Our Mountain Adventure

Almost two weeks ago Brett had the day off from work. You've gotta love national holidays and that banks nicely observe every single one. This time I wasn't jealous of his day off because I was able to take a vacation day too. We decided to "get away" for the day and travel somewhere. After several conversations... we chose to go up to the mountains. One really nice thing about living in central NC is that you are 2.5 hours from the mountains and 3 hours from the beach. It makes a somewhat easy day trip to either one.

So what was our plan? Jump in the convertible and drive west and stop anywhere that we wanted to. (I'm such a planner that this really gives me an adrenaline rush just to think about it. You may think I am kidding about this, but I'm not.) It's been a long time since we had taken a trip like this so we were both excited.

We decided to drive quite farther north in NC and then travel south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Before we were too far into the mountains we saw a small green and white sign for RagApple Lassie Vineyards. We had about 5 seconds to decide if we were going to exit the highway. "Yes! Let's go!" We had seen advertisements for this vineyard in quite a few places and they have won many awards. How did they get the name, you may be wondering... Years ago, there was a man that had a prize winning cow. When he entered her into competitions, he decided to name her RagApple Lassie. She was his pride and joy, and during her life, the family won many awards. When the family decided that they would like to invest in a new avenue (winemaking) the man knew just what he wanted his label to be, so he named it after his amazing cow, hoping that the name would help the family win many awards for their wine. They have been extremely successful in this recent venture!
Onward and upward into the mountains! A little while later we stopped in Blowing Rock for lunch and enjoyed walking around in the adorable shops in the historic district. Before we left Blowing Rock, we stopped in a chocolate shop to get a treat for the road. Chocolate covered rice crispy treat for me and chocolate covered marshmallows for Brett. Then we hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway.... temp 74 degrees and perfectly sunny.

A view from up high. We were just starting to get to where you could see the colors of the trees. The forecast said that the peak of the colors wouldn't happen for another month, so we didn't know what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised that the leaves had changes so much.

At this point we were both a little bummed because our camera batteries died, and unfortunately the extra batteries didn't want to work either. I kept trying every possible combination of the four... and then BINGO! The camera started working again (I really have no idea how) and just as we were getting to the place with the most beautiful views and trees.

We were amazed at how much the trees had turned considering the weather really hadn't been that cold during the day or night. It turned out to be perfect! Even though I had convinced myself that I would be o.k. without a picture of us together... I was thrilled that we were able take these pictures!

You can see the Blue Ridge Parkway winding through the trees. (above)

Our final stop of the day, overlooking Grandfather Mountain.

We drove with the top down until we were shivering on the way home... it started to get pretty cold as the sun was going down, but we wanted to take it in as much as possible. Then we stopped at Chick-fil-a to try their new spicy chicken sandwich when we were part of the way back. That just about made me want to put the top down on the car again. Whoa! That's spicy!