At the beginning of October, Nate, MB, and I, headed up to the mountains for some quality time with Oma, Opa, and some beautiful fall leaves. The fact that we have the opportunity to just get up and go on a roadtrip is really a blessing. God really had a hand in this trip, making it possible for us to finally have a clear weekend to go up to Boone. Praise God for making things work.
We headed out bright-and-early Saturday morning (well we were supposed to leave bright and early but Nate's alarm didn't go off... so we just left early-ish.) Hyped up on coffee we headed up the mountain with the windows down, singing David Crowder Band tunes, eating pringles and sour patch kids, and laughing until our sides hurt.
We accidentally took a wrong turn, despite our mountain driving
experience. However, this wrong turn quickly turned into a beautiful
chance to see the Blue Ridge Mountains. The dead-end road we ended
up on directly looked out over all the mountains and it was so worth the
detour we ended up taking. We even got to see some dear and look at
some beautiful mountain houses. I'm glad I don't actually know what
I'm doing when it comes to giving directions. We wouldn't have wound
up on this pretty route if I did :)
always an adventure, always.
We took the parkway out to Moses Cone to enjoy their
anniversary celebration. There were so many people there
but it was the perfect day for all the artisan events.
Just look at that blue sky!
We took The Maze trail through the woods and down to the
apple orchard to have ourselves a picnic.
Talk about a table with a view.
There were so many people around who came to ride their horses
around the property that day. Nate, MB, and I took advantage of
the chance to meet all these beautiful animals.
Our next stop was Rough Ridge,
off the back of Grandfather Mountain.
Nate had the brilliant idea of not actually taking the trail but
taking the cascades instead, which were rather slippery.
Long story short... little traction on shoes equals failure
to actually get up the slippery rocks.
So Nate just pulled me up instead.
It was an experience, I can say that,
talk about a trust challenge.
Here we are at the first outlook of Rough Ridge.
Just look at those mountains!
God is so apparent when you're surrounded in
such magnificent beauty like this.
Second outlook of Rough Ridge
(it's important to stay on the trail so you don't
get in trouble with park rangers, not that we're
speaking from experience or anything... heehee...)
From the view of the third outlook,
you have a clear shot at the Viaduct and the
Swinging Bridge of Grandfather Mountain.
The outlook consists of a huge rock that's roped off
to prevent falling. It was glorious and a mighty fine
hike to get up here, but it was completely worth it.
We stopped by King Street on the way to Oma and Opa's.
This is always one of our favorite things to do while up in Boone.
The Bead Box holds great entertainment for us, with their handmade
hats and scarves.
The shop next store was full of vintage clothing, sungalsses that
made you feel rather trippy, and lots of secret compartment hats
and jackets. I could never imagine why anyone would need
secret compartment in their hats... oh wait, it's Happy Appy,
that explains that.
And soon we were off for a night with Oma and Opa
and an amazing dinner! Lasagna that weighed thirty pounds,
that's A-Okay with us!
We had Oma in histerics while playing our
"translation game."
Basically Nate speaks in German and I "translate" it.
AKA, I say in English what it sounded like he said in German,
not the actual translation. But because Oma speaks German
and knew that while Nate was talking about teddy bears
and I was talking about hot dogs, that we were way off our rocker.
But it gave us all an amazing laugh, it had been a long
time since I had seen Oma laugh that way.
There's so much love in this family.
So much God.
I would not trade this for anything in the world,
the happiness we all bring to each other is incredible,
and the love is something that you can't get out of anything else.
So blessed beyond measure.
We kicked off the night with some accordion dueling.
Opa loves to hear us play, so we pulled out both accordions.
It was a great night for some polka music,
(I'm glad my grandparents don't have many neighbors,
they would not be happy with our loud "music")
Roadtrip to Boone #2 was a great success,
I'm a lucky girl to have two amazing best friends,
two incredible grandparents,
one pan of left over lasagna,
and one awesome God.