Nothing Stamping up! today. I vowed to keep this website strictly business, but after being gone for 11 days, I figured I’d better post something about my whereabouts! Not breaking tradition, my family was on vacation for the holiday week, to celebrate the 4th of July and our two sons’ birthdays on the 5th and 7th. We even threw an extra one into the mix by inviting my husband’s brother, whose wife LInda also celebrated her birthday with us on July 6th.
We spent the week in the Nantahala National Forest at Bear Paw, an authentic log cabin on a mountain in Hiawassee Dam, NC, located about 2.25 hours northeast of Atlanta, and a little less from the TN border. The road to the cabin was nine miles of twisting hairpin turns, and one wrong move, and you’d drop 80 feet down into someones driveway or perhaps on the roof over their living room! Yikes! We did enjoy the name of the road and town, because it made our drive more interesting noting the points of interest on the way to/from the cabin, by pointing out the DAM road, or the DAM school, or the DAM fire department, and even the DAM church. 
Seriously though, I anticipated the vacation would be quite relaxing, which is not typical of our family vacations. I figured without internet or even cell phones, what else could you do with your kids still around and in an area with state alcohol restrictions? I took three books, but only finished one. I spent a lot of time driving into the next town of Murphy, for groceries. Seriously, it was 26+ miles to get to McDonalds, and BONUS! A Walmart across the street too! Civilization at last! I can’t believe that one day, I drove 26 miles for sunscreen!
We spent four different days boating (and drinking once we put in a stress call to the brother in GA to bring the bloody maries with him) out on the lake, swimming and tubing, and climbing rocks and waterfalls. 
Tubing was great fun whether you were the passenger or on the raft, but with my husband driving, you spent most of the time flying off or expending all of your energy trying to stay on the raft. My arms are finally healed from lifting myself up on the tube and the paddling we did on the river.
We also hiked two of the days, up some good size mountains, and strenuous trails (I think we started uphill ascending, and returned the same way!) LOL. Here’s the view from half way up our 2nd hike.
The last day we rode the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad through a gorge and upwards along the Nantahala River to where we let off to begin our nine mile white water raft ride with our guide Matt.
The white water rafting was definitely the highlight of the trip, and our boat of characters chartered by Matt was having way more fun and much more interesting than any other rafts or passengers we saw. I was a little afraid of my youngest son being seated behind his parents as the farthest away in the back, but Matt reassured me that he’s a professional and he’s done this a million times. Oddly enough, the only one that fell out of the boat, was our guide Matt! 
Oh, besides our losing Matt, he lost his hat and prescription glasses. We managed to find and rescue his cap, but his glasses were nowhere to be found. Imagine that he needed to find someone to drive to Ashville almost 3 hours away, for a LensCrafters on a Sunday. 
Unfortunately, we realized we were in trouble with his impaired navigating when he asked us to steer clear of the yellow tree, which was in fact a very large man in a yellow shirt on the embankment. It was interesting to say the least, since he was supposed to point out the rocks that we were to avoid on the trip down! lol Here’s a picture of us on the class 3 I think.
All in all, the drive home seemed to be twice as long coming home vs getting there, with my youngest son fighting more often than not with his friend Paul who accompanied us, and our three anxious cow girl dogs in the back of the SUV pulling a small U-Haul full of gear, bikes and food. And yet the only thing lacking was my husband who conveniently flew out of Atlanta for a week trip to Detroit. Yeah, he’s no dummy.
I finally arrived home after a day of driving at 4am, emptied and returned the uhaul and then slept for a day and a half. It’s all a blur, but I think it was that long.
We all really love the state of NC, which is really huge, and offers so much in contrast with mountains, rivers and forests to the west, and last year’s vacation at Outer Banks with it’s bodysurfing waves. We really loved the sky at night in the mountains, which was amazing and brilliantly lit and full of fireflies.
