Holly's Notes and Condition

Arrived Back From Trip on Feb 16th

Dave and I extended our original trip plans and extended our stay, allowing us to see and drive through the Great Smoky Mountains starting on the North Carolina side and finishing on the Tennessee side and seeing Cherokee, NC on Valentine's Day - which was very special to me, as I am part Cherokee Indian. We hiked through Chimney Rock Park in North Carolina, which was where they filmed one of my favorite movies - "Last of the Mohicans" - I even made the climb up onto Chimney Rock, which was no small feat for me, as it was really being blasted with wind gusts before a storm - I overcame my fear, with help from Dave and experienced an amazing view! The storm held off until we had hiked out to Hickory Nut Falls and back and then it started snowing. We drove 1745 miles over 9 days, through GA, SC, NC, TN and back down into Atlanta, GA for our flight home. We left Atlanta and arrived home ahead of the really nasty weather that rolled through FL, GA and SC with torrential rain and tornado force winds on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. That is one thing about that part of the country - the weather really dramatically changes and they aren't kidding around when they issue weather and storm alerts. We really lucked out with the weather we had on the trip. It was windy at Charleston, SC and out at Fort Sumter, SC. It rained one day in Columbia, SC and we got some snow and real bone chilling cold in Asheville, NC, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the sights.
I'm so glad that we took this trip and that we took the extra time. Between our Garmin GPS, my navigating with the Auto Club Tour Books and maps and talking to the locals - we really saw some pretty cool stuff and had some really good experiences. Fun stuff.

posted by Holly @ 10:52 AM