Vacations Part Three: Blowing Rock!

It's never easy to leave Norris Lake, but knowing that we were headed to Blowing Rock definitely helped! We are so lucky to have friends that let us crash with them in such a beautiful place!

Our first order of business, stretch our legs on a walk around the pond.





After our walk, and our traditional Blowing Rock dinner (Mellow Mushroom) we had some s'mores at the resort.



Carl made his famous pancakes in the morning. And some bacon too. A variety of different creatures seemed very enamored by the bacon.






Then as soon as we could get everyone dressed and fed it was off to Tweetsie Railroad. They took the mandatory covered wagon picture, however the wagon is starting to look mighty small!






These yahoos are clearing running from the mortal peril of the coming train. (Acting!)



In Maddy's mental plan of how her day would go, there was never any doubt what the first ride would be.....Tilt-A-Whirl! (I drew the short straw on this one.)





(Honestly, the Tilt-A-Whirl was also her 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 16th, 18th, 20th.... ride of the day, but luckily I quickly discovered that they didn't have to ride with an adult!)

Next was the Ferris Wheel.





It was a foggy day which was an interesting experience....one that I would say adds to the potential for motion sickness.



It wasn't too crowded so the short lines let us ride lots and lots of rides!





At some point, Audrey "Annie Oakley" Carroll took a break from rides to practice her marksmanship.



After lunch, we went up to the top of Tweetsie Mountain where we were terrified by some zombie children.



At the top of the mountain, there was one ride that we so popular with the kids, I thought they'd be on it until closing time. The must had ridden the "Tweetsie Twister" two dozen times. I don't know how they kept from vomiting!





Eventually, for the last dozen rides they decided to split up into there own cars. By the twentieth ride, Audrey achieved a certain kind of "zen" quality. It must have been due to her scrambled brain!



We finally dragged them away (grudgingly) to go up through the petting zoo. We bought cones of food, but those were short-lived amongst the aggressive emus! Poor Maddy was taken quite by surprise!



Bob and Maddy decided to include this taciturn llama in the cover art for their next rap album.



On the way back down the hill they did one last ride on the Freefall.



This year, for the first time the kids also did the scariest looking ride, the Round Up. We took bets amongst ourselves about whether it was a mistake to let them do it, but they got off and went right back on! They are definitely thrill seekers, all three of them!

We had another lovely dinner with Carl, Brooke and Ellie before we had to head home on Sunday. Audrey left Blowing Rock one tooth lighter than she arrived.

But luckily that didn't down her pickle eating in any way! (The Blue Colony Diner in Sandy Hook, Connecticut is old-school awesome!)



We had a great vacation. So sorry it's over. Getting back into regular life is going to be painful!