Vacation in the Woods


View from the Cabin
Hooker Falls
Wolfe's Angel

I’m writing this Wednesday August 7th, no idea when it will get posted. [Answer: later that day, at an Atlanta Bread Company.] Surprising myself, I haven’t even been that interested in finding wifi and checking my mail up to this point. I expected I’d be jonesing at the lack of internet but it just hasn’t mattered to me.

Our cabin is truly out in the nowheresville woods, which is kind of what we were shooting for. Just up the hill is a 3 acre pasture that we can run around in with the dog. The view on two sides is thick forest, on one is the main house and the last is an apple orchard. I’m not above picking an illicit apple or two, but they aren’t ripe yet.

Monday we got our bearings and drove around Hendersonville. We went up to Jump Off Rock, which we found interesting and a pretty view but probably not worth the pain of driving up to it. It was close to sunset when we got there, and there was one dude there who gave us as close to a serial killer vibe as we’ve ever gotten from anyone so our time there was limited.

On Tuesday we packed up and went to Dupont State Forest. We first went to Hooker Falls, which has a swimming area at the bottom of the falls. Best of all you can take your dog! We played around there for a while, then had lunch and hiked up to the other falls across the highway, Triple Falls and High Falls. We of course did all this on a day that was setting a record high temperature for the area, but under the canopy of trees it wasn’t so bad. After going up and down the trails, we were ready for some more swimming in the chilly water of Hooker Falls so we went back there. On the drive back to town we stopped at the cemetery and I snapped a picture of “Wolfe’s Angel” – the angel statue created by Thomas Wolfe’s father and the titular object of Look Homeward, Angel.

And that was that. The first full day of vacation was a success, and everyone was so tuckered that we ate and went to bed early. Just exactly the sort of thing we were hoping for.