North Carolina - July 2016 - Day 4 & 5

July 3, 2016 (Sunday)

Whiteside Mountain View

Another early morning – this time we went to Whiteside Mountain to take a hike.  The hike was quite nice and offered great views. We opted to start the hike going up the stairs, which turned out to be the right choice. The return trip was a nice downward slope. When we arrived the parking lot was quite full, but when we left there were National Forest Staff turning people away. There is a $2 fee, or you can display the National Park pass.

Whitewater Falls

Next we were off to a waterfall – Whitewater Falls. The waterfall is 411 feet high, making it the tallest in the eastern part of the US. There was plenty of parking available.  There is a $2 fee, or you can display the National Park pass. The falls were a short walk from the parking lot.

Mice on Main

Falls Park on the Reedy

After leaving the waterfall, we headed to Greenville, SC to meet up with our SC friends!  We met at the Falls Park on the Reedy. After walking around the gardens and falls we headed to Main Street.  The city has a cute installment called “Mice on Main” (located between the Westin Poinsettia Hotel and Hyatt Regency).  We found five of the nine mice that are hidden about (we did not walk all the way to the end, if we had we probably would have found all of the mice). Per recommendation, we had dinner at Tupelo Honey. Dinner service was slow. We arrived at 4:15 and did not get out of there until 5:45. They messed up two of the orders, but they did remove one of the two from the bill.

After dinner we headed back to Sapphire for the night.

July 4, 2016 (Monday)

Glen Falls

We headed out early for our last day of vacation – destinations near Highlands. Our first stop was Glen Falls. There are three different viewing levels, each with an 80 foot falls. The trail is 1.4 miles one way; the first falls is about 15 minutes into the hike. The trail was moderate. The parking area was not overly full during our visit.

Nearby we visited Bridal Veil Falls. These falls were 150 feet tall, but overall the falls were not very impressive during our visit.

Just down the road from Bridal Veil Falls is Dry Falls. Dry Falls was quite pretty and definitely worth a visit. There is a large parking area.

Heading back towards Sapphire, we searched for the Hurricane Falls. We were not able to find the spot along the road to view the falls, but were able to find the approximate location of the fall.  The road was recently reconstructed – possibly the pull off area was eliminated.

Before our last stop for the trip, we went to check out Toxaway Falls.  You must park to see the falls. We drove by and determined even if we did stop the view would be less than stellar.

Dry Falls

Rainbow Falls

Our last stop for the trip – Gorges State Park. There was no fee for entering the park. The visitor center was very nice – lots of interesting displays. We hiked to Rainbow Falls (150 feet tall) – the parking area was a little crazy but the trail was not overly packed.  The trail is considered strenuous and is 3 miles round trip (lots of ups and downs).  Many people opt to swim around the falls area.  Just past Rainbow Falls is Turtleback Falls. Turtleback falls is a great natural waterslide and very popular! Rainbow Falls is 125-feet high and is known as one of the most beautiful falls in North Carolina.

Turtleback Falls

We stopped in Knoxville for dinner. We selected Stock & Barrel, which was ranked #3 of restaurants in Knoxville.  There was a parking deck right around the corner from the restaurant. Burgers and Bourbon are their name to fame. The burger and bourbon choices are very numerous. We ordered the fried pickles, the steakhouse burger and the Elvis burger. The Elvis burger is what you expect - Peanut Butter, Fried Bananas and Bacon.

North Carolina - July 2016 - Day 3

July 2, 2016 (Saturday)

Goat at Carl Sandburg National Historical Site

The day started with a stop by the Carl Sandburg National Historical Site.  The site is a bit of a hike from the parking lot.  Carl Sandburg was most famous for his writings about Abraham Lincoln and poetry. Sandburg won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his Lincoln writings.  The home, known as Connemara, is currently in the middle of major renovations, but home tours were available for $5. There are also two videos available – we watched both, but honestly they were not really that great. The fun part of the site are the dairy goats! Carl’s wife Lilian was quite famous for her prize-winning goats. We spent about two hours at the site.

Cowpens National Battlefield

Next stop was the Cowpens National Battlefield.  There were a lot of extra activities going on due to the 4^th of July holiday. There were weapons firing demonstrations, ranger-guided battlefield walks, and the reading of the Declaration of Independence. At the visitor center, we watched the fiber optic presentation (shown on demand). The other video available is played on the hour and it did not really work well with our timing.  After the video, we hiking the American Revolution War Battlefield.

We stopped at Strawberry Hill for some tasty homemade ice cream – I tried the strawberry and peach flavors. Yum! The portions are quite large.

Biltmore Estate

Biltmore Estate

We  were lucky to nab the last tour (4:30) of the day at Biltmore Estate. We arrive around 3:30 so we could check out some of the gardens before our tour.  The place is very pretty! Biltmore Estate was completed in 1895 and was a family home built for George W. Vanderbilt.  The home took six years to build – the footings are 26 feet deep!  The estate is the largest privately owned house in the US – 178,926 square feet of floor space! The estate property is very large – 8000 acres! The estate was opened to the public in 1930 in response to requests to increase tourism during the Depression and to generate income to preserve the massive estate. The tours are self-guided – you are given a booklet when you get your tickets that has a descriptions of the rooms, or for $11 you can rent a hand held unit that tells you about the rooms. We just followed along with the guide book.  Photography is not allowed in the home – but a ton of people were snapping away without being scolded. Being the rule follower that I am I did not take photos. It took us about an hour to make it thru the home. Often there are special displays – during our visit it was “Fashionable Romance – Wedding Gowns in Film”. After the tour, we headed back out to check out the gardens some more – Mike really wanted to go to the pond. We spent about three hours at the Biltmore Estate.

North Carolina - July 2016 - Day 1 & 2

June 30, 2016 (Thursday)

Hooray – another vacay! This trip took us to Sapphire, NC.  The area has a bunch of waterfalls and beautiful gorges. We left after work and made it to Richmond, KY. We stayed at the Best Western (using a $50 off award we had received from the out west trip). The hotel was nice – great breakfast spread!

July 1, 2016 (Friday)

Cumberland Gap NHP - hiking

After a quick breakfast, we were back on the road. We attempted to join the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Hensley Settlement Tour (represents 20^th century Appalachia).  We had called the previous day, but the tour was full and we got on standby. Needless to say, everyone showed up and we were not able to take the tour.  We could have taken the Gap Cave Tour, but we had done that during our last visit to the park so decided to skip it. The Cave tour is $8 ($4 with select passes) and lasts about 2 hours.  We did not recall the Settlement Tour being available during our last visit. The Settlement Tour is 3.5 to 4 hours long and is $10/adult ($5 with select passes).  We checked out the visitor center and watched one of the two videos that were showing. The staff at the front desk recommended some trails for us to hike – Object Lesson Road Trail to the Tri-State Trail. Once to the top of Tri-State Peak, you can stand in three states at once – Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia. We also drove up to the Pinnacle Overlook for some lovely views.

Great Smokey Mountains - Oconaluftee

Next stop – The Great Smoky Mountains!  On our previous trip we stayed on the TN side of the park, this time we checked out the NC side. The visitor center, Oconaluftee, was a new building since we last had visited the NC side back in 2008.  Besides just checking out the visitor center area, we also visited the Mingus Mill.

Mingo Falls

Just outside of the Smoky Mountains, there is a nice waterfall – Mingo Falls. It is a bit of a hike to the falls (lots of stairs). The parking area is a little small, but there seemed to be a steady flow of people leaving when we arrived.

Lastly, we headed to our Sapphire destination – Fairway Forest. The accommodations were okay – they could definitely use some updating.

We had dinner at Mica’s – which is rated as the best restaurant around. It was just okay, nothing too crazy with the menu.