Things to do in NC

Whenever my dad visits us, we are always looking for things to do within a 3 hr or so driving distance. Last 4th of July we went to Chimney Rock for a quick overnight to explore. He also came to visit when Erin was born but we didn't really go anywhere then. This time, we decided to check out Linville Caverns.

I am always the hotel chooser and booker when we go on trips. I have a pretty good track record at finding unusual places to stay that are picturesque. When we went to Chimney Rock, it was my first failure. Our hotel was old, dirty and tiny. I was disappointed in myself. So this time around, I was a little apprehensive about being the hotel picker. I found Linville Falls Lodge & Cottages without looking too hard and it looked awesome on the pictures. I made everyone else look at them and read about it before I would book it. We got a 2 bedroom cottage with a little kitchen so that we could spread out, even though we were only going overnight.

This was our cottage:

It turned out to be nice, clean, and of course pretty small. There was no central heat, only a gas fireplace to heat the entire cottage! We had to leave the bedroom doors open to stay warm.

When we got there it was about 6:45pm. I had expected Erin to nap in the car on the way (we left home at 2:45, stopped at Barnes & Noble for about half an hour, and picked up Mike in the city before heading out). She slept about ONE wink the entire drive. So she was ready for bed. But we had to eat dinner. The plan was to eat at the restaurant on site, but when we got there the owner told us they only open on weekends in the winter. The closest eating place was 5 miles away on mountain roads. I got us lost on the way there. It's a pizza place that was PACKED and we waited a good 30-40 minutes for our pizza. By then the meltdowns were all around. We got the pizza to go and went home to put the girls to bed.

Finally at like 9pm both kids were asleep. Everyone else was exhausted so we all piled into bed too. Have to open all the doors because of the heat. At 1am, Leah woke up crying. She was in Mimi and PawPaw's room but would not be consoled, so Mike got up to get her. On the way to the door, he kicked Erin's pack-n-play, which woke her up and she started to cry too. I fixed her a bottle while Mike took Leah to the potty. She stood in front of the toilet and peed in the only pair of jammies I brought her. Oh and I forgot to say that she had peed her pants at Barnes & Noble earlier that day too. We were lucky there were no more accidents because I was out of clothes for her. Everyone eventually went back to sleep. Erin woke up again at 4am but fell asleep again fairly quickly with me in my bed. When the girls go to bed late, expect a rough night, I have learned.

In the AM, things were MUCH better. We had a great day exploring the area. First we had breakfast at Famous Louise's Rock House, which is situated on the boundary of three counties. Then we went back to the cottage to let Erin nap. She only slept about an hour. After we packed up, we were off to the caverns. It was really neat.

Doesn't this picture look like Squidward from SpongeBob?

Leah was a bit fussy in the cavern because she claimed to be scared of bats, but they were all hibernating.

We played around in the gift shop, then explored the creek a little. I love this picture of the girls, me and my dad.


Then we needed a place to have our picnic lunch. We drove a bit aimlessly and randomly came across the entrance to Linville Falls and Gorge. It was a 0.4 mile walk to the falls and they were BEAUTIFUL!!! I don't have any good pictures of them because I loved them so much, I couldn't stop looking to take too many pictures. But I did get one of Mike and Leah sharing a stick of antelope jerky.


After our little "hike" we ate our picnic lunch of roasted chicken (we had roasted it before we left and packed it in a Ziploc bag) chips, guacamole, and fruit. Then we headed home. Both girls slept on the way home. When we got home at 4pm, we had plenty of daylight left to play outside. The Maddex boys came over for dinner and Ian & Leah played so nicely together.

Thanks to Dad & Myrn for coming to visit so we could take a fun trip together!