It's never the same trip twice!

Back twenty years ago, I began going on white water kayaking trips to southwestern North Carolina, to Wesser, NC, near Bryson City.  It's God's country, believe me.

On the road to get there, you see vistas of those old smoky, misty blue-layered mountains, and in the medians and along the roadsides, bright yellow and orange flowers wave and smile at you.  By planting flowers, NC has created some really pretty roadsides.

The mountain vistas and the bright flowers and the anticipation of reaching the Nantahala River make those last long curvy 50 miles go by rather swiftly.

At first when I traveled to this area, I stayed in cabins with my daughter and friends, but then later I began to camp.  My first experience ever in camping! Friends and I soon discovered the most beautiful campsite in the world.  We called it waterfall campsite.  It's one of my favorite places on this sweet earth!

The campsite is behind a bluff; it is circled by a tumbling mountain creek; and about mid way around the creek, a waterfall from atop a mountain cascades into the creek.  In May, there are mountain laurels, and in June, there are rhoddies blooming and trailing their white and pink blossoms in the creek waters.  It's a mystical place--something out of a fairy tale.

My last time there had been on my 60th birthday.  I remember it well because some of my favorite friends were there to help celebrate--Linda and Linda and Sarah and Holley.  Then things changed--as they always do--and all of a sudden, I had not been to the waterfall campsite in four years!

But always in my heart, I heard its call.  To quote from  Yeats' "Innisfree," "I will arise and go now, for always night and day/I hear lake [creek] water lapping with low sounds by the shore;/While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,/I hear it in the deep heart's core."

I went back this past weekend with a new friend, who was new to this area of the country.  And it was another magical trip!

We couldn't camp at waterfall campsite.  The camp ground owner had closed that particular site several years ago because it was getting too trampled, but we could visit the site for day use.  We camped just down from the campsite on another beautiful site near the creek.  Late pink and white rhoddies were still blooming!

It was blessedly cool in the mountains.  We supped that first night on black bean wraps, enjoyed good conversation, and tucked into our tents to watch fireflies through the flaps.  Next morning dawned with blue skies and sunshine.  I got up first and put the coffee on.  We sipped our coffee and talked some more.

Then off to the Tuck River in Dillsboro.  With the recent rains on the 4th, it was running high.  The wave trains were often over our heads as we paddled through the rapids!  What fun!  My new friend Kathy turned out to be an excellent kayaker, and nobody in our group swam!

After the river, we went into Bryson City for a hot late lunch.  Later that afternoon, we hiked high into the mountains on the Appalachian Trail for a couple of miles and spied dozens of different types of mushrooms--big and small, white, brown, orange, and red ones--before heading back to our campsite.

That night, Kathy and I ate spaghetti and meatballs around the campfire and shared some more of our lives with each other--both past and present.  Our second morning there, we woke to the sound of rain on our tent tops, and grey skies prevailed.  Because Kathy had thought to bring a canopy to put over our table, we stayed dry as we drank our coffee and feasted on blueberry pancakes. The blueberries had been freshly harvested from Kathy's father's vines!  It was the best breakfast I had ever had while camping.

The weather didn't improve by much--there were moments of intermittent sun but mostly overcast skies and a light, somewhat warm rain.  We were supposed to run the Nantahala River that day.

As you can guess, Nantahala is an old Native American word.  And it means "river of the noonday sun." The Nantahala River runs through a deep gorge and is the coldest river that I kayak!  Deciding not to run the cold, cold Nantahala River, we headed to the lovely blue-green warm Fontana Lake for some kayaking roll practice. We shared our lunches and picnicked by the lake.

After that, Kathy had to drive home, and I got to stay another night and dream about our almost perfect weekend.  I'm confident that next time we will get to run the Nantahala, but this was another magical, mystical trip for me!  Thank you, Kathy, for being such an appreciative and like-minded spirit!