Black Mountain, North Carolina

We love our kids, but every now and then, it's nice to get away without them.  Thanks to Peepaw and Briena, we just returned from a kid-free weekend in the mountains of North Carolina.  We hiked, we ate at nice restaurants, and we simply enjoyed time together (where we could actually talk to one another without having to yell over the constant din of our house).  It was glorious. 

The highlight of the trip was the beautiful waterfalls that we saw.  

Oh and we were also almost eaten alive by two black bears.  Not really (I think...I hope).  The first instance, we had stopped at a crossroads to consider which path to take next.  There was a more narrow path and a wide one.  Weren't we obligated both by Scripture and poetry to take the more narrow, least traveled path?  Having only resolved to take the narrow path mere moments before, I suddenly saw a black bear make it's way onto the path.  From the look on the bear's face, she was just as surprised to see us as we were to see her, and she skittered away through the forest just as quickly as she appeared.  Nevertheless, we edited our earlier philosophical musings as follows:  "Always take the narrow, least traveled path...unless of course there is a bear on it, in which case you always take the other path."  Having survived this brush with death, we soldiered on with our hike, albeit at a bit faster clip and with a few sidelong glances to the trail behind us to ensure we were not being followed.  The second instance came some time later, after we had climbed to the pinnacle of the mountain, scrabbled back down the mountainside to the gently sloping path and were in fact in the final stretch of our 5 mile hike.  Tony, who was a few feet in front of me, all of a sudden slowed his pace and made noises as if he were trying to stop a horse.  I peeked over his shoulder to see what the commotion was about and saw that we had nearly rear ended another much larger bear foraging just a few feet from the path.  I don't know much about bears, but I'm certain they don't like being startled from behind.  So we practically sprinted back up the path to give this big fellow a little room to breathe (and hopefully to move on from the path).  Thankfully a dog further down the path noticed him too and scared him away with his barking.  I wish I had pictures to go with the story, but, well, taking pictures was the last thing on my mind at the time. 

Here we are on top of the world:

We can't wait to take another trip here - maybe next time with some bear spray just to be on the safe side!