On our way to Virginia, we intended to camp somewhere in Kentucky, but when we got to the place Tony had scoped out, we heard metaphorical banjos. As anyone who has seen Deliverance knows, that doesn’t end well. I knew I wouldn’t sleep so we went continued on a quest for a new place and came upon Natural Tunnel State Park in Virginia. The camp spots were fabulous, with new bathrooms, and easily accessible hiking. We rolled in at twilight, set up, had some dinner, and called it a night. We woke up in the morning and hiked down to this natural wonder.
Of course there was a trail to the bottom!
After a quick tour we made our way back up (of course by foot, we don’t cheat) just in time to watch a train go through the tunnel!
On our way to camp Bee decided she hadn’t had enough exercise and started dragging a log twice her size back to the tent.
We closed up the tent and drove to Blacksburg, Virginia, where we found our friends that were kind enough to take us in for Thanksgiving. We had some quality time cooking, drinking, hanging with the cats, watching football, going to ballet rehearsals, and hiking! We also got to see the Dirty Dancing resort…sigh!!! Tony also spur of the moment signed up for the Turkey Trot and joined our friend for a nice Thanksgiving day run!
With bellies full, limbs thawed, and some quality time in with our lovely friends and their pets, we migrated just south of Charlotte in South Carolina to get some much needed time with my cousin and her husband. We hiked Crowders Mountain, were completely lazy, played music, had a fantastic meal in downtown Charlotte, hung out their cool friends, and learned about trees.
We took a quick hiatus from them to camp in Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest which is absolutely stunning. It’s in North Carolina on the border of Tennessee and has the most incredible trees. Thanks to the cold weather, we were the only ones in the camp and got to pick the best spot in the place, right on the river. Then we drove through the Smoky Mountains and made our way back to warm up. Oh! And on our way we managed to get a dog back to its family. I froze my butt off for 40 minutes trying to convince it to hang out with me and take photos of the tags so we could get the phone number. After tons of Bee’s kibble, success!
We headed back to South Carolina and got in some more lazy time, played board games, crashed a company Christmas party, ate lobster, watched White Christmas, and more music…obviously.
We were chased out of the Charlotte area by a rare snow storm, and shocked folks as we made our way southeast with our Colorado plates and truck covered in snow. “Who are you and where’d you bring that white stuff from?!?”
"Purposefully Unrushed" 