My son and I went on a short trip to Western North Carolina, which was exactly the kind of getaway we needed. We spent our time roaming around with no rush, taking in the mountains, winding roads, little towns, and beautiful scenery everywhere we looked. Sometimes the best trips are the ones where you don't have every minute planned; you just get in the car, pick a direction, and see where the road takes you. My kind of trip.
One of the things we really wanted to do was find some waterfalls, and we did! What we didn't account for was one tiny little detail: NO WI-FI. Oops. Apparently, Apple/Google Maps are both considerably less helpful when your phone has decided that civilization no longer exists. There we were, surrounded by gorgeous mountains, forests, and waterfalls... with absolutely no idea where we were going next. The "directions lady," as I like to call Apple Maps, confidently instructed us to turn on increasingly smaller roads until “road” became a very generous description of what we were driving on. Oh, and where the road shoulder also disappeared. 😳 Meanwhile, she kept chirping, “Proceed to the route,” as though we were the ones who had screwed this up. Lady, YOU brought us here! At some point, we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere, surrounded by mountains and trees, with no cell service and no idea which direction civilization was in 😂😂😂😱. Just when we needed her most, she basically gave up on us. No signal. No directions. Nothing. After leading us deep into the North Carolina wilderness, she simply abandoned the mission. I fully expected her final instruction to be, “Park the car and begin building a shelter.” This is how a pleasant afternoon looking for waterfalls turns into a Discovery Channel survival special. Garmin, if you're listening, we need to talk. LOL
Lesson learned. I guess I'm officially in the market for a Garmin device. There's something wonderfully ironic about escaping into nature only to discover just how dependent we've become on that little blue dot on our phones!
But honestly, getting a little lost was part of the fun. I figured, well, we're still in America, so if we keep driving, we'll hit a gift shop eventually! 😂 We drove through the mountains, found beautiful overlooks, discovered places we hadn't planned on seeing, and stopped whenever something caught our attention. Around every curve, another gorgeous view or reason to pull over and take a few photos.
We explored, ate, laughed, took way too many pictures, and enjoyed being somewhere completely different from our everyday Florida surroundings. The cooler mountain air didn't hurt either! There is something incredibly refreshing about trading palm trees and flat highways for mountain roads, forests, waterfalls, and views that seem to stretch forever. 🌄❤️
What made the trip especially fun wasn't necessarily one particular destination. It was the roaming around, finding unexpected places, taking the wrong turn occasionally, and enjoying the freedom of not having to be anywhere at a particular time.
Western North Carolina is one of those places where the drive itself becomes part of the vacation. We came home with plenty of photographs, some great memories, found the best pizza place ever, the best fudge, and sweaters 🤷♀️, and at least one very important piece of travel wisdom: Next time, bring Garmin. 👍📡😂
I realized I should have brought my beach chairs! These are the kind of views I could sit down and stare at for hours and hours....
And then major bonus points for those clouds! An amazing storm passed through...
The rain was dancing around us as we were climbing higher...
We managed to get to the Looking Glass waterfall early and before the rest of the tourists!
We kept going, and the rain kept going too, either in front of us or behind us. At some point, we decided we wanted to join civilization again and have some pizza!
After we stuffed ourselves with the best pizza I've ever had, we went on a hunt for fudge and ice cream! 🍨 We found a Killwins and got both! Best S'mores Fudge ever! 😋😋
And somehow, on top of everything else, we managed to find what may have been the best Airbnb ever; the perfect place to relax after spending the day roaming around Western North Carolina, chasing waterfalls, getting lost, eating too well, and discovering just how useless modern technology becomes the second Wi-Fi disappears.
But our adventure wasn't quite over.
The next morning, we got up ridiculously early and once again took on those zero-Wi-Fi mountain roads, this time in total darkness, because apparently we had learned absolutely nothing. 😂 We had one mission: make it to the Georgia Aquarium by 9:00 a.m. so we'd have plenty of time to explore before beginning our drive back to Florida. I had wanted to visit this aquarium for at least ten years, and somehow, despite all our travels, I could never make it happen. Well, FINALLY, I did! And it was absolutely worth the wait. What an incredible place! The sheer size of it, the exhibits, the enormous tanks, and the unbelievable marine life are just amazing. It's one of those places you walk into thinking, “This should be pretty cool,” and walk out thinking, “WOW. Why did it take me ten years to get here?!”
And then there was Atlanta. 🤯😍 I've driven through Atlanta on I-75 multiple times over the years, but usually it was exactly that: driving through. This time, actually paying attention to that skyline as we approached the city completely caught me off guard. WOW! The buildings, the architecture, the scale of the city, and that gorgeous skyline were so much more impressive than I expected. I kept looking around thinking, “Wait... why have I never stopped here?!” There was something about Atlanta that immediately grabbed me. It looked exciting, beautiful, modern, and full of things to explore. I went from simply passing through to “Ummm... I think I want to move here!” in approximately five minutes. 😂
Here are some pics I took at the Georgia Aquarium:
A Little Atlanta Photo Disclaimer: Atlanta was absolutely gorgeous, but the sky was gray, overcast, and definitely not doing the skyline any favors. So I changed the skies in my aquarium and surrounding downtown area photos. The city is real, the skyline is real, and my amazement is very real, but the original overcast sky had to go.
And just like that, our little North Carolina getaway turned into one of those trips we'll be talking about for a long time. We found waterfalls, survived the Directions Lady, discovered beautiful mountain roads, stayed in an amazing Airbnb, finally made it to an aquarium I'd wished to visit for a decade, unexpectedly fell a little bit in love with Atlanta, and somehow made it all the way back to Florida. Not bad for a trip that occasionally had absolutely no idea where it was going. 😂