Down time…

Periodically we have days where the amount of work still to do and the slow progress we’re making completely overwhelms us and gets one or both of us down. Thankfully it doesn’t happen often and we know a little down time is in order to rejuvenate our spirit.

With the hot humid summer here in the south, we can only work a half day in the attic anyway so it gives us the afternoon to recharge.
Sometimes that means a nap and just hanging out and other times it means exploring this beautiful state of North Carolina.

One of our favorite areas to explore is the Lake Norman State Park located in, you guessed it, Lake Norman. It’s about 40 minutes southeast of us.
It’s home to the largest man-made lake in North Carolina and offers great hiking, biking and swimming areas as well as kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding and pedal boating. Rental is only $5/hour and includes a life jacket, safety first right Zach!

Gabi prefers the kayak saying, “it’s much more efficient to get around the lake” but she likes the challenge of the staying upright on the paddle board. Zach prefers the paddle board because he can do crazy tricks on it and fall in the water. One Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago Steve and Zach took their fishing rods out in kayaks but didn’t catch anything that day. They had fun tormenting Gabi who was at the Lake with a friend. I prefer to pedal boat (it’s a great leg workout) but no one wants to go with me because you have to put forth a lot of effort to move just a short distance. Oh well, we still have fun and that’s what it is all about!

We also really enjoy the Wilson’s Creek area, which is a little over an hour northwest of us.

It’s comprised of 49,000 acres of rugged wilderness offering great fishing, hunting, kayaking, camping, waterfalls and swimming. The creek itself is a 23 mile long mountain stream that starts on top of Grandfather Mountain runs through the Blue Ridge Mountains and flows into a 200 ft. deep gorge of granite bedrock, appropriately named Wilson Creek Gorge. The upper part of the gorge has some of the best white water rafting in the Southeast but not for the faint of heart, it’s considered difficult to extreme with class IV-V rapids (class V is as high as it goes). The lower part of the gorge (pictured above) is what we like to explore.

This past weekend Steve, Zach and I ventured out there for some relaxation. We did a short hike in to a 15 foot waterfall.

It was so beautiful and so peaceful, we were the only one’s there. Zach thought he could walk up the rocks where the water was flowing over and ended up falling into the pool. It was really cold water but with the hot temperatures it was refreshing.

We explored Coffey’s General Store, an old country store full of antiques, old time candy, cold drinks and ice cream treats. The store houses the old post office as well. The newest owners bought the property earlier this year and reopened just a few weeks ago. Jamie Flanigan Cool and her husband run the store, as well as, Bee Kind Family Farm up the road. They live completely off grid, garden nearly 3000 square feet of earth to produce an abundance of food to feed their family and to sell at local farmers markets. They are also beekeepers to 60-80 hives which they extract, bottle and sell the honey locally and on their etsy.com store. They are quite an inspiration and have a true homestead. If you’re interested you can find out more about them on her facebook page and her blog at offgridhomestead.blogspot.com.

After our visit to the store the boys wanted to fish. We found a good spot along the creek so I pulled over and parked. Unfortunately it was too steep to climb down into the creek so we walked about 1/4 mile up the road and found a spot to access the water more easily.

I was not fishing so I decided to take some pictures and ultimately move my Acadia closer to where they were fishing.

When I drove back, I couldn’t find a good spot to park. I turned around and did another drive by.
Keep in mind the road is just barely the width of two cars, with the creek on one side and rocky walls or dense forest on the other. Not only is turning around difficult, but if a car parks in an area that has not been carved out for parking, it’s literally in the road and it really makes driving difficult.

I was getting frustrated but I knew I didn’t want to be “one of those cars” parked in everyone’s way so I kept at it. In hindsight, I should have stayed where I was. Live and learn!

On each drive by I had noticed this pickup that was parked on the side of the road just after a curve (nice, right!). He was definitely in the way but the space directly in front of him was not.
(I should have wondered why no one took such a great spot or wondered why the pickup didn’t move up further away from the curve but no, those thoughts never occurred to me until much later.)

All right I had my chosen spot.
I pulled ahead of him, put the car in reverse and gunned it. No just kidding!
I slowly backed up. Almost immediately my backup sensor alarm came on which made no sense because I had pulled ahead of him by at least 1 1/2 car lengths. I stopped, checked my mirrors and verified I had plenty of room to proceed. I lifted my foot off the break and the alarm started again but I  ignored it and suddenly it felt like the earth dropped out from under the rear passenger side of the car. Not only was that blasted alarm still blaring but all my tires did was spin when I tried to move. I was stuck!

I got out and surveyed the situation.

The “shoulder” I was aiming for was actually a ditch used to run a drainage pipe along side the road. It was well camouflaged by overgrown weeds and grass. My passenger side rear tire was suspended in the air. The back up sensor was alarming because the car was too close to the road not another vehicle. Who knew?

I had to do the walk of shame and get Steve out of the creek to see if he could help me. He told me later he was hoping I had exaggerated the situation but soon realized I hadn’t. He got in and tried muscling it forward and backward (you can see the dirt on the road from his spinning tires) trying to get traction but only ended up putting it deeper into the ditch (photo above).
We were really and truly stuck, literally and figuratively.

Gabi was at work, about 2 hours away. We had no cell service, we had lost that shortly after entering the National Forest, so we couldn’t call anyone for help, let alone a tow truck. There were several pickups parked in the lot for Harper’s Creek Falls, but they were empty as everyone was at the falls. I had remembered seeing a store, Betsey’s Ole Country Store, a ways back but none of us were sure how far away it was (three miles). We didn’t have a choice though, so Zach and I set out for the store to get help. Steve waited with the Acadia and planned to flag down anyone in a truck to see if they could pull him out.

About 3/4 of a mile down the road we came upon a family packing up their pickup (thank God that so many people in NC drive pickups). I recognized the man and reminded Zach that we had seen him floating down the creek on an inner tube when we drove in a few hours earlier. He was memorable because he looked just like Santa Claus with a long white beard and a round belly. We had all giggled at the image of Santa taking some R&R on Wilson’s Creek.
I approached him, explained our situation and asked if he had tow straps. He didn’t. I thanked him and we moved on.

There was no one else around and the few vehicles that passed us were cars.

A short time later we heard a truck coming from behind us and I turned to see Santa’s truck slowing down along side us. He told us to “hop in,” saying he would take us to Betsey’s so we could get help. (By the way, Mrs. Claus looked nothing like the movies and their little elf did not have pointy ears!) We came to quickly find out that “hop in” meant the bed of the truck. Thankfully it wasn’t too jacked up that I was able to reach the bumper to get into it. (Of course, Zach being 6’3″ and all legs had no trouble.) The bed was filled with inner tubes,  beach chairs, a cooler…but we squeezed in. We had one heck of a bumpy and dusty ride but we were so grateful we didn’t have to walk. It was easily 95 degrees.

Bruce, an owner of Betsey’s, chuckled when I explained what happened and he told us it happens all the time. He knew there was a chain in the store cellar but Santa couldn’t locate it. Bruce, being confined to a wheel chair, couldn’t head down to find it so we settled on a rope. We headed back to my car and I had big hopes that Steve had found someone to pull him out but no such luck.

Here he was, sitting in a lawn chair on the side of the road waiting for the cavalry to arrive and arrive we did. Once the dust cloud settled he could appreciate the Heavy Duty Chevy Silverado 2500 pickup I had enlisted to help us with Santa behind the wheel and Zach and I in the bed of the truck.

Imagine, a narrow dirt/gravel road with my car stuck off the rocky side and a 10 foot drop into the creek on the other side. It gets worse though, there was a curve a very short distance ahead of us and one behind the pickup I was trying to park in front of, which was still there. The rope was really long so they were able to triple the loops between my trailer hitch and his tow hook. Steve got into my Acadia while Santa got into his truck and I stopped traffic from coming around the curve. I didn’t want to watch. I was so afraid that pulling it out would rip up the underside and that we wouldn’t be able to drive it, but it was needless. It became very apparent they knew what they were doing.
Santa pulled the Acadia parallel with the road until the passenger rear tire hit ground and got traction, then Steve eased it onto the road.
Just like that!

Santa wouldn’t take any compensation for his efforts saying, “I could only hope someone would help me in a crisis so how could I not help you.” We promised, when the situation arose, to pay the favor forward and help someone in need. His only request was for us to return the rope to Bruce as he was heading the other way. So after handshakes and many thank-you’s we were all on our way.

It was 5:30 and we were tired. So much for fishing and relaxation! We headed back to Betsey’s to return the rope and came to find out they were having an ice cream social to benefit the Wilson’s Creek Cleanup Fund. How could we turn that down? Our day ended on a high note, with great people and some homemade peach ice cream.
Who could ask for more?

By the way, who ever said Santa doesn’t exist?