Trip Home August 2015, Part Two

Good Morning,

Two posts in two days, you're impressed aren't you? I am.. it definitely hasn't happened in awhile that's for sure! But none the less here I am, and totally ready to recap the second half of our trip for you guys!

Monday morning which was our second morning there we had plans to go white water rafting! I wont lie I have never been and its never actually been on the top of my list of things to do. I was a little anxious that morning not knowing what to expect. We stopped and got a coffee on the way and then headed over to the Nantahala River. We booked our trip through the Nantahala Outdoor Center which was a really great place, there are restaurants there as well as gift shops and stuff definitely a great place for an adventure and a few other activities there.

When we arrived we checked in and then checked out the river, I was actually pretty shocked because the river didn't look as though it would be good for a white water adventure at all.

When it was time to go they had us watch a little video before heading down to the spot where we would put in the river. The video was TERRIFYING. I sat there trying not to cry, sure that I was going to die on this trip. They honestly basically tell you that you are going to fall out of your boat and most likely you will hit a rock and break something or die unless you listen to every single thing they say. I'm a good swimmer but the idea of flipping over in a rushing river that will likely drag you miles.. not fun in my books. Just me? Ok. 

Jason knew I was terrified, he kept trying to assure me it would be fine and I kept trying not to cry. We got our life jackets.. which SMELLED TERRIBLE, the only thing I will say is if you decided to take part in something water related through the Nantahala outdoor center I highly recommend bringing your own life jacket because theirs were disgusting. Anyways we got our paddles and got on the bus to head to the drop in point. 

The first thing I decided was the water was freezing, and that was before I even had two feet in the water! I was terrified and rightfully so.. I didn't change my mind the entire trip! The water was freezing cold, I was absolutely frozen to the point of blue lips, it was terrifying basically. Jason laughed at me the entire way and I have never been happier than to get out of a boat in my entire life! We had a two person inflatable raft that we never flipped which was a blessing and when we arrived at the take out point I asked how cold the water was and they said it was 50 degrees.. 50 DEGREES!

Jason took this picture along with a few videos but he was the primary paddler so it was hard to get good shots, and I was in no condition to focus on taking pictures as I was shaking far too bad. 

Basically the river is dam released and comes for a 200 foot deep lake which is why its so cold, as the morning goes on the water becomes rougher and rougher. By the time we arrived back at the outdoor center I couldn't believe the difference in the water and how rough and high it was. 

We changed and got into dry WARM clothes, and decided to have lunch before we headed off to our next adventure. As I mentioned before there was a restaurant right there so we had some BBQ which is always the way to go. After that we decided to drive up to Fontana Lake/Dam, the drive was absolutely beautiful and the lake was GORGEOUS! If you are ever in the Great Smokey Mountains it is totally worth your time to check it out! 

There was a visitors center there that gave a bunch of history about the dam which was really interesting, you can view some of the information HERE if you are interested. We decided to head back to the cabin because they were calling for rain and we needed to either start a fire and hope to cook dinner before it rained or figure something else out. Sadly it rained as we were getting there but it didn't last long and we managed to still have a fire and dinner which was great! 

I wont lie we were sad to leave the following day, but had a great trip planned home! We decided to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway up through Cherokee, we wanted to end up in around Waynesville because Jason found a gun range where he wanted to shoot. Although it was pouring rain when we left it stopped before we made it into town so we grabbed coffee and toured around a few gift shops, I had the best Maple Latte I've ever had in my life. 

God love Jason who stopped every 5 minutes for me to take pictures. 

Thankfully the day cleared up before we arrived at the gun range. Jason was dying to shoot his guns and I was really worried it wouldn't happen due to weather but thankfully it cleared off. There were two older gentlemen there shooting but otherwise it was quiet.

After shooting we decided to grab sandwiches and get on the road home! 

Sadly about two hours from home we hit some really bad weather and we were driving with it so it didn't get better. 

Basically we couldn't see anything for a long time, and it was absolutely miserable... on a good note we didn't have to water the lawn when we got home! Glass half full. 

The last week of our trip was laid back, we did some touring around town and went to the driving range! 

Yes I golf in flip flops!

While we were home we also started watching Sons of Anarchy because we never got into it while it was on the air and we were looking for a series to watch.. that's another post for another day but I will say.. I am ADDICTED! 

Since we've been back we have just been getting back into the swing of things, catching up on things and with people. Tuesday I spent the day with Ava and Lily, they make any day a good day! 

Water babes! 

The bag lady, she generally carries a purse but not this many at once! The ensemble wasn't quite complete without her sunglasses either.. obvi! 

So that's our scoop, I'm really sorry for the hiatus, it wasn't my intention but I thought there was a chance there would be some radio silence around here for awhile although I am hoping next week to get back on some sort of schedule and post more regularly again! 

I hope you all have a great weekend, we are thinking about checking out Ocean City, Maryland for the day! 

Thank you as always for stopping by!! 

Trip Home August 2015, Part One

Anyone still out there?

I think this may actually be the longest I have gone without blogging since I started this here space and I honestly don't know why I let it go so long, but to tell you the truth I just didn't have the desire to sit down and write. We had a great trip home and I have tons of pictures and so much to share but I haven't been able to make myself sit down and write.

I think its natural to go through a blogging lull, I definitely notice a lack of writing in the blogsphere over summer because people are so busy out and enjoy the weather and everything great about summer that their blog takes a back seat, it happens. I more so struggle with feeling like I have nothing to say, or just don't feel like sitting down to actually write.

Anyways I thought I would stop in today and tell y'all about our trip home because lets be honest the longer I leave it the more I will forget. Plus is was suppose to thunderstorm all day which I was looking forward to and now its not and I am home so I have the time.

We got back to Maryland on Sunday night, we were gone for two weeks! I was so anxious to go home, We haven't spent that amount of time at our house since before going to New Jersey so it was well overdue. We really didn't have a lot planned we just wanted to be home and enjoy the house! I will say the time didn't fly by like I expected it to which was great, we did a lot of mundane things like going to the dentist, out looking for things we wanted for the house.. errands and what not. The first week was just really nice to be at home, enjoy the house and the deck as well as get things accomplished around the house.

Jason got a new tool box for the garage that was much needed and we finally managed to get our Alaska picture framed and hung in the house.

Sorry for the crappy iPhone picture. 

The following Sunday we were up early (like before the sun early) and headed up to Bryson City! We had known that we wanted to go to the mountains and although we would like to spend more time in Asheville we were looking for something a little more remote. I follow Ashley's blog which you can view HERE and her and her family live in Bryson City and she is always sharing their amazing outdoor adventures so we knew there would be a lot to do.

Jason found a little cottage in the woods and we planned to go river tubing and white water rafting! After a beautiful drive up there we stopped and grabbed some lunch before heading to Deep Creek to go tubing. We couldn't check into the cabin until 4pm so we wanted to make the most of the day! Driving to the river there are NUMEROUS tube rental places and basically they are all the same! We got our tubes and made our way to the river!

If you remember last year we went river tubing with Josh and Tanya in Pennsylvania and had so much fun so I was really looking forward to doing it again, however this time was completely different. This river was actually quick moving for the most part with lots of drop offs and twists and turns, we had so much fun! The first time we went down top to bottom on the river but we learned very quickly that the second half of the river was low and slow and therefore we kept getting stuck on rocks and what not and said screw it and spent the rest of the time just going half way and then getting out and going back up to the top to enjoy the best part of the river!

Tom Branch Falls

I didn't take my phone or camera for obviously reasons but Jason brought an old waterproof camera and managed to get some really great pictures. 

The river was crazy, we were having so much fun! The water was warm enough and the water was moving quick enough that we never felt bored! We were a little worried that if I went under on one of the falls that I would lose my sunglasses and because they are prescription they are not cheap! Luckily although I flipped on one of the falls I managed to keep my glasses, I cant however say the same for Jason. 

On our last run of the river I was ahead of Jason and he went over one of the falls and flipped, it was really scary to be honest.. he looked like he broke his neck the way he went over. The water was moving so quickly that I couldn't stop because I had nothing to grab on to and his tube kept going as well. I finally managed to stop myself and grab his tube, but this time he had come up and was facing me.. with no sunglasses. Not as big of a deal because they were just a cheap pair and at that point I just kept asking him if he was OK, he said he was fine but when he turned around and his back was to me it was covered in blood! I guess when he went over he hit a rock and it really did a number on his back.. he was a real trooper about it considering how bad it was. 

After that we went back down to the bottom of the river where we were parked, changed into dry clothes and headed to the cabin. I'm not overly outdoorsy.. shocking I know but I was really looking forward to staying at the cabin and having a camp fire! The cabin was super cute and absolutely everything we needed, it had that rustic feel to it that you would hope for! 

There was a beautiful view of the mountains right through those trees! 

We only cooked on the fire, we had s'mores and drank beers and collected sticks for the fire.. it was such a great time! 

I decided to split the details of our trip into two parts because otherwise it would be one EXTREMELY long post! I will post the second half tomorrow and then hopefully next week get back into regular posting as well as the High Five for Friday Posts! 

I hope you guys have been having a fabulous August and enjoying all summer has to offer! Thank you as always for stopping by! Have a fabulous day! 

Quick Update

Good Evening!

Its very rare that I blog later in the evening, especially with the intention of actually posting it right when I finished but lets be honest there has been no rhyme or reason to posting lately as it has been all over the place!

I just wanted to pop in and say I hope you all had a great weekend! We made it home Friday night, sadly later than we had hoped! It took us a little longer to get everything in the truck (at the time we had no tonneau cover so in bringing all the totes home they needed to be strapped in the back) and once we got on the road we learned very quickly getting out of Maryland was going to be a NIGHTMARE, good lord there are lights literally every 5 feet I swear which just messes with traffic in the absolutely WORST way! Then naturally we got to Virginia which is always a cluster screw, I suppose it could have been worse being a Friday night in the summer, once we got past Virginia Beach it really wasn't absolutely awful. North Carolina however is repaving EVERYWHERE and therefore everything is down to one lane and there are always those jerks who wait to merge until THE VERY LAST SECOND, I never let them in... I would honestly let them hit my car because I let them it.. get over when you have the chance, don't try and get ahead of everyone else.. you're an asshole.

Either way we made it home, unpacked the truck and chatted with James (the neighbor) for awhile as he checked out the new truck. Sadly James wanted to share a recent video with us from his exterior home camera. Not kidding guys the last two times we have come home James has had videos of people breaking into cars in our cul de sac, specifically his! Last time I guess the doors had been open and two young guys rummaged through two of their cars and this time some half naked guy was trying to get into them, right in the drive way!!! The motion light went off and I guess he saw the sign that said "you are on camera" and he took off. I know crime happens every where but it definitely doesn't leave a good feeling knowing its happening often and literally right next door.

We've only been here since Friday night but already I feel like our time is flying by, the hazard of never really being here I guess. We've been doing a bunch of running around. Jason got a new tool box for the garage which if you didn't know are CRAZY heavy and getting it out of the back of the truck was interesting, then we also got a tonneau cover for the new truck so that was put on yesterday.

The weekend weather was absolutely PERFECT.. did I mention that? It was in the high 90s but absolutely no humidity which makes all the difference in the world! It was glorious! So much so that I decided to indulge in a few too many beers yesterday afternoon, and I went to bed at 8:30pm.. this is why I don't drink!

Because our days our busy and out in the hot sun we are generally ready to relax come dark, so we decided to get Hulu Plus and started watching Sons of Anarchy at night before bed. I have heard absolutely everyone rave about this show but we have never seen it before, we knew we wanted to start a series and so when I saw Sons of Anarchy I knew that would be the one. Saturday Jason fell asleep at the beginning of season one episode 2 and last night I was in bed early so tonight we will continue on with Season 1 episode 3.

Today we both has dental work done.. I tell ya, I hate the dentist! They were late getting me in.. 40 minutes late which does not impress me but at least its over with. We got our Alaska picture framed last time we were home and picked it up yesterday and hung it today.. I have pictures on my phone but its upstairs charging so I will show you them later. Jason is out in the truck on the phone with Ford messing with the garage door opener trying to program the truck and having no luck and I am going to head to the shower and get ready for the show.

I know our life at home is like vacation and maybe that's part of why its so great to me, but being here I just feel so much happier than anywhere else, so much more comfortable. I know that after spending two weeks here its going to be really hard to go back, but knowing we will get to visit more being so close will help.

I hope you are all well, thank you for stopping by! I am going to try and get here as much as I can over the next two weeks with a few posts, probably some like this and hopefully others as well!!