**Winter Break Vacation to NC Part I** {1.24.2024}
Today, I’m sharing Part I of our Winter vacation, which also happened to be part of Addison’s Christmas present. We left Tuesday, the day after Christmas, and headed to Boone, NC. Joey and I had never been there before, and we saw there was lots to see and do.
It was a chilly drive up, and we ended up stopping to see the Nantahala river just to stretch our legs.
The weather was very dreary when we got to Boone. We headed to the downtown area to walk around for a bit before we checked into our hotel.
The town was cute.
We loved the Mast General store. So many neat things, and they had a little bit of everything. I snapped a pic of A.
We left there and got settled in at our hotel. There weren’t a lot of lodging options. We stayed at the Graystone Lodge, and it was very nice. I have nothing but positive things to say about it.
Wednesday morning, we had a bit of time before our snow tubing reservations that afternoon. We headed up to see Sugar Mountain (ski resort) and then headed on to see Grandfather Mountain which is a National park. It is considered the highest peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There were huge boulders throughout the park.
We headed up the mountain and stopped at these rocks. Sphinx rock is considered to be 640 million years old and weighs 4000 pounds.
We snapped some pics.
We went into the visitor’s center which was very nice.
Around the Visitor’s center there were enclosures with animals from the region.
There were Bald Eagles, Black Bears, Otters, and Elk. There was also mountain lions, but we couldn’t ever see them in their cage.
After we left the center, we headed further up the mountain. It was getting steep and very foggy/cloudy.
I thought I could talk myself into walking across the bridge, but Nope…. the clouds came up, and I read the people limit, and I said no way. Haha! I don’t like heights.
Addison and Joey did it. I stayed on solid ground, on top. We got Addison a stuffed mountain lion, and she named it Millie. So, Millie had to come everywhere with us and be in all the pictures. 🙂
Then, we started back down the mountain because we needed to start heading to our snow tubing reservations.
We had made reservations at Hawks Nest Tubing in Seven Devils, NC. It wasn’t far from Boone but did have it’s own city address.
Even though the temperatures weren’t that cold, we ended up wearing our snow gear. I didn’t want to be wet. Joey, however, declined wearing his. Then, he was wet. #eyeroll
Our session was for 2 hours which was really plenty of time.
There were 4 tubing areas. Thankfully they had conveyer belts to bring you up the hills. Haha!
Even though it was artificial snow, there was a lot of it.
We were all having a blast. So much laughing.
On some of the hills, you went down them very fast. We ended up tying together on some of the hills. It was fun!
At the end of our session, this sweet lady offered to take a family pic. 🙂
After we left, we changed out of our clothes and stopped at The Pedalin Pig BBQ. It was good. Very busy.
When we got back to the hotel, Addison wanted to get in the indoor pool. We obliged. She loved it!
That night, she was wiped out. And snuggling with Millie.
That’s it for the first part of our trip. I will share the second part in a later post. I hope you’re all having a great Wednesday! I’ll see you back on Friday for our week’s favorites.
xo
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2 Comments
Vanessa
Oh my gosh! I live in Banner Elk and work in the ski industry at Sugar Mountain. I hope you enjoyed the area. I hate we didn’t have natural snow for you to enjoy. We just received over a foot of snow last week. You should plan to visit in the Fall sometime. It is beautiful! Glad you got to visit Grandfather Mtn.
I enjoy your blog!
alisonhughes
Oh wow!! That’s so awesome! We definitely enjoyed our time. The mountains are beautiful, and the town is so cute! We would love to come back to visit.