October Vacation; Day 1: Chimney Rock and a Cabbage Patch

Ashley, Kaleigh, and I took our first family vacation since living together.  Ashley and I were taking our annual trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the peak of foliage season.  This year we thought we would take Kaleigh since she has been doing some of our summer hikes with us as well as running in her Kilometer Kids program.  Unfortunately, the government shutdown led to the Smoky Mountains National Park being closed down.

Our back up plan was to head to south-western North Carolina and do a number of day hikes to waterfalls.  Our first day was met with the drive to the mountains and a trip to Chimney Rock State Park.  We climbed about 600 stairs to the top and had a nice view.  Sadly, on the way up to one of the overlooks, Kaleigh fell and skinned both knees and her arm.  She was pretty tough about it and we went on hiking.

After leaving the park we headed back to a hotel in Hendersonville.  We passed a number of pick your own pumpkin and apples places.  One of the spots we saw even had pick your own lettuce and tomatoes.  We stopped and one of the workers took the three of us out into the cabbage patch and let Kaleigh pick her own cabbage!  She was thrilled as cabbage is one of her favorites.

It was a pretty great first day of vacation, even if we were missing the Smokies.