north carolina

Tomorrow, we are headed home. We had a great time up here and loved the cooler, non-hair frizzing drier air! It's nice to spend less time on getting ready:) However, we are ready to leave...Very small towns are not very user-friendly. We explored lots of waterfalls and bombarded the mountain terrain in our church's 15 passenger van. Ben and the boys got official appalacian mountain haircuts. I usually do it for them, but they were all in need and I didn't bring the clippers. Ryan is almost bald. He likes it though. We didn't like that the barber shop did not take our debit card, and we really didn't like that the gas station and pharmacy next door would only give 10$ cash back (and only if we bought 10$ of junk...) We had some cash between us - luckily! We usually use card only. Today, we 'hiked' triple falls. I'm sure it was nothing like Jon and Erin's 'hike.' It was all on foot and very little climbing involved - and we carried the kids a lot of the way:) We actually climbed up the side of the water fall on the rocks. I didn't think we could actually be successful, especially with the kids. It was very satisfying to get to the top unscathed:) We had the top of the 3rd falls all to ourselves. (until some freaky guy popped out the woods out of nowhere...but he did rescue ben's shoe before it went over the edge) The boys had an awesome time playing in the water and jumping from rock to rock. One time Matthew slipped and fell in and Ben went after him and ending up falling too. They both were okay, but really wet in really cold water. We can't believe the weather here. So cool in the evenings - refreshing! We thought we were hiking in air conditioning - we didn't even sweat:) Besides the unfriendly mountain folk, I'd almost like to live here - well, maybe north GA. I can handle Ga mountain people. (especially since I kinda am one:) Better get packed and in bed - early start tomorrow!