Waterfall

I am thrilled to report that we finally went exploring on Saturday. It was completely last minute. One second we were teaching Parker how to play UNO and the next, we had decided to head out since it was a gorgeous day.

I packed a small bag of goodies for us to snack on and the Irishman grabbed a book he picked up on scenic drives in North Carolina. We started heading south and about 10 miles into the trip, we decided to check out the tallest waterfall east of the Rockies. We're bordered on three sides by National Parks, so we have a ton of day trip options, but to be honest, our choices were kind of limited on this particular trip since we were both wearing shorts and flip flops - not exactly hiking attire. But, that's the price you pay for impulsivity.

We arrived about an hour later. The drive was incredibly curvy and it reminded me of driving around our island (except that we weren't overlooking the ocean). We parked and it turns out that it was only about a 10 minute walk on a wide, paved road to get to the viewing area.

But first, Parker had to stand on a rock (and look at the changing leaves!)



Then, we started up the walk through the dense, beautiful trees.



Finally, we got to the first viewing area.



It was breathtaking and the sound of the falls was so soothing. I had my telephoto lens on my camera because I didn't realize that we were going to be so close. The problem with this was that I couldn't get the entire expanse of the waterfall in a single frame. The benefit of this was that I could zoom in and see the details of the falls.



There was a sign pointing to another viewing area, so we decided to check it out. We just had to climb down 500 steps first.



(Notice that Parker's hand is held at all times. That's because he likes to run. Away from us. I'm hoping that he outgrows this shortly.) We finally reached the bottom and got to see the falls from a different vantage point.



From this point, you had the option of heading off onto some hiking trails to get closer, but we were deterred by the sign that said, "The Rocks Are Slippery, If You Fall, You Could DIE." Yup, that's a slight deterrent when you have a fleeing 2 year-old with you.

On the walk back, I saw a break in the trees that took my breath away.



North Carolina is full of views like this. The faint body of water that you see is Lake Toxaway.



Almost all of the lodging in the area was vacation homes and resort communities. Lake Toxaway is less than two hours from Atlanta (very close to the S. Carolina border) so a lot of Atlanta business-people head up to the mountains for some R&R.

Can't say that I blame them since we chose to live here and omit the chaotic part of our lives entirely.