Land of Waterfalls

While we were on vacation last week we discovered we were pretty much in the middle of what is called the "Land of Waterfalls." This area was so pretty and it was so nice to get out of the humidity.

The only complaint was the rain. But you can't do anything about that. We were in the midst of daily downpours - as was much of the East Coast.

We still managed to make the most of it and see what we could of the area, and the waterfalls. Joe really wanted to take the kids to Sliding Rock (and we discovered later there are 2 Sliding Rock Falls) and let the kids slide down the rock waterfall into the swimming hole, but that never happened. Because of all the rain, including the very wet June, the falls had much more volume of water than usual.

Our first falls was on our return trip from the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. We stopped at Dry Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

Dry Falls was our favorite because we could walk all the way behind it. The kids had fun hiding in a little cave behind the falls and then running out and down along the path.







As I mentioned, we had lots of rain. We went to Pisgah National Forest so we could do something inside at the Pisgah Center for Wildlife Education and the Cradle of Forestry (the kids loved the scavenger hunt here. They wanted to do another one but we didn't have enough time). Each of those places also had outside walking trails. We were fortunate that the rain was off and on and we were able to explore outside as well. Sometimes with it sprinkling and then going inside for the harder rains.

There were also a number of waterfalls in this area. We were able to see 3 of them; although the last one we should have just skipped!

This one is Looking Glass Falls - rain cleared enough to enjoy going to see this one.


Then we made it to the other Sliding Rock Falls (open to viewing but closed to sliding due to high waters).


Couldn't get in the water, but checking to see how cold it was.




And our last falls of the day turned out to be an adventure - Moore Cove. The other falls were pretty much right off the road. You just parked your car and walked down some steps to the viewing area. To get to this one you have to hike through the forest - a little less than a mile one way.

See our family picture in the falls above? That was right before we left to go find this one. As we were leaving it started sprinkling. When we parked for this one it was still sprinkling, but we decided to take our chances thinking this would be a quick walk to the falls. It wasn't. I don't know how long it took us to reach the falls, but it seemed forever ... because the sprinkles turned in to some pretty heavy rain. And it was of course muddy. And we only had 1 umbrella. Lucas tried to stay under the umbrella with Kayla and me, but it's kind of hard to walk 3 abreast like that so he gave up and walked with Joe. Their shirts were soaked by the time we made it out of there.

We can look at this picture and laugh about the adventure we had going to see this falls. When we finally reached it (after debating throughout our walk whether to continue going or turn around) I joked that it was not worth the hike. Although in nicer weather I'm sure it would have been worth it!



























To cap off our night - once we got out of Pisgah we were still about an hour away from where we staying and it was already after 6pm. Do we drive back an hour and try to eat dinner later, or find a restaurant in the closest town and eat first ... while sitting in wet clothes. Thankfully I had zipper sweatshirts for the kids, so they changed in to those, but Joe didn't have a shirt to change in to and half of my shirt was soaked. We still opted for the early dinner.

And if we didn't already have our fill of water and being wet ... I totally knocked over Kayla's cup of ice water right into my lap. It was a 4th of July we won't soon forget!

The next day finally brought us some clear sky and even a bit of sunshine. We visited our last falls - Whitewater Falls - the highest falls in the east.