At the start of the summer - mercifully before the worst of this year’s sweltering Seattle heat - my boyfriend and I took a weekend mini-cation up to Lake Crescent and stayed at the foot of Storm King. He took his bike up into the mountains one morning, and I impulse-boarded an hour-long boat tour to see this deep, glacial lake from angles I’d never been able to access before.
Viewing entries in
nature
I frequently and greatly underestimate other people’s willpower and desire to hike up the side of a mountain on a sweltering hot weekend morning…so my boyfriend & I arrived at the wildly popular Wallace State Falls at a time when parking was so scarce, it easily added nearly a mile to our hike (we thought of our parking journey as a pre-hike hike).
Below: some views from the trail.
My boyfriend's family have a long and storied connection to the small mountain town of Saluda, North Carolina. Every now and then - as we did this past October - we make a trip up there to see the mountain house, grab a bite at the Purple Onion, hike some trails, and take in the views. And oh, what dramatic and moody views those can be:
Saluda sits nestled between low mountains, their peaks and planes softened by lush foliage that lights up with incredible color in the fall. I believe my boyfriend thinks of Saluda as his wilderness retreat: a place where he and his dad ride motorcycles, hang out with foresters, and get unplugged for a little while. I think of it as my own artist-retreat-that-never-was -- as if, in another life on another timeline, I am a novelist who churns out her best work while sitting on a hardwood deck overlooking a Saluda gorge.
Though I got a moderate case of cabin fever to show for it, in theory Saluda & its environs are probably best experienced at a slow, flexible pace -- one that lets you befriend the woods and creeks around you.
To that end we took on the (easiest) 1400-step Chimney Rock trail, explored the paths up and down the family mountain, and made some time for late-night star photography.
One of my favorite places to linger and shoot photos is the area around the Saluda Grade & Main Street. The Grade is, as the historical plaque nearby likes to remind us, the "steepest standard-gauge mainline railway grade in the United States." It no longer operates, and now serves a second life (in my mind) as an excellent place to sit and enjoy the diffuse and warm late afternoon sunlight the town gets.
The recurring food theme of the trip was beets. I'm not sure why. Maybe they're easily locally sourced? I must've eaten my weight in (very photogenic) beets and kale over the course of the week.
And oh, the Blue Ridge Parkway.
A trip to the Carolinas is really not complete without taking advantage of the scenic overlooks that dot the length of this iconic highway.
On the last full day of our trip, we hopped down to Asheville to tour Biltmore House, the Vanderbilts' sprawling 19th century estate.
Apparently it is permanently Christmas there. Either that or the property managers thought early October would be a totally fine & sensical time to whip out the holiday decor. I'm not complaining - greenery and lights pair well with high ceilings and luxurious digs.
What I do take issue with, though, is how unfairly gorgeous the scenery behind the palatial house is. What am I supposed to do with the fact that obscene amounts of money allow people to hoard views like this? It's a good job the estate wound up open to the public, or you and I would live our lives never having the opportunity to see all this: