After staying up way too late last night watching the Royals clinch a spot in the World Series (#ForeverRoyal #TaketheCrown), we decided not to set an alarm this morning, but I woke up just at sunrise anyway and caught some pictures of the morning fog blanketing the valleys below.
After enjoying some coffee on the deck, we decided to leave for Dupont State Forest to try and beat the crowds. We arrived around 8:30am, and there were two other cars in the parking lot. I had a whole itinerary planned out for Dupont, and it started off with small, but pretty, Hooker Falls.
The water was clear and reflected the colors of the trees around it.
No one else was in the area, so we took our time playing around and exploring.
Afterward, we backtracked a bit to a bridge that would take us to Triple Falls,
On the way to Triple Falls, we maneuvered our way through the trees to get to the stony river, which was super peaceful. We climbed rocks and waded through shallow water.
Triple Falls came soon after, offering views of, as the name implies, three waterfalls flowing together.
We walked down to the base of one of them, since I always like to get as close as possible to waterfalls. The views weren’t as pretty down there, but it was very meditative just being next to them, listening to the water falling.
We made our way back up to the top and continued our hike up to High Falls. At one point the trail split, one way going to the base, and the other to the top. This time we decided to visit the base of the waterfall first. The view from the start was phenomenal, but we decided to climb over the slippery rocks to get closer, and there, it was perfect.
The waterfall was tall and wide and powerful, and I was able to get right up next to it and feel its spray on my face.
We spent quite a bit of time there, but then ventured on up to the trail to the top of it. Still beautiful, but not as impressive as up close.
Our next stop was the covered bridge over the river, but we didn’t spend much time there before moving on.
We hiked another .8 miles in the forest to get to Grassy Creek Falls, where we sat on a rock to eat a few snacks.
At this point, there were two more stops we had planned on making, but I had a headache and was ready for a full lunch, so we turned back.
On the way back to the car, we were amazed at how many people had shown up. When we had arrived, there were maybe a few other people there beside us, but now, we could barely walk at our own pace due to the vast numbers of people milling around.
When we finally got back to the parking lot, we were shocked to see that both parking lots were completely packed full and overflowing. Cars were parked along the main road for as long as we could see.
Long story short: If you are doing Dupont, especially on a weekend day, get there as early as you can!
We drove on to the town of Brevard after this, enjoying the scenery along the way. The trees seem to be getting even prettier the longer we stay here. We had lunch in a cute little restaurant called The Phoenix in Brevard, and then decided to explore the downtown area, stopping and buying some bread from the bakery, and shopping at a few little stores on the main street through downtown.
That evening we went back into Asheville, which was so lively on a Saturday night. We got a few more groceries at Trader Joe’s and then headed downtown where we had quite the time finding anywhere to park. We met up with another of Anthony’s cousins and his girlfriend for dinner at Mela, a nice Indian restaurant that was delicious. We ate until we were full, had a couple drinks, talked about travel and afterward, ventured on to the Chocolate Lounge where we met up with a few more people.
I seemed to have forgotten I had a camera with me, which was unfortunate seeing as we were surrounded by interesting people and sights while waiting to get inside, and the Chocolate Lounge itself was cute as can be.
They had a million different chocolate options, be it various ice cream floats, or cold drinks, or cakes, or brownies, or even liquid truffles which is what Anthony and I got to share. We had a small mug-shaped cup filled with salted caramel melted chocolate, and a tiny spoon to eat it with. The decor was charming, and it was obviously a popular place.
At this point it was 9pm, and I was exhausted after a long, busy day, so we ended our evening driving back to our house in the mountains.