After spending days lounging around in the sun and surfing on deserted beaches of North Carolina's Outer Banks (OBX if you're nasty), it was time for a change. Luckily, NC is a state that allows you to go from one extreme to the other pretty easily, so long as you manage, unlike me, not to get lost in Dismal Swamp. From the flat expanses of the Outer Banks, and without only a brief pit stop dedicated to the aforementioned getting lost (extended somewhat by the fact that I got caught in the middle of a massive frog migration, which is weird enough on its own and made a whole lot weirder by the fact that this is actually the second time I've been halted in my vehicle by a massive frog migration), I shot due west and straight into the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains to meet up with an old friend and put a feather in my knit cap by hiking the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi: 6,648 foot tall Mount Mitchell.
It was also a grand chance to make one of the most beautiful drives in all of the Americas: the Blue Ridge Parkway in autumn...
Read the rest of: "Mount Mitchell and the Blue Ridge Parkway"»
The breeze is coming in warm and soft off the rolling waves, and I'm midway into a caffeine and lack of sleep haze that won't send me crashing for several hours yet, listening to the wheels grind slowly over hungry piles of sand criss-crossed with footprints and tire tracks.
It's sunny, warm, I haven't worn a shirt or shoes for days, and there must be ten pounds of sand that I've managed to track into the Jeep since I started this little adventure. Since putting rubber to the asphalt and sand of Highway 12, I've eaten nothing but boil-in-a-bag grub from Backpackers Pantry. Drank nothing but water, rum, and Red Bull, often all in one sitting...
Read the rest of: "The October Session: North Carolina's Outer Banks in Autumn"»
