A Mile High Weekend
We leave at the luxurious, big city hour of 9:30 a.m., which is early by vacation math, where time slows the closer you get to the mountains. It’s me and Lizzie in the Mustang, snacks in the console, blanket and pillow in the passenger seat and pointed toward Blowing Rock, North Carolina. For miles it’s all billboards and pine, the kind of sameness that makes motion feel imaginary. And then, almost without warning, the road begins to rise and fold. The air cools. Hills become earnest about being mountains. The road tilts upward and my heart matches it; pines thin, and suddenly green needles fade into the copper chorus of fall.
Before the cabin, we stop in Boone because tradition is a compass, and ours points to Wild Craft Eatery. It’s warm restaurant with cozy tables, food that tastes like it was grown by someone you could actually meet and we let the road fall out of our shoulders. As we enjoyed our meal, somewhere between bites it occurs to me that back in 2020, Elizabeth and I were a maybe and now we’re an always.
The cabin turns out to be small and green with a brown tin roof, decorated in bear puns: bears offering free hugs, bears reminding you to wipe your paws. The drive up is steep in the way that turns your knuckles white and your sentences into prayers, but the porch looks into a thicket of trees and onto a sliver of sky, and it feels secluded and cozy and perfect.
Ms. Carole, Wyatt, and Lolo are in the Suburban and get their own adventure: a deer appears suddenly, as deer do, and the route becomes “creative and scenic.” Because Ms. Carole has to take evasive maneuvers to not bounce the animal off the car. They still make it by nightfall. The mountain switches on its evening soundtrack, crickets and wind in a language older than roads. Occasionally we hear a loud thud as squirrels outside drop acorns and nuts onto the tin roof of the cabin. We plant our flag on the couch, popcorn secured, and cue up K-Pop Demon Hunters for, honestly, the umpteenth time.
Morning announces itself with waffles and an upset stomach. Lolo throws up in the restaurant bathroom but decides to carry on. There’s bravery in scaling peaks, sure, but there’s also bravery in rinsing your face and rejoining the table. Our plan is Grandfather Mountain, but the day’s tickets are sold out. So we go under the mountain instead and join the queue at Linville Caverns, where boulders become slides and there’s always a friendly dog to meet while an adult guards your spot in line.
The caverns are damp, jagged, patient. At one point in the tour our guide turns off the lights and the dark is so complete it feels like a substance you could hold. You learn that rock grows drip by microscopic drip, that time is a sculptor with entire epochs to spare. We emerge blinking and hungry and find ourselves, like so many pilgrims, at Dan’l Boone Inn, where the line wraps the building and the reward is a table covered with everything. Family style is a lovely euphemism for “we do not expect you to choose” as our waitress brings the entire menu to the table. Wyatt isn’t sold on the homestead hits, but he campaigns hard for chocolate cake at the end, which feels very American.
Back at the cabin, the evening turns into a fall leaves playground. Wyatt discovers a hand shovel and commits mayhem on inanimate objects: twigs, pebbles, stumps guilty of existing. Lolo climbs rocks, becomes briefly a mountain goat and, catalogs the shades of October. The sky does that sudden miracle thing sunsets do. Wyatt and I climb to the hilltop and borrow the vacant neighbor’s porch for a better view. A move that had Wyatt, correctly, a little nervous. As we stood and watched the sun set, I remember my dad’s voice: Look at that. There will never be another sunset like this one. This one is just for you and me. I say it to Wyatt, hoping the sentence will keep traveling long after both of us are quiet.
Sunday is our second attempt at Grandfather Mountain, this time with tickets in hand. We’re among the first through the gate, and the kids hit the trail like punctuation marks. Dashes between trees and exclamation points at overlooks. Every dog on the path is greeted with the courtesy due visiting dignitaries. The wind at the Mile High Swinging Bridge is cold enough to make you aware of your ears, but the sky is a perfect blue window. Wyatt eyes the cliff’s edge with daredevil ambition; the grown ups deploy parental vetoes and everyone keeps their hearts and souls where they belong.
Down at the Wilson Center, we learn the mountain’s wildlife cougar, elk, eagle, bear and then Lolo meets an otter. The handler offers small fish. Lolo turned into pure joy, standing nose-to-whisker with an otter. It very well might have been the best day of her life so far.
By afternoon we are back on the road to Tweetsie Railroad. First we grab lunch at the Cowboy Cantina where a hotdog is 7 dollars and a drink is 5 bucks, but such is the price of amusement park fun. After we finish our lunch locomotive 190 arrives trailing a white ribbon of steam, and we board a piece of history. The train rounds a bend; the woods flare into late season color; a staged bandit skit from The Hot Sauce Bandits which is silly but the kind of thing that will be a fun memory for years. Afterward we ride every ride that throws gravity at us Tilt-A-Whirls and Scramblers and Coasters and The Drop Zone that makes you laugh because fear needs an exit.
We close the day with the petting zoo and Icees, which is to say with soft noses and blue tongues and tiredness that comes from a day fully lived. Back at the cabin, the bears keep offering free hugs. The mountain hums. Tomorrow we’ll drive home and the highway will flatten out and the sameness will return. But for now we are here: a family at altitude, leaving footprints on bridges and in caverns and in each other. And if there will never be another sunset like tonight’s, that’s fine. This one was just for us.