Western NC Getaway

This weekend, since I had the weekend off, we made one final attempt to get out of town before school starts back up in a week. We decided we'd take a trip to one of our favorite places to go when we want to get away....the mountains. We headed up to Brevard on Friday and had a very uneventful dinner at the Pisgah Fish Camp. We made it back to the hotel just in time to catch what I believe to be one of the most spectacular opening ceremonies ever, at least as I recall it. If you didn't get a chance to see this, I strongly suggest you seach this out either online or on the TV. We woke up Saturday morning and headed to Headwater Outfitters on the French Broad River where we had canoeing reservations. We had signed up for the 4 hours, 10 mile trip down the river. What a great choice of things to do! All I can say is that if you have never been, now might be the time to go. Not only is it a great way to have a great time with your family, I would also consider it to have some therapeutic value. There's nothing like paddling down the river with only you and the river, especially when you play the quiet game and get to really appreciate the meaning of silence. It's very relaxing and the kids did really well, both wanting to do it again when we finished up. The weather could not have been more perfect, hovering right around 80 the whole day. We definitely look forward to possibly doing it again once the leaves start changing. We made our way over from the outfitters in Rosman back over to Brevard and went to Sliding Rock. None of us had ever done this before although we were fully aware of what it was all about. Basically you slide down a 60 ft waterfall into an 8 foot pool of water that's around 45-50 degrees. Meghan and I did it first and I must say, this is quite a shock to the system, I think I was still gasping while Meghan had already made her way back to the rocks. Next Laura and Noah went and it went down about the same way. Lots of fun, although not quite a pretty sight as people don't exaclty come prepared to get wet, although they do anyway, and there's probably a few people out there who have no business being wet in public as it is! Although what matters most is everyone was having a great time. After a great day of water activities, we made our way downtown Brevard to enjoy what we all agreed was some of the best Mexican we had ever had. Not only was the service incredible, the food was perfect. Everyone crashed pretty hard after this day, but woke up ready to take one more adventure. We took the Blue Ridge Parkway back over to Asheville and headed into the Biltmore Estate. I must say this is a very impressive residence, although the House is actually much more like a museum and if it wasn't for the gardens, we agreed, we might have felt a little ripped off. But the gardens did not dissapoint. The variety of plant life blew away any other botanical garden I've ever seen. And for the most part the bloom were in great shape considering most of the southeast is in a drought. I would definitely recommend going to Biltmore if you haven't been, but be sure to hit the gardens while you're there. The easiest way to do it seemed to be as you are exiting you actually drive through part of the gardens and can park behind them afterwards. On the way out the road is lined for about a quarter of a mile at least of sunflowers which is quite a sight. All in all, this trip was a satisfying way to get prepared for the impending craziness which is the school year. At some point I'm going to try and put together a little slideshow from this weekend as well.