A week of no interstate

So I wasn't ready to head back home but didn't have any specific plans. I talked with Craig about their adventures at Grandfather Mountain, and with John about Chimney Rock and both sounded like fun. Then I remembered that I've wanted to "shoot the Dragon" ever since Rob told me about it and just like that a week's worth of plans started to come together.

First was a trip to Carowinds, since I was in Charlotte anyway and the park is part of the same company as all the others I'd visited. So it cost me no extra money to go, which is a good thing. I was done with the whole park in almost exactly 3 hours. The crowd was light so the lines were short, but also the rides were pretty dull. The Goldrusher was about the dullest coaster I've ever been on. But the Carolina Cobra was one of the better "boomerang" coasters I've ridden (those that travel their track forwards then backwards). Nighthawk was ok, but the best coaster in the park was Afterburn (formerly known as Top Gun) despite being about 10 years old. Later research showed that many of the coasters in Carowinds were relocations from other parks, and that didn't surprise me. Nothing felt innovative or special. Even their "newest" coaster, the Cobra, had spent over 5 years at another park.

Then began what I'm callling "The Week of No Interstate". I told my GPS to avoid freeways and headed up to Boone, NC. No particularly good mountain roads, but scenic nonetheless. Boone is a very pretty town with friendly people. Tuesday I went hiking at Grandfather Mountain and it's Mile High Swinging Bridge.

I hiked a total of about 3 miles, one trail in particular was very rocky, and both led to spectacular views. The neatest thing about the park was that after crossing the bridge you had full access to the ridge. No rails, no baby-ing, no protection from falling except your own judgement. Amazingly, the guide said they'd never had any problem worse than scraped knees and twisted ankles. Apparently when it's obvious that, hey, if you fall you die! people actually bother to be careful. What a concept!

Anyway, I proceeded to climb out as far onto the ridge as I dared :-) and got several great pictures, but this panorama is my favorite:

I hung out at the top for more than a half-hour recuperating from the hike. It was a rough one! I wanted to take the same route back, but sensibly (can you believe it?!?) opted for the easy .5 mile walk in the park hike back down to the lower parking lot. Plug in "Chimney Rock" into the GPS and off to the next one.

This time there were some really good mountain roads, and I found a charming little inn right across from the park. I had dinner at a local Italian restaurant overlooking Lake Lure and watched a storm roll in. A little while after I got back to the room the power went out for a while, so thank goodness for laptops with charged batteries!

The weather hadn't moved off by morning, so the day's hiking was with intermittent rain and even less intermittent sunshine. And steep! I decided to start at the bottom-most trail and go the full almost 900' up the mountain. The first trail was not as difficult to hike as the first trail at Grandfather, but it was much steeper. And after that trail there were a LOT of steps going practically straight up the side of the mountain. Unfortunately 2 of the most interesting looking trails - the ones going along the ridge line - were both closed for improvements. It took right at an hour to make it to the top and enjoy the view, which was mostly of clouds. :( I got a decent picture of Lake Lure and then one of the Chimney from the gift shop.


My right knee gets fussy on downhill hikes, and I knew it wouldn't put up with all those steps back down. So I cheated and rode the elevator down, but still had to repeat the first trail in order to get back to the car. First I took a side trip over to the Hickory Nut Falls, during which it started to really rain instead of the intermittent drizzle it had been all day. So a mile total to and from the falls, and then another half-mile downhill to get to the car and I was ready to get to the next stop and get a hot shower.

I found a site that outlined a nice 120 mile circuit of some great driving roads around Deals Gap in Tennessee. The road through Deals Gap is called the Tail of the Dragon and it promises to be FUN! I went exploring after the shower, picking roads at random, and every one was a good drive. So tomorrow should be pretty awesome as long as I can avoid tickets and accidents.