After a wonderful night at Song Sparrow Hill, we woke up refreshed, ate breakfast, then hesitantly followed Boy and Mangus down the hill back to our car.
We didn’t want to leave! I regretted not booking a second night especially what was to follow later on that evening.
Our next stop was Max Patch Mountain in Pisgah National Forest.
The rocky and narrow winding roads were nerve-wrecking. I felt so bad for Khang’s car tires.
Oh but the views were gorgeous like the one below!
The fall colors peeked through more and more as we got higher in elevation. And so did my excitement!
Parking was ridiculous but the trail was short and pretty straight forward. And so was the steep incline hiking up! It brought back memories from Patagonia.
We were treated with 360º panoramic views!!
The colors were ahhhhmazing!!
And then we took a nap right there.
Fun fact: I can nap anywhere, anytime. Ask my family and friends.
Afterwards we walked around to enjoy the colors some more.
We also played with Hans’ self-timer and got a winning picture of us both for our Christmas card this year!
Here is another attempt at freelensing.
During my research, I read about the sunsets at Max Patch and really wanted to watch it.
But we still had about 4 hours till sun down. I was growing hungry too so we decided to hike back down to the car to eat.
The plan would be to hike back up Max Patch with all our camping gear and set up shop for the night.
Well… unfortunately, when we returned to the car, Khang realized his battery was DEAD.
It was partly my fault. When I’m excited, I tend to rush things and I rushed Khang…well you know how that works…
Fortunately for us, we had jumper cables and the owners of the car parked in front of us came back from their hike and helped jumpstart our car! Lucky stars I tell ya’!
So we drove back down the winding roads to AutoZone to have the battery checked just in case.
Car battery looked fine so…back up the mountain we drove. Khang was basically pro at this point.
And then we carried about 30 pounds of equipment/food/water/clothes back up Max Patch in time to watch the sunset.
Whew! I remember feeling so happy and relieved that we made it to our last stop for the day.
Or so we thought.
So Khang set up the tent while I took photos.
I swear my husband could be a model.
Y’all, he is NOT posing. This was him setting up while glancing at a family trying to fly a kite.
Finally, we sat in our tent eating our favorite: Salami, boursin cheese, and crackers for dinner.
And enjoyed the sunset in the old but Great Smoky Mountains.
I’ll never grow tired of Mother Nature’s beauty!
Wish I could say that was the end to an exhausting but exciting day.
It wasn’t.
Long story short, the sun took all the warmth with it and we weren’t quite prepared for the 40º temperatures. We thought we could brave the cold but it was miserable.
So at around 8, we decided to pack all our stuff, hike back down, and drove home.
We were in our warm bed by midnight.
Hey, we tried. Really really tried.
Another story for our future children. Hah!
Thanks for reading and following
along with me,
Jules.