Weekend Rewind: Mountains Weekend

To celebrate Joe's upcoming 30th birthday Joe, myself and a his close group of friends from college spent the weekend in the mountains at a beautiful rental cabin. The cabin in a small NC town about an hour away from Asheville. We spent the weekend enjoying the beautiful scenery, celebrating, hiking, and a bit of resting too.

On Friday, Joe, my friend Christina and I drove up to visit Mt. Mitchell State Park. After a stomach turning drive up highway 80 we made it to the Blue Ridge Parkway  which lead us to the summit of Mt. Mitchell. Fun fact: Mt. Mitchell is the tallest mountain this side of the Mississippi. We enjoyed lunch at the restaurant located in the state park. The menu featured a variety of lunch fare from hot dogs to BBQ or soup and cornbread. After smelling the cornbread on the way in I knew I had to try a slice. I loved their homemade chili and cornbread.

 We all rounded off our filling lunches with homemade blackberry pie. The three of us all loved it and there is no denying you can't go wrong with homemade pie!

Afterwards we met our friends Adam, Whitney and Joe at the cabin. We enjoyed drinks while relaxing and watching the boys play ping-pong. Ping-pong was a reoccurring theme throughout this weekend as the guys held tournaments every night in the game room.

An EXTRA LARGE bottle of wine was consumed :)

Our friends Amy and Ray drove in around dinner time and  we grilled steaks and corn. Dessert was a homemade trifle for Joe's birthday complete with sparkler candles. The candles ended up being a bit tricky to blow out which made for several laughs.

Saturday we spent the morning relaxing and taking in the scenery. Around lunch time we decided to explore the local hiking trails in the neighborhood with hopes of seeing a waterfall that was mentioned when we found the cabin. When a 1 mile walk turned into 3 miles with no waterfall in site we came to the conclusion that we must be lost. Humorously, this is par for the course with Joe and his friends as they tend to get turned around pretty easily while hiking. This time they brought the girls along to this mix which we were not amused after an hour of walking around the trails in circles. Thankfully we made it back to the cabin and were able to spend the afternoon hanging out and of course playing more ping-pong.

Saturday night the group headed to Morganton for dinner at Wisteria Southern Gastropub. The restaurant featured a menu full of farm to table products complete with house made flavored vodkas and cocktails. The guys were brave and ordered fried pig ear wraps for an appetizer. Everyone at the table agreed it tasted very similar to fatback (thick cut bacon) but not something we would order individually. For dinner, I had fried green tomatoes and arugula and apple salad. The hit of the night was their chicken and waffles. I had a bite of Joe's entree and was surprised at the heartiness of the waffle and how delicious the fried chicken was with the sweet topping.

We wrapped up the evening with drinks by the fire. I love fire pits and Joe and I both agree that when we get a house we will make sure to install a fire pit.

It is always hard to pack up and head home from on Sunday. It helped knowing that my parents were coming up to bring Charlie back home. Even though we moved away last year I am so thankful to still have them close by. It helps that they love this sweet face as much as we do!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I know this weekend was one for the books for us and I hope to make it a tradition for years to come!

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