmallow roasting equipment. We will definately be returning to Cabin Fever and recommend it highly to anyone wishing to visit the Saluda, Hendersonville, Ashville area. ( Micheal DeMeng stayed at Cabin Fever when he visited Saluda to teach at Random Arts!) More about Random Arts in my next post- that is a story in itself!!

Our front porch with the view that met us each morning!! I am looking forward to visiting again at a time when we could have fire in the woodstove and enjoy cool crisp weather!!

The water from the spring was sooo cold and super fresh. The kids especially liked partaking after the long walk up the hill!

Marshmallows and more s'mores and any excuse to build a fire!!! ( Fire Protection Engineers just love to build fires!!!)

I did manage to find several very late rhodedendron blossoms tucked away and can only imagine how beautiful the area must be when the bushes are at their peak bloom!!

All of the cabins were made from wood generated from the site with wonderful touches like our railing !

The Zip Line that Becca absolutely loved- of course it required the efforts of brother, Mom or Dad to make the whole deal work!!!! Matthew was a very good big brother and hauled Becca down that line quite a few times!!! And Boy did she fly!!!!

Rockers lined up and waiting for some folks to enjoy the fire pit.

As it was sooo very hot we went looking for some water adventure and discovered the area full of waterfalls near Brevard, N.C. We were able to swin at the falls of the Little River in the Dupont National Forest . Becca and I made several trips to the falls, and as you can imagine, I had a very tought ime getting Becca to leave!! These pictures were all taken at Hooker's Falls.

One day we went into Ashville (about a 30 minute drive from our cabin). I found it to be very similar to Portland Oregon in spirit and atmosphere. It is a very creative and energetic city. Next visit I will plan to spend several days there exploring. I did find a fantastic bead store called The Chevron Trading Post- icould have spent hours there and left 100's of dollars behind but as I had DH and children with me, my opportunity for serious trouble was limited. The store was complete with a huge salt water fish tank, comfy sofas, a shop cat you were encouraged to play with as she needed to loose some weight and a very wiggly large yellow lab who could not get enough friendly attention!! All of these ammenities had been added to entertain spouses and children , so serious beaders could get their fill of all of the beading treasures. It worked for about a half an hour!!!

This wonderful metal sculpture was on th street outside a wonderful independant bookstore. The little dog at the far left, made me think of my Buddy.


These window boxes adoned widows that looked out on an alley. It seemed that where ever I looked, I saw that people had paid attention to creative expressions to beautify their surroundings- even on alley facing windows!! Even this drain pipe had been artistically embellished!!

It looks like some sort of wackt totem pole but the point is that someone had taken the time to make it a canvas for creative expression. It was transformed from an eyesore to a focal point! Too Cool!!

I loved what this artist had done with this old window frame!

I did manage to get to Earth Guild- the wonderful crafts supply store that began it's life in Harvard Square Mass. and moved to Ashville over 30 years ago. I can rmember going to the Harvard Square store with my Mom when I was a young teenager to get wool and dyeing supplies!! A wonderful store run by terrific people. There is so muchy more to see in this area that it will take several return trips to take it all in- perhaps without kids!

I will have more on our trip with tales about Random Arts and the impromptu Demo/class that I taught there, in my next post!!