Our next stop was in Brevard, NC. We are meeting a friend of Christine’s, Lisa, who she’s never met in person. She has only communicated via Zoom or by telephone, but they have a very meaningful friendship that is important to both of them. After our Christyland adventure, we retraced our steps back to Asheville, and then on to Brevard, a comparatively short drive, less than an hour. We got checked into our hotel and then Lisa came to pick us up.
Lisa is a lovely, sweet woman who has quite the southern drawl. Whenever she telephones and I answer, I get a huge chuckle hearing her voice. Christine and Lisa were so happy to finally meet in person. Lisa took us to dinner at a very nice place and we talked, and talked over a yummy dinner.
Saturday, Lisa and her daughter Abby picked us up and our first stop was just a couple of miles up the road from our hotel. All around the area is the Pisgah National Forest and the area has lots of waterfalls, such that the Transylvania County logo is Land of Waterfalls.
The first waterfall we visited was Looking Glass waterfall. It was right along one of the roads through the forest, so it was easy to visit. There were steps down to the creek so one can get an up close look at the 60 feet high waterfall.
After viewing the falls, we drove into the town of Brevard for lunch. Brevard is a city of about 8,000 and because it is surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest, it is a landing place for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts. It is a touristy place, but charming.
After lunch, we went to Lisa’s house to drop off Abby and pick up Lisa’s son James. James is starting a career in software development after having graduated college so Lisa wanted James to talk with Christine about her career.
Our afternoon adventure was a hike to 2 other waterfalls. Dupont Forest is another hiker’s dream location and is very popular. Being a sunny Saturday, there were lots of people hiking the waterfalls trail that we were on. After checking the park map, we set off for Triple Falls and High Falls. The hike was uphill most of the way and Christine was worried about the return trip heading downhill. She didn’t have on very good hiking shoes, but we said we’d help her down the trail.
The overlook to the falls was beautiful and before heading uphill, we went out onto some rocks in the creek. It was all very picturesque and the weather was just perfect.
We hiked up to High Falls and had a nice view of those falls.
After viewing High Falls we had a big discussion about whether to hike back down the hill or find another way back to the parking area. The signage on the trails was not very good, and we only had a photo of a map, which also was not very helpful. What we decided was to keep going uphill and find a different parking area. James volunteered to run (literally; he’s big into running) back to the car and drive to the parking area we were heading to. That all worked out, with the help of a couple who saw us pondering which trail to take and showed us on their map where we needed to go. And, James arrived with the car almost at the same time we arrived. Christine didn’t have to slide down any trails and we all were happy to have made a good decision.
We then toured around Brevard a little. One of the things that Lisa wanted to show us was a white squirrel. I guess there are a lot of white squirrels in the area. These white squirrels are a variant of grey squirrels, and they are really striking when you see one.
After our tour around we met up with Lisa’s husband Aaron and daughter Lisa at a Thai restaurant for dinner. Lisa’s family is really lovely and we enjoyed spending time with them.
On Sunday, our activity was to go to a forest service museum. We had heard about the start of the forest service on our tour of Asheville. When George Vanderbilt was raising the money to build the Biltmore Estate, he sold a great deal of his 125,000 acres to logging companies. What the loggers did was clearcut, to the point of destroying the land and damage the streams and rivers during movement of the logs. Vanderbilt hired a German forester, Carl Schenck, to protect the forests and the Biltmore Forest was the first managed forest, and from there, Carl Schenck started the Biltmore Forest School which offered the first degree in forestry.
The museum is called Cradle of Forestry in America. There was a really interesting moving about Carl Schenck and an exhibition about his work.
There was also a nice exhibit about forestry and the activities foresters do to manage forests.
There was a trail through the forest around the museum property that leads you to various recreated buildings from the Biltmore Forest School.
It was a really interesting afternoon at the Cradle of Forestry museum. The US Forest Service is such an important agency keeping watch over the millions of acres of national forests in this country. You don’t really realize just how significant national forests are and the importance of the men and women serving to protect our valuable forests.
After the museum, Lisa took us to a wonderful Japanese restaurant where we had a delicious meal. It was kind of bittersweet, because our time together with Lisa was coming to an end for this trip. Lisa was such a gracious tour guide and we had a wonderful time getting to know her and her lovely family. We hope that Lisa will come north and visit us sometime next year.
So our time in Brevard came to a close. The plan now is to leave on Monday morning, November 6, and drive to Augusta, GA, then on Tuesday, drive to Lake City, FL, and then arrive at Deeny’s on Wednesday afternoon. By then, we will have been on the road 2 weeks and it will be nice to be in one place for 10 days.