Friday June 11th – We headed out on a Friday mid morning June 11th. The pack out for the trip was fairly uneventful. Before we left we made the bed and filled the fridge and the water tank in Boonie for the trip.
We stopped to get gas along the way. We tried to stop at Starbucks off the highway in Morganton, NC, but unfortunately it was closed so we ate lunch (sandwiches and chips) in the parking lot. While we were eating a young lady pulled up and wanted see our camper. She said her sister was interested in the exact one we had. So, we gave her a full tour along with her father. We parted ways and continued toward the campground.
We took the route along Lakeshore Rd by Lake Tahoma on Hwy 80, which was very twisty for 10 plus miles. It was slow going and we had to really watch for oncoming traffic in our lane. We made it to the campground just fine. Note that dump station on site was across the bridge and in a very odd secluded location but once we were told where to look, it was fairly easy to find. We definitely did not see it upon entry into the campground as its not marked well.
The campground staff was very knowledgeable of the area and very friendly and had several suggestions for nearby trails. The campground had nice facilities with bathrooms and showers along with several marked hiking trails and an amphitheater. There was a large inner field for sports. The staff did mention an issue with bear coming up for food and to make sure and keep our camp clean.
We set up the camper and the canopy over the picnic table as well as our eyelash awning. It’s good thing we did because boy did it rain a lot on this trip. The weather was warm, a little humid, but the rain forced us to relax a little more than we normally would.
We walked around the first afternoon to check out the campground and the amphitheater and a few of the trailheads. We made an easy dinner and played a few fun games of Jenga. I got to try my new hammock chair out, the Nemo Stargazer. I love it.
Saturday June 12th – Today was Tom’s birthday so we already knew we were heading over to Asheville to hang out for the day. After french toast and bacon for breakfast, we headed over to Asheville, in the Taco, by way of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a very beautiful and foggy drive.
Asheville: Our first stop, was French Broad Chocolates Factory Tour. We learned a few things about chocolate. One being you can eat the hull/shell which FBC makes into Cocoa Nibs and uses in their brownies and how you can use all parts of the cocoa bean and nothing gets wasted. They gave Tom a complimentary truffle/bon bon for his birthday. Then we went on to downtown Asheville and had dessert at the FBC Lounge. I had the sampler with tea and Tom had a brownie. I also bought a 12-piece custom bon bon box. We then walked around the blocks nearby because there was a craft fair there. We went on to Red Ginger for an early dinner around 4:30. We ordered their amazing green beans (we’ve had these before), dumplings and sushi. This place never disappoints. We walked around some of the newer areas and The Grove Arcade. We tried to get ice cream but that just didn’t work out so we headed back to the truck in the rain.
We drove back to camp, the short way through black mountain and around the blue ridge mountains. Once we arrived back at camp we hung out in our camp chairs, ate smores and then headed into the camper and watched the movie Artemis Fowl on Tiffany’s cell phone. We both really enjoyed the movie.
Sunday the 13th – We had breakfast and then hiked over to the nearby waterfall Setrock Creek Falls (75 ft tall). The hike to the waterfall wasn’t very hard. Once we got to the base of the waterfall and walked around for a short while, we decided to hike up the side of the hill to see if we could make it to the top of the waterfall. That hike was pretty extreme in our opinion. There were times when we were having to use branches to get up to the next level. Once we made it to the top, it was beautiful and worth the tough hike. There were so many crayfish “crawdads” in the creek there. It reminded Tiffany of being a kid again at the creek in front of their family cabin, hunting for crawdads.
We went back and had lunch, relaxed a little and then headed out on the River Loop Trail. We hiked along S. Toe River and crossed the bridge, then headed further East until the trail ended. We walked back most of the way on the gravel road in the pouring rain. Tiffany was none too happy.
We made fresh rolls (summer rolls) for dinner. We took showers and Tiffany used a generator to run the hairdryer. Using a hair dryer at camp was quite the luxury. That evening we hung out and relaxed. We did take a few minutes to put some of our camp away because it was mostly dry. So glad we did, because it rained that night and everything was wet the next morning.
Monday June 14th – We had a quick simple breakfast of fried egg, bacon and grits. We broke camp, headed over to the dump station and got on our way. We stopped at a rest area and had lunch and headed back to the house. We unpacked over the next hour or so.
Overall, this was a really good trip. We would stay at Black Mountain Campground again.