Back from Mini-Vacation to the Mountains!

We had a great Labor Day weekend in the mountains of N.C. We were fortunate enough to be offered a free place to stay at a beautiful condominium belonging to the parents of my dad's wife at Sugartop. We couldn't say no, so Jeff & I took off work on Thursday & Friday and we left on our adventure on Thursday morning. We stopped in North Wilkesboro for lunch and then on to Sugar Mountain, which is about 20-30 minutes from Boone. After we got checked in, we got settled and went out for supplies & provisions. By the time we got back, we just played with Jacob a little while longer, then fed him dinner. We put him to bed and despite being in a new place in a pack n play he had never slept in, he only cried for eight (long!) minutes before going to sleep!

On Friday morning, we waited until after his morning nap to get a start on the day. We headed over to the original Mast General Store in Valle Crucis. It's probably one of our favorite things to do, they have lots of neat stuff. We also went by the Annex store as well. As we were walking around, I showed Jacob a Lambchop puppet like this one. He took to it immediately and hugged it as we walked around the store, so of course, we had to buy it for him. [By the way, Lambchop has now moved right up their with Slugger. Jacob slept with his little arms wrapped around them both last night. It was adorable.] We went to lunch at Woodland's BBQ on Friday and it was pretty good! Jacob enjoyed his first BBQ and ate almost a whole hotdog too! We did some other shopping on Friday, but mainly tried to just get Jacob adjusted. We also went to the indoor pool at the condo on Friday and Jacob really enjoyed that too. We have an inflatable whale infant float that we bought before he was even born, and we finally got a chance to use it! Oh my, he loved it. Jeff took him out at one point, and he wanted to get back in!

On Saturday morning, we took a chance and left early before Jacob's morning nap, hoping he'd sleep in the car. He did okay, but not great with that. We were headed to Linville Falls. It was very foggy on the Blue Ridge Parkway. At one point, it was difficult to even see the yellow double lines on the road!! We considered turning back, but pushed on through the fog. We made it to Linville Falls and tried out a LLBean Child Carrier borrowed from some friends. It worked well and we hiked about 1.5 miles round-trip to see the falls & take pictures. Jacob seemed to enjoy riding during our hike. I even carried him on the way back and it wasn't too bad. After leaving Linville Falls, we headed further south on the Blue Ridge Parkway to Little Switzerland, an adorable little town in the mountains. We had a delicious lunch at the Switzerland Cafe, where our waitress asked us if Jacob just love to smile all the time. If we learned anything this trip, it's that Jacob likes to eat in restaurants! He loves looking all around at the people! After lunch, we went by the Orchard at Altapass and had some ice cream while listening to a band play mountain music. This is one of those attractions you don't see in the guidebooks, but we stumbled across it and we have enjoyed visiting a few times now. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite apple season yet, but the store and the music are lots of fun. Saturday was one long day, and we
actually went back out to the Mast General Store again. It was a lot more crowded than the day before, and we picked up a few more things.

On Sunday, we headed over to Beech Mountain, which is the highest incorporated town east of the Mississippi River. Wow, those were some STEEP and WINDING roads to get up there. I'm pretty sure the brakes weren't really fond of coming down either.... Anyway, they were having a Mile High Kite Festival. They even had free kites for kids, so we made Jacob a kite that read "Jacob's First Kite" and included the date. Then, Jeff & I tried our darnedest to fly it! We had a nice time and took some great pictures of Jacob sitting in the grass! I'm going to get all the pictures posted in a few days. When we left the Kite Festival, we went on a 2 hour expedition looking for lunch without any luck at all. Everything was SUPER busy because it was a holiday weekend and the weather was beautiful. We ended up giving up and hitting the McDonald's drive through on our way back to the Condo. For the record, Jacob wasn't too fond of chicken nuggets, and I couldn't be happier about that.

On Monday, we started packing up and headed for home around Noon. We stopped again in Wilkesboro for lunch (at the same Applebee's, no less!) and got home around 4:30 p.m. We had a great time on Jacob's first vacation, even if it was a short one!