Squirrels, Art, Waterfalls, and So Much More in Brevard, NC

I was flipping through our pictures from our most recent trip to this little North Carolina mountain town called Brevard. The trip was over Memorial Day this year but I have not managed to write two words about it yet. 

Seeing all the memories stuck on "pixel paper” I told myself: boy, we surely do pack a lot in a weekend! I think it’s safe to say that both of us are more towards the couch potato side of the spectrum when it comes to how active we are rather than the sprint-like, marathon runner type. However, if it’s accessible by foot (and car), we can manage it! 

We’ve never been to Brevard before, and let me tell you - that fact alone is a rarity for someone who’s lived in or around North Carolina as long as we have. Especially for two mountain lovers like us. One of our favorite bands (The Steep Canyon Rangers) has their roots here - for this reason alone we should have graced them with a visit way before this late. Well, better late than never, they say. 

We rented a small “cabin” (when you see the pictures you’ll know it’s a lot more like a super-modern, Japanese-style hut in the woods) outside of town but within just 15 minutes’ drive from downtown. We drove to Brevard for all the meals and wandered the streets and the many art studios. 

Like any mountain town, Brevard is put on the planet to force you to live your life at a different beat. Your heart rate slows down, you breathe deeper, you are forced to look around and not just see but understand what surrounds you. Everyone that’s been to Brevard will use words like “hippie”, “chic”, “arty”, “unique”, “original” to describe it. 

I’ll share some of the things we found and you’ll be the judge. 

Brevard, in a picture

There is a downtown area along Broad and Main Streets where the soul of the town seems to be: all the interesting shops, art galleries, boutiques, wine bars, bookstore, ice-cream store, etc strung together like a bead necklace. Being a holiday weekend, these establishments were thumping with folks! We tried to find a place to eat dinner our first night in town and we could not find a place that took reservations - everything was booked (and yes, apparently even in a “hippie” town you need reservations when everything is in such high demand!). We ended up in an Irish Pub off the main drag which was just fine, too. 

Above the entrance door of a downtown store - again: Brevard in one picture. (OK! Maybe two.)

In the first art gallery we walked in, one of the painters that provided some of the works was there that day - she lives in Florida but always comes up for the weekend to find inspiration to paint. This year, she said, she has a whole birds series where she paints stylized birds that could be any kind of bird in a rainbow of colors. She chuckled “I don’t want to be too specific about what kind they are and what color they can be. For obvious reasons.”  - she said with a wink. 

I’ll tell you, one of the things that intrigued me about Brevard was all the talk about “the white squirrels”. They have lots of “white squirrel this and that” (stores, streets, etc) in this town. I thought for sure we’d see at least one live white squirrel. But we didn’t see even one ... any kind of squirrel. Not any squirrels, in fact. Not in town. There were a couple around our cabin, brown and bushy-tailed. But no white ones and not in Brevard. As a matter of curiosity: the White Squirrel Shoppe offers “adult cocktails” while you shop. This speaks for the hippie  vibe of the town, I guess: I am used to “no drinks or food in the stores”. Not in Brevard, apparently. 

Outside the White Squirrel Shoppe

There is this store in town that is called “Mantiques” - it’s like “Antiques” but apparently for men only?! That intrigued me as much as it annoyed me, but it piqued my curiosity enough to go in. I kept wondering why did they need to skew their point of view so much towards men? Maybe as a matter of curiosity and to get people intrigued enough to step in?! As if women could not be interested in all-leather furniture, or rough wood dining room sets, or massive walnut china cabinets with antique mirrors. Or as if all men would be into killing things (stuffed wildlife alert at every corner in this store); or as if women would not drink beer and scotch (they had lots of funny signs with both floating around bar stools for sale). Because the store had a viewing room upstairs on the second store where they were projecting the first Top Gun movie that day, they gave free popcorn away to all the customers. Again: shop and eat! They surely know how to please a crowd around here. 

We also found this “other” area of the town called “The Lumberyard District”. It was in the heart of what looked like a neighborhood full of small, old homes mostly ranches made of wood.  Here, we had a delicious, locally farmed breakfast at Morning Social one day, and afterwards we perused the antiques and beautiful lumber pieces at The Underground Salvage Co. - a lumber, antiques, and reclaimed wood store in the district. Our next coffee table might just come from some of the wood my husband picked up in this store. 

The Brevard Lumberyard Event Hall in the Lumberyard District

Funky mural in the Lumberyard District

The vinyl corner at The Underground Salvage Co.

We loved the dinner on the second night at Marco’s - the trout and mashed potatoes was just the mountain comfort food that could hit the spot! The following morning, the bagels at Sully’s Steamers (steamed bagels never tasted this good!) were amazing! They make you feel like a pig even when you order a vegan bagel with all the fixins’. 

One of the most attractive qualities of Brevard is that it’s located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains which themselves offer an infinite amount of attractions. So, if you ever get cabin or “city” fever and want to escape - the roads are full of even more treasures ... 

You can chase waterfalls along the mountain roads, as there are many around these parts. We stumbled upon Connestee Falls, Looking Glass Falls (this was impressive but also by far the most crowded), and another smaller waterfall tucked away off of a graveled road about 20 miles long, off of which lots of people just camped in the woods. 

Looking Glass Waterfalls

A short trip to Asheville to the Sierra Nevada Brewery is only 20 miles away. The place looks brand new and offers an informational tour of the brewery (which can be guided or self-guided)  and is complete with one of the best and possibly largest tap bars I have ever seen. They also have a pretty large restaurant with a huge patio in the back - it’s a must-see for anyone who likes beer, food, mountains, and just to have a good time. 

The entrance of the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Asheville, NC

Corner of the fermentation room at the Sierra Nevada Brewery

The tap bar at the Sierra Nevada Brewery

There are many wineries around Brevard, too. Hopping wineries is one of our favorite things to do on lazy afternoons when we have no energy for much else. Sipping a glass of something new and listening to a band, or just looking at the mountains and taking in the vineyards and the roses popping with color is just food for the soul. We stopped at St. Paul Mountain Vineyards and Sawyer Spring Vineyards. They had a bluegrass band from Eastern Tennessee at the first one, and a special flight made of “red-white-and-blue” wines at the second one, since it was Memorial Weekend and all. They told us to “go on google and find out what plant they used to make their wine blue”. We tried, but we never found out the secret. It was kinda mean not to tell us, I guess, but I suppose it’s good to be a bit mysterious. It keeps calling you back. 

The red-white-and-blue wine flight at The Sawyer Springs Vineyards

On the way back home, we stopped for lunch at Burntshirt Vineyards right under Chimney Rock State Park - this is an old favorite of ours. Just like the Sierra Nevada Brewery - they have a beautiful restaurant and good looking tasting bar, too ... People here are so nice, too, that we always come back - it’s almost always on the way from anywhere in the Western mountains back to our house. 

The peach wine slushy at Burntshirt Vineyards

After lunch, we made the drive up to Chimney Park - a first again for both of us - although we’ve seen the park from the highway possibly hundreds of times. In order to climb all the way to the top of this rock, after you made it to the parking lot through the steep, winding mountain drive, you need to walk through a 198-foot tunnel carved in the rock of the mountain that leads to a 258-foot elevator shaft. After you take that elevator up, you have 40 wooden stairs to climb to the top of Chimney Rock. The view is an incredible 360 degree vista of the valley of the Eastern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I will have to say, we would do this backwards next time: go to the Chimney Rock to work up an appetite and then go down to Burntshirt Vineyards for lunch, instead of the other way around. 

I loved all the amazing things we saw on this trip for the first time, although a stone throw away from us. I also loved how these communities have a sense of timelessness around them - the beauty of nature, the willingness of people to share their land, food, and art with strangers proudly, the permanence of rock and water and forests - it anchors you. It gives you a place to start once you come back home full of renewed energy and willing to see the world with new eyes. 

There is this corner art store in Brevard called Number 7 Arts. Call me nuts, but to me, it brought back memories of Seinfeld, so you know I had to go in! It’s beautiful, clean, and roomy, with generous windows flooding the light in; it is filled with local art treasures. However, what stays with me is this: as we were walking in there, this kid, could have been probably 15 or 16, sporting a jazz hat on his frizzy head was walking out of the place with a couple of his friends and burst into song: “Good Golly, Ms. Molly!” - started snapping his fingers to the beat in his head and did a twirl in the middle of the sidewalk. It made me wonder for a minute what century we are in? And how can a 21st century kid know a 1950’s song so well?! And then I realized: this is what this trip felt like: from here and now into the beauty and newness and oldness of everything timeless. 

Climbing the final stairs towards the top of The Chimney Rock

Views from the top of The Chimney Rock. Click the picture to see the entire album from this trip.

Autumn Hikes

I love hiking in the fall, especially down here, in The South! I am not quite as bothered by snakes as I usually am in the summer, and the (still) warm temperatures make for a pleasant excursion - winter hikes can be chilly, even around these parts. 

I also like fall hikes because, for some reason, there are not many people out. I guess there are so many fall festivals, harvest gatherings, Oktoberfests that people are not much for solitude in the wild. It’s a quiet, peaceful time and you feel like you have the trails for yourself. You and just a couple of random loners like you, being walked by their dogs. 

Fall is the best time for pictures, too. The colors are popping, even when they are not 100% in full peak - like it happens to be the case right now in the area we live - in the middle of the Tarheel state. 

Leaves float in the air like butterflies: they catch my eye on their way downward and I turn with a startle trying to catch the creature only to figure out that it’s not a winged beauty afterall, but a dead, dry leaf. Pretty nonetheless. 

The air is dusty and crisp with dead-leaf smell. Bath and Body Works have this candle called something like “Leaves” and it’s no surprise that they thought about bringing that to the home. They smell like lumber, fire, warm, soft sweaters, and mulled wine all wrapped up into one another. They smell like what a cozy night in front of the fireplace feels like. 

The light is soft and it’s almost hard to focus the camera - it’s not the sharp air of the spring or that of a bright summer morning - it’s dimmed, like a wispy hair of a on woman; the lines of things are blurry and you feel the need to increase your contrast when you process the pictures to get some clarity. 

We picked a couple of spots to take in nature this time of the year during this past week, and they were very different but of course beautiful in their own right. 

The first one, Reservoir Park in Southern Pines, is a 2 mile loop around a lake, the trail flanked by tall Southern pines. Since the forest was mostly piny, the colors were not as bright as you’d expect in the fall but a few bright pops were peeking from here and there. It’s almost a completely flat trail - wide, groomed, sandy in parts, very comfortable. The trail makes it for a nice walk where you could just get lost in taking it easy and taking everything in - the lake, clear and calm; the fish jumping out of the water catching lazy flies resting on the water for dinner; the ducks, lazily drifting by, the dragon flies (still!) mating, and the trees, in all their height and glory. 

The lake at Reservoir Park in Southern Pines: it is almost completely round with a 2 mile trail around it and views of the water from every corner.

A duck was drinking water but it looked like she was gurgling ...

As the name suggests it: Southern Pines is full of ... pines. These beauties surround you anywhere in Reservoir Park.

Another favorite during autumn (and winter) hikes are the berries: there are so many of them, in various colors, to remind you that all is not dead, after all!

The trail at Reservoir Park - pretty flat and wide - and some beautiful colors popping from among the pines.

Is it a leaf in the air? Or on the water?! Who knows or cares - it has given up for this season ...

We could never figure out what "fruits" these are (persimmon, maybe?!), but the tree in the picture below was loaded with them. They looked like tomatoes and if you didn't look too carefully they got lost in the overall fall color of the whole tree. So cool!

Your "typical", if there is such a thing, fall-colors picture at the entrance of Reservoir Park.

The second hike we ventured on was the loop trail at Raven Rock State Park which takes you all the way up to Raven Rock, on the banks of the Cape Fear River. The trail goes up and down - not quite as flat as the first one - and it’s full of trees of all sorts - oaks, and maples, and pines - and others we could not identify. We kept seeing these nuts that looked like pecans all over the forest floor - we still don’t know what they were ... 

The two main points of attraction on this trail are the “overlook” - from where you can see the river from up high on the hill. There is something filled with tranquility and perspective, seeing a river meander between hills from up-above, carving the shape of the world, that I always find fascinating. 

The other landmark on this trail is the Raven Rock itself: a 150ft massive rock nested in the cliffs by the river. You come up to its tippy-top on the trail and you have to climb down these steep stairs to see it from the bottom. It’s a breath-taker, for sure, but so worth the trek. 

Once you’re down at the bottom it feels like you just descended in the belly of the earth - everything is so quiet and peaceful, and lost. The river is calm, almost like a lake, and there are no sounds. No creatures. Huge, enormous, knotty roots spread along the side of the rock, barely clutching on to the soil, almost floating above earth. Trees taller than the 150ft rock itself doing a frail balancing act on these roots like ballerinas on toe points. 

In fact, the entire trail in this park is covered with stone-like, dry, knotty roots which makes it treacherous to walk on: you feel with every step like you’re going to slip and fall - the roots are covered by newly fallen leaves and it makes for a slippery, unstable-footing journey. But again - so worth it. 

The Cape Fear River as seen from "the overlook" on Raven Rock Loop Trail - Lillington, NC

The Raven Rock forest was almost exclusively of deciduous trees going through "the change". So, we got a lot more color on this hike.

The Raven Rock forest was full of trees like these - that seemed to have taken "detours" (perhaps around rocks, at one point?) to find the sky, during their lifetime.

The 150ft worth of wooden stairs you need to climb down to find the river and the bottom of the Raven Rock.

The Cape Fear River once you made it to the bottom of Raven Rock.

Under the Raven Rock - it is a massive monolith with tiny streams of water dripping in its crevices.

The amazing above-the-ground root system of these massive trees at the bottom of the Raven Rock - there is no place for the roots to go - it's all rock everywhere, and yet, somehow, the trees figured out a way to anchor themselves for many tens of years and survive despite it all.

The trail in Raven Rock State Park is sheltered by the trees and very, very root-y ...

The gnarly roots right on the trail that you have to step on for 2+ miles to get ahead ...

My favorite picture from the escapades of this week - dead bugs, empty spider webs, dead leaves and a smooth, dimmed light that makes everything bright from the inside out. What says "fall" better than a natural jack-o-lantern?!

Get out there, folks! The world is amazing!

A Weekend in Washington, DC

April 2022 ... 

This blog was supposed to be all about travel and the lessons that it teaches us. Or me, rather. I have fallen by the wayside with that goal, in the past few years, because of one thing or another that has delayed trips and made them smaller, closer, and less frequent. 

But trips have happened and I need to catch up. Maybe the blogs I am about to post are not as thorough and long as others in the past, but I hope they will serve as inspiration for you all to pack and hit the road, if you can and if some of these places are handy, or as a reminder for me that the past year or so has not been completely empty of adventure. 

This one is about a trip to Washington, DC that we took on Easter weekend (around April 17th, 2022). It was also the weekend of our 12th anniversary. 

We have both been to the American capital several times before. But every time you go, the city offers the same familiarity and comfort of a small city, really, and it’s fresh with a new vibe. Whether it’s a new presidency at the White House, or just a different season, the city feels old and new and fresh at the same time. 

Although it feels much like a historic, cozy Southern town at times, it has the same thump as a big metropolis (think New York and the likes) - busy traffic and ambulance and police sirens.  It even smells like a big town, human urine and throw-up included. 

We didn’t want to drive during our stay there. We booked a hotel just about 5 blocks off from the National Mall and we wanted to walk everywhere - to the Capitol, to museums, to restaurants. 

The highlights of this trip included: 

A walk-about The Capitol building - still surrounded by scaffolding and awaiting renovation after the January 6th, 2021 insurrection. It was a sad, daunting sight - a dark spot in our recent history to be sure.  “Not in America”, some said. Yes, in America, the facts beg to differ. 

The US Capitol building

The reflecting pool was emptied out of water and it added to the gloomy vibe. Although the National Mall was resounding with music and crowds (Easter weekend is not a slow weekend for DC, we found out), it felt gutted and unfriendly. 

A walk in the US Botanic Gardens right off The Mall was relaxing and refreshing, a spot of peace away from the exhausting party-like life of crowds beyond: the famous Washington cherry blossoms were on their way out that weekend, but some still around,  and flanked by dogwoods and rising proud over blankets of multi-colored tulips. 

The US Botanic Gardens

The highlight of the trip was probably the visit to The Museum of the Bible - a new one to us and I don’t think it’s an old one for the city either. What better place to be around Easter?! (We realized quite fast that other ten thousand other Christians had the very same thought that day!)

It is a very well-done museum, following the history of the Bible through many traditions and across cultures from all over the world. It houses what seems to be hundreds of thousands of Bible versions in that many languages and dialects - some languages that you had never heard of before. It’s a museum of the printing press, and of languages as much as it is a museum of this one book and the faiths that it sprung into the world. 

At that time, it also housed a replica of the Shroud of Turin - a length of linen cloth bearing the negative image of a man and believed to be the fabric in which Jesus was wrapped after the crucifixion. Much research has been done to estimate its age. All of the research points to a time around the Middle Ages, maybe around as early as 1200s. But why people place it as belonging to someone roughly 1200 years before that date was unclear to me. However, reading about the effect it has had on so many generations, and reading about its history and how it was passed on from generation to generation, a sacred symbol of faith and hope is still remarkable. 

The Shroud of Turin

For our anniversary dinner, we went to The Dubliner which was right around the  corner from our hotel. We were supposed to be in Ireland (among other places in a tour) for our 10th anniversary, but Covid got in the way in 2020. So The Dubliner was an appropriate “consolation prize” two years after the “real” trip would have happened. The Dubliner was remarkable for two reasons, for me: they had the best home-made salmon pastrami Reuben sandwich I have ever had! I didn’t even know that salmon pastrami existed. And they carried my favorite beer in the whole world on draft - the Kilkenny cream ale. If you only knew how hard it is to get this beer on draft (or at all, really) in America, you’d understand what a momentous occasion this was. 

Salmon pastrami reuben sandwich and mashed potatoes at The Dubliner

We started our first day in DC by paying our respects to a new (to us) (small) memorial erected in honor of victims of communism. Although small and off-the-beaten-path, it bore an enormous amount of significance for me. It’s one of those memorials that makes my heart stop and skip a few beats when I think of all the faces that fell for nothing more than a belief. Puts things, still, into great perspective today, and it’s still a raw and alive part of who I am. Of who I will always be. 

The Memorial of Victims of Communism. Click the picture to view more from this trip.