Mountain Adventures

This past weekend, my mother in law, Sandy and I got to enjoy vacationing in the mountains. She was able to rent this cute little home for $50 a night. We arrived Thursday afternoon and left the following Sunday. We sure had fun!

We were a little worried about how the house would look since they were only asking $50 a night. But we were pleasantly surprised to find this cute and clean home. The one weird thing about this house was that there was no driveway. There was a mailbox and that was it! So we had to park the car off the side of the road. 

This was my room! Looks like a comfy king sized bed right? Haha...… It's really two twin sized beds pushed together. But that's okay, I still slept okay in there. (And Sandy insisted that I take this room. She wanted the room that had the patio door so she could step out when she wanted to) I promise, I was polite and gave her first dibs. 

This is the little dining room/ living room. 

Here is the living room. 

This is the room that Sandy stayed in. Through that doorway were four more full sized beds. She chose the pull out couch because it had a comfortable memory foam mattress topper on it. 

This is the same room that Sandy stayed in. It has the patio right outside. 

It's hard to tell in this picture, but there are mountains behind the neighbors property. The view was gorgeous! We had a little bit of rain, but for the most part we had beautiful sunny days. 

We loved that there was a river going through the front yard of the property. The owners let us use all of their fishing gear. I thought we would use regular fishing poles, but the ones they had were about half as tall as a normal one. 

Fun fact. The river is still technically public accessible even if it runs through private property. Sandy and I were a little worried at first because people kept coming and fishing where we were. Luckily everyone we bumped into were extremely nice and gave us lots of tips on how to successfully catch trout.  

This was my first catch! I think it's called a brook trout. I would say it was about a foot long. Those buggers are really hard to catch. They know how to throw the hooks faster than you can reel them in. I got lucky with this guy because he threw the hook after I got him up to the bridge. Then I had to quickly pick him up before he made his way back into the river. 

Neither Sandy or I have gutted a fish before. That was an experience. That was our only catch that day. We were out there for about two hours every time we went out. We fished everyday except on the day we left. 

On day 2 we wandered into Spruce Pines and mined for gems. We actually went to two of these places and actually had better luck at the second place. But regardless it's still a fun activity. 

We both found a lot of cool gems

At the end they tell you everything you've found. Unfortunately there are so many different types I forgot them as soon as he told me what they were! I was lucky enough to find a Sapphire and a Ruby. Sandy found a really pretty canary citrine. (I think that's what it's called)

After we were done looking through our rocks we had lunch at the Anchors Away Café. It was seafood. Yes, we ate seafood in the mountains haha. This is the view outside of the restaurant. We couldn't get enough of the mountain views. 

I texted this picture to my mom and she was like "What am I looking at?" Hello? The beautiful mountains??? haha ;) and the blue sky. 

One of the nights it was pouring down rain so we decided to pull out a puzzle. We finished it that night! We were done around 11:15. It's amazing how fast time can go when you are consumed in a puzzle. 

This was our final catch! Can you keep a secret? We didn't actually catch all of these. Just the one in ice. The rest came from one of the really nice fishermen who came onto our property. He and his buddy had two strings full of fish. He told Sandy to pick the one she wanted and he gave us the whole string! It was super nice of him. But remember, it's our little secret. What happens in the mountains stays in the mountains!

On Saturday we realized how close we were to Tennessee and decided to head that way. Tennessee is one of the states that I have not been to. We went to Johnson City and had lunch and went shopping! This picture isn't of the red minivan. This picture is of JCPenny! The whole mall was open and we couldn't resist. It's been so long since we've been allowed to shop. It was a ton of fun. 

Our last night here we set up the kornhole boards and started a fire. Sandy cooked us steaks on the grill. Then we capped the night off with the last Pitch Perfect movie. 

Sunday, we went back into Tennessee and ate breakfast at Shoney's. I've never been to one of those and they had this big breakfast bar. After that we shopped a little bit more. 

Once we got back, we finished packing up our stuff and headed out a little after 12. It was definitely a vacation to remember. Sandy and I had so much fun together and it was a great bonding experience. We hope to be able to come back again in the future.