Family Vacation - Part 2

Grandfather Mountain

The second day of our trip was a little more of a whirlwind. We woke up and headed to Grandfather Mountain. We knew it was going to get warmer so we wanted to get there early enough to enjoy the sights before it started to get blazing hot.

The family at the 1st Observation lookout

If you haven't been to Grandfather Mountain before it is a definite must see. We didn't realize how much there was to do. You could spend all day there hiking on numerous trails all over the mountain. We did the top with the swinging bridge first. Now anyone who knows me knows that heights and I are not friends. I wouldn't say I freak, but I am definitely not in my comfort zone. I crossed the bridge with no problems. I just kept looking straight ahead of me and not to the sides or bottom and did fine.

The Swinging Bridge

Mr. A & the girls wanted to go out to the point and that is where I stopped. There are just rocks that you walk out to and stand on. No fences, guard rails or anything like that to protect you so I decided to plant myself on the stone wall and attempt to take pictures of the them from a distance. Mr. A said KA had a little trouble with the heights but eventually relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. Of course AJ was in her element. She is the little adventurer and tends do be the opposite of KA when it comes to new things or things that can be a little dangerous. She embraces them while KA is a little more reserved and cautious. (That's my kid!)

On the top edge of Grandfather Mountain
AJ on left, concerned KA on right

We went down to the museum and animal education/viewing areas. The best part of this is when we went to the bear exhibit. The bears were sitting right at the wall. I looked Mr A. and said "it looks like they are looking for food." Come to find out they allow you to feed the bears for $1.00 per cup. We grabbed two cups and went to feed the bears. It was a nugget that looked like a peanut at first glance, but probably was some sort of nutritional element. We laughed as these bears would catch these nuggets. One bear would stick out its tongue to get your attention. Of course that bear received the most food. There were other exhibits such as the bald eagle, river otters, deer and cougars.

The Bears

AJ feeding the bears
The funny bear with the tongue

As we ended our trip to Grandfather Mountain we decided we were close enough to go see Linville Caverns. The girls had gone to a different cavern area with my parents a couple of years ago and the girls really enjoyed it so we decided to try these. It was really fun. The girls said it was smaller than where they went before, but definitely still enjoyable. We didn't get many shots in the caverns as it was really wet and we didn't trust that our camera wouldn't get damaged.

We had decided prior to coming up that we would do some gem mining/panning. We have done it before at a little farm near our house and loved it. All the gems that get sent to the little farms come from the mines up where we were so why not go to where the gems come from. We found a little gem store that did the panning about a mile from the caverns. We decided to get one large bucket and split it between the four of us. We found some awesome stones: rose quartz, smoke quartz, moon stones, etc. They have a man on premises who can look at your stones and help you identify them. You can even have them cut if you had the time. That was one of the highlights of the day.

After a huge dinner at a local BBQ place (which by the way was amazing!!!) we went back to hotel and let the girls swim in the pool. I truly think the girls would have loved just staying at the hotel and swimming if we had let them.