emme's old kentucky home: Traveling

Pimento Cheese Sandwich
The great thing about having guests is that you have an excuse to travel and see the sights. This is especially fun as I haven't seen many sights here abouts. So this is kind of out of order, but Dawn and Demelza and I traveled down to Ashville, North Carolina to visit an online friend of Dawn's who lives there. Friday we left Kentucky and stopped at the Knoxville Zoo in Tennessee (another blog to come) and Saturday we were to meet her friend and go to Chimney Rock and have a picnic. Unfortunately her friend was not feeling well enough for the trip to Chimney Rock, but she and her mother came by the hotel so they could meet Dawn and have a nice chat. Her mother brought us the picnic lunch so we wouldn't miss out and after Dawn's friend and her mom left, we headed out to Chimney Rock. I had to take a pic of the sandwiches her mom made because they confused Dawn and I explained that I believed they were a classic North Carolina (maybe southern) sandwich of shredded cheese, mayonaise and pimentos - quite delicious. She had also included fried chicken (Demelza's favorite), potatoe salad, pickles, fruit and chocolate chip cookies as well as diet Coke for me and some water that had been frozen to keep it all cold! Definitely Southern hospitatility and quite tasty. Chimney Rock itself is famous because it's magnificent and because they filmed "The Last of the Mohicans." there in 1992. It is also amazing in that the original owners of the property wanted everyone to enjoy the rock and in 1946 they began construction of an elevator inside the mountain to take visitors up to Chimney Rock (well, there are still 44 more steps to the top of the rock). It only took 18 months to complete and rises 26 stories (258 ft) in 30 seconds. I opted to also climb the extra steps up to the view of Devil's Head and after we picniced, I also took more steps (down on the way, up on the way back) and a nice hike to the Hickory Nuts Fall while Dawn and Demelza relaxed a bit. I'm thinking I must have climbed about a thousand steps all together counting the ups and downs. It was worth the view. More later about the Zoo and the Biltmore!

Hickory Nut Falls - it is 400 feet tall, this is just the top bit.