I went to the mountains

 Every time I find myself hiking around a mountain (which is not too often), I find myself thinking two things.

1. The Indigo Girl's song "Closer to fine" because all the time in South Africa where we found ourselves doing any type of hiking, we'd sing this song (though at the time we didn't know it was an Indigo Girl's song... we just knew it from an Office reference).

2. Since I always want to sing the chorus of this song when I am by mountains, it automatically reminds me of my Radj team, which then causes me to remember our "adventure" in the Drakensberg, which causes me to think of those videos Constance and I made- biding our parents farewell since we were so out of shape we were convinced we would never make it out alive. Which causes me to laugh. a lot. Usually to myself since no one else would get it, unfortunately.

Those are my nostalgic moments. Now here is the real blog post.

Today Mom, Dad, and I headed out on the blue ridge parkway (which never fails to make me feel sick) to go hiking in the gorgeous Carolina fall weather. Our first stop, was just an overlook called Green Knob.

After a quick break, we continued up the curving road all the way up to Crabtree Trail to see Crabtree Falls.

Okay, so I never used to be a big fan of hiking. That started to change when we first moved to Asheville, after all, almost all of the hikes we went on led to a beautiful waterfall. Sometimes more than one. and what's not to love about that? Or the fact that my parent's live close to hundreds of falls. (So jealous).

We opted to go on the loop trail, which was a little over 5k. In the middle of this loop was this.

I know, right? So lovely...

I told my parents later that afternoon that I have managed to get over my "I don't like hiking" phase, but after I have seen "the main event" then I want to get out of there ASAP, which, of course, doesn't happen since we had to climb back out of there. Oh well, worth it.

We stopped for a quick lunch break.

Then continued on to Mt. Mitchell.

This mountain is the the highest point east of the Mississippi. Pretty cool, hey? Yep, though I learned that back in the 1800s, the scientist who spent his life trying to prove the mountain's height, actually died one evening when he slipped near a waterfall, falling 40 feet. As he lay unconscious, he eventually drowned. He was found 1 week later by "Big Tom" who was a infamous tracker who lived in Western North Carolina. Dr. Mitchell's tomb is on the top of the mountain.

Big Tom and me - and our tracking faces

 Minus the sad story, it was a beautiful day. Dang. People who live in this state lead way more romantic lives than most other people. I'm pretty convinced of this.