SemiAntics

We visited Raven Rock State Park on June 20th.

The park is about an hour south of Raleigh near Lillington, NC. The June trip was our second attempt at a visit. Nathaniel and I had tried to get there in May. We made it to the upper end of the park, which only has bridle trails. There weren’t any signs directing us to the other end of the park, and unfortunately, we hadn’t printed enough maps from google to get us to the other side of the park.  We tried to hike the bridle trails, but they were too muddy. After giving up on the bridle trails, we stopped at the local gas station hoping to find a map and get directions. The clerk swore that Raven Rock only had bridle trails, and the station didn’t sell maps. We also stopped at a nearby house to ask for directions. The local also swore that Raven Rock only had bridle trails and that the entrance down the road was the only one. We went home defeated.

On our second attempt we were well-prepared. We made it to the southern side of the park without any problems. The Southern-side trails were all people-trails and weren’t muddy at all. We spent about 3-4 hours hiking the different trails with our nephew, Avery, and our friend, Nicole. First we hiked down the trail to see Raven Rock. It is a nice rock, but not all that impressive if you are from the mountains. I guess it’s an unusual geographical feature in central NC. The highlight of our hikings was definitely the Cape Fear river. There is a trail that takes you right down to the river bank. We had a lot of fun hoping around on the rocks in the river and watching the water roll by. The water seemed a little dirty, so I’m not sure how great it would be for wading/fishing. We didn’t do either. I did stick my feet in though.

You can see pictures of our trip at picasa.

Highlights:

1. The Cape Fear River- The river was very big and scenic, and it was fun to jump around on the rocks or to just sit and watch the water (and others jumping around on the rocks.)
2. Raven Rock-The rock was nice and pretty…a good place for photos.
3. The bathrooms-State park bathrooms are notoriously nasty, but not these! They were very clean.

Lowlights:

1. Boy Scouts- We happened to be visiting the park at the same time as a noisy horde of boy scouts. They were noisy, whiny, and overall pretty obnoxious. We tried to get either ahead of them or behind them on the trail, but we always seemed to be catching up with each other.  We did get a good laugh at the one scout running around with a battery-powered fan blowing in his face the whole time. Maybe he was so hot because he was hauling around an extra five pounds of batteries to support the fan.
2. Trash- In addition to the usual plastic bottles and coke cans, we found some old, nasty fishing bait sitting in plastic containers on the river bank. It was really rank .

We recently took a quick trip to the wild wooly mountains of western North Carolina.  We took some photos, and we also want to highlight the highlights of our trips in case anyone else wants to duplicate our efforts. First, the photos are located at picasa at this location. Now that we’ve got that over, let’s have a little bitty summary of what we did!

The trip out is long. It’s about 4.5 hours from Raleigh, but it’s nice straight I-40 the whole way, so it’s easy not to get lost (if you have a propensity for such things.)  On the down side, it’s easy to get a crick in your neck if you don’t occasionally look around since it’s mostly straight driving. You can also stop by the JR stores in Burlington if you want to get the best, lowest, craziest prices around (on things like cigars.)  Otherwise, the trip should be uneventful, until you joyfully reach the mountainous places and realize that there really are mountains in N.C.!

After arriving at the Guesthouse International, we went out for dinner to La Paz, a restaurant in the historic Biltmore district (which happens to be in walking distance from our hotel.)

On Saturday we got an early start and went out on the Blue Ridge Parkway to the northeast. We went to Craggy Gardens, and sort of got rained out. We returned to Asheville in the early afternoon. Later we went to eat at the Laughing Seed Cafe in the downtown district. Afterwords we went back to the Biltmore district for ice cream.

On Sunday we went back out the parkway and climed up to the top of Craggy Pinnacle, this time without the rain. Later we went on up the parkway and ate at the Mount Mitchell Restaurant. Finally, we worked our way back around to I-40 and headed back home.

Now for the highlights and lowlights:

Highlights

1. La Paz Restaurant
   This was a really nice Mexican restaurant with very good food, fast service and friendly staff. It’s more than just your normal Mexican food; they have nice veggie options and also excellent “other” options.
2. Biltmore District
   A small shopping district; it’s nice to just walk around a relax. It’s not hard to find parking, and it’s not paid parking. It’s fairly quiet.
3. Blue Ridge Parkway
   The roads were under construction, so it was a little bumpier than usual, but all in all it was nice. It was a bit cloudy while we were out there, but you can’t predict the weather in the mountains.

Lowlights

1. Mount Mitchell Restaurant
   “Fine Dining” at its very worst. Please, PLEASE don’t waste your time or money. Poor service, horrible food, and high prices. I guess you could say we should have known.
2. Laughing Seed Cafe
   Decent food, but we felt it was over hyped and expensive (more than was justified by the food). There are probably other, better vegetarian options in Asheville (at least we hope so!)
3. Asheville
   Aside from the downtown and historic districts the town seems a bit trashy and not very nice. Yes, the mountains give it a certain charm, but the city needs to take more steps to make things more attractive. I think Raleigh probably is nicer overall, and that’s not really saying a lot.