A beautiful day this morning, all sunny and warm. I was up early for a change, or as early as I get up these days, but that is beside the point. After breakfast and washing the dishes it was off to downtown Asheville to do some exploring. Walked around down there for several hours while looking at all the shops and cafes. The whole area reminded me a lot of the street mall in Boulder, Colorado, except on a bigger scale and with more hills. My one purchase of the day down there was a wrought iron (beer), bottle opener made by a local blacksmith. Otherwise I took a few pictures, read a few menu's and looked in a couple of shops, but there wasn't all that much else there of interest to me.

    Hopped in the truck and headed out to Chimney Rock State Park. First though I stopped and ate Chinese food at some buffet. It's one of my real weaknesses and since I try to eat out at least once a week I decided this would be it for this week. Adequate food, a couple news papers to read including Asheville's answer to Denver's 'Westword'. It was a pleasant enough dining experience.

   Chimney Rock is about 25 miles east of Asheville, up and over a very twisty road that crosses the 'eastern continental divide' at one point. I assumed this meant all water on the east went into the Atlantic, and all water on the west drained into the Gulf of Mexico. It was a nice drive and as you went up and down in elevation it was fun to watch spring start and stop depending on what elevation you were at.

    Got to the park okay and went to check in only to find that the stairs and elevator up to the top of Chimney Rock were closed for repairs. But I went in anyway because I figured it would be a good chance to hike a little bit anyway. Took a few pictures of the rock from the upper parking lot before hiking the mile and a half out to Hickory Nut Falls. Nice little water fall and the trail was okay except for the hundreds of steps you had to walk up and down. At an elevation of nearly 2'500 feet it was soon obvious that I've spent way to much time down at sea level. A couple hours there, a few more pictures, a trip through the gift shop for a souvenir shot glass, I collect them since there isn't much room in the trailer for much more than that, and then it was time to head back to town.

   By the time I reached Asheville it had clouded up and was raining pretty heavily. Decided to go do some grocery shopping since I was in need of a few staples. A few bananas, some bread and tortillas and a roasted chicken for dinner. Hard to believe I was starting to get hungry again after lunch, but it smelled so good on the drive back to the trailer.

    Just been goofing off since getting back, left a couple of roof vents open, but didn't seem to get to much rain inside this time. Downloaded a few pictures and worked on them for a bit, they are posted below. Will probably read a bit later on or watch a movie on the computer, I still have one segment of  the 'Planet Earth' series to watch, that has been a very nice way to spend a few evenings.

This was an interesting house I noticed while going through the town of 'Bat Cave, NC' on the way to Chimney Rock State Park. I just liked the looks of it and it appears that they have turned it into a B&B.

This is the actual rock at Chimney Rock State Park. They have a trail and a look-out on top of it but it is closed for repairs at the moment.

One of several rustic wooden benches they had on the trail to Hickory Nut Falls. I like how they made it out of the outside slabs of old hardwoods with very little wood working involved. For all that they were very comfortable to sit in and watch the sun shadows drift through the new leaves on the trees.

Hickory Nut Falls in Chimney Rock State Park, NC. The falls are a total of 404' high from top to bottom. The day was warm enough that the mist off the falls felt nice and cool.

I saw this bush in downtown Asheville this morning while I was walking the streets. It's form made me think of some grassy plants I once saw on a river trip a very long time ago. The women who was along on that trip called them 'Blowing in the Wind Thing'es', and I've always thought of them as that since.