Chimney Rock State Park

Candler, NC  (high 76, low 54)

We had planned on spending the day at Chimney Rock State Park, but it was pretty cloudy this morning and it was supposed to stay that way.  We knew this place needed a bright sunny sky to really see it at it’s best.

However, since we didn’t have a plan “B” we decided to head that way anyway.  We’re glad we did because it turned into a beautiful sunny day.

We arrived at the park and immediately had to drive on a very curvy road, straight up the mountain!   Go figure.

I wondered what would happen if someone met us going the other way in some of the narrower spots.

We parked right below the giant rock mountain.  Looking up from the parking lot, this is what we saw.

  The same shot, zoomed in.

There was a gift shop with some memorabilia from the movie,  The Last of the Mohicans.  It was filmed at Chimney Rock.  Here is Al beside the costume that Daniel Day Lewis wore in the movie.

 

There are two ways to get up to the top of Chimney Rock.

The hard way:

On this trail you could stop off at Chimney Rock, or go up another few hundred feed to about a 2400 foot elevation.   Do you want to see the view from 2400 feet?   So do I!   Take some pictures next time you get up there, because I pooped out about half way there.  

The views we saw were spectacular though.

We decided to go back down and go back up to Chimney Rock the easy way:

That’s not a great picture, but that’s an elevator, that goes up 26 floors!

We got to the elevator through a tunnel that was carved through rock that was 509 millions years old, which is about 300 million years before the dinosaurs.

 

2280 feet.

 

After we left, we drove on through town, and by  all the little touristy shops.  There was a pretty picnic area by the river.

By this time, we were hungry and decided to blow our vegan diet.  We stopped at a nice little waterfront restaurant along Lake Lure.  Al had a burger and I had a barbeque pork sandwich.  North Carolina is famous for it’s barbeque, but this place wasn’t.  The view was beautiful, but the food was just average.  It didn’t leave us craving more…unless I can find some good eastern style North Carolina barbeque.   They had black bean burgers and we both agreed afterwards we should have had that instead.

This was our view for lunch.

We stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and then came home to check on Chatty.  We had him locked in the bedroom, away from the “bad” kitty litter that he isn’t supposed to be using yet.  Today, unlike yesterday, he was still locked in the bedroom and didn’t get into any trouble.    We have a few more days until the sutures can be removed….and we can’t wait!

We don’t have any definite plans yet for tomorrow.  There is so  much to do, you could easily spend months here.  We are not in any hurry to go back to Florida.