camping...

We took a long weekend camping in the NC mountains. Chris choose Mt. Pisgah on the Blue Ridge Parkway - not my choice because it was 3 days of dry camping, but it was his birthday choice and so we let him choose. It is the highest campsite on the parkway so he thought it would be nice and cool.

We left Thursday around 1pm and drove up into the mountains, past Asheville, onto the parkway, thru 8 tunnels and to the park. We had reserved a site so we did a quick pass to see if we liked one better. Nope. We decided to keep the one we'd reserved.

Chris backed in, I chocked the wheels, we unhooked and the trailer rolled.
Ooops.
I chocked the front of the tires but not the rear. So we re-hook up the truck, re-situate the trailer, chocked both sides and unhook the truck. As we go to put out the beds I notice that our bed is sticking out into the road.
Oops.
When we re-situated, the trailer ended up about 6 feet further up.
So we re-hooked up the truck, moved the trailer back and did it all for a 3rd time.
Phew, this time it was good.

We unloaded, set up camp and got dinner going. After dinner we went to a ranger campfire with a presentation on hummingbirds.



The next morning it was cool but not cold. A fire was ok and a long sleeved shirt. We really thought it would be cooler up there. After breakfast we decided to hike up to Mt. Pisgah - a 1.6 mile hike each way. Up, up, up then down, down, down.

We hiked to that tower in the distance:

From the top:
On the way up:
Came back to camp and rode bikes around the campgrounds, scoping it all out. Boy, I could feel my legs. Later in the day we decided to hike to the Devils Courthouse - only .5 miles up, but really vertical.

We hiked to there:

See our pickup down below???

Saturday we drove to Brevard, checked out the nature center and fish hatchery, and stopped at a roadside waterfall. We did no hiking - Hannah forgot her shoes and only had on flip flops - not hiking shoes. There were a few more waterfalls i wanted to see but ...oh well.

The afternoon - trivial pursuit!
Sunday morning we were going to try to fit a hike in but really, the area was very busy on Saturday and so we decided to take our time, pack up and head home around noon.

The 3 days dry camping...not so bad. I took sponge baths and washed my hair in the camper's shower. I survived.