Life with Quinn and Keely: Part One: Asheville

We settled into Asheville pretty quickly after the tumultuous travel on Sunday. Monday, we didn't do much while James was in his conference. The kids shopped at a local toy store, and we walked around downtown Asheville a bit. After James was done, we drove out to Biltmore Village and walked around the shoppes. The Biltmore closes at 4 PM, so we didn't get to go there. I didn't necessarily intend to take the kids, it costs a lot and I just don't think they would have gotten much out of it. We ate dinner in downtown Asheville at a lovely pizza restaurant called The Mellow Mushroom.

James played hooky from the conference on Tuesday so we decided to drive out to Chimney Rock and Lake Lure, which are about 30 minutes from Asheville. James and I had hiked Chimney Rock in 2000, and I knew it would be fun for the kids. Here we are at the parking lot. You drive pretty far up to start the climb to the top, as you can see from the background. We then climbed over 400 steps to Chimney Rock. There's also an elevator but that's for wussies :)

This picture was taken in a place above Chimney Rock, called the Opera Box because it looks like a box seat overlooking the main rock outcrop.

James and the kids atop Chimney Rock. The stairs in the background lead up to the Opera Box in the picture above.

Then we climbed more steps above the Opera Box to get to the Skyline Trail, which leads to Devil's Face. I really like this picture of Quinn mimicking the rock shape.

Quinn took this picture of James and I atop the area near Devil's Face. It's nice that the kids can take pictures of us so we don't have to use James' arm like we used to :)

After descending Chimney Rock (Keely and I cheated and used the elevator), we decided to hike the lower trail to a 400 foot waterfall. It's about a 3/4 mile hike each way, and at this point Keely told me that I was the most horrible mom for making her walk through the trees and forest. She made it through though, and the reward at the end made her declare that it was very worth the walk. The water was cold, but nothing like snowmelt in Utah and the kids had fun cooling off.

And then posing for the camera despite being splashed by the waterfall :)

And another cute picture, now quite cold from the water...

We ended up spending a few hours at Chimney Rock, and then we were tired and ready for some relaxation at Lake Lure (Lo-ray as James says). We drove over and spent about an hour or so before they closed up the beach for the evening. The water was warm and calm, and we all enjoyed swimming and splashing around. Quinn loves to play in the sand, building and making castles...

Keely decided to snatch the camera for her turn at some pictures. I like this one of us, and notice my sunglasses have no side earpiece. Keely broke them at The Mellow Mushroom and a broken pair was better than nothing at all :)

Our last day in Asheville was spent locally, since I didn't want to drive too much before the trip to Blacksburg. We chose to tour the Thomas Wolfe House, his birthplace and childhood home. Before that though we drove out to The Grove Park Inn, a very old resort hotel. Grandma (James' mom) has been there and she always mentions their nice rocking chairs so I took these pictures just for her :) We also walked around the grounds a bit and then headed back to meet James for the tour.