Linville Caverns and Falls

When the sky is blue, and the temps are mild, and the leaves are changing, and your husband has a day off... heading outside to play is an obvious choice! With so many wonderful mountain trails and waterfalls close to home, finding a new place to explore is always fun.

We spent all of Columbus Day exploring the Linville Caverns and hiking along the Linville Falls.

 

Only two hours from home, the area has plenty of easy-to-manage trails for little ones and some incredible views without a strenuous effort to enjoy them. 

My boys are experts at finding gnarly trees to climb and can turn any rock or tree limb into a ninja warrior obstacle course. Ninety percent fun and interesting to watch; 10 percent obnoxious and annoying to manage.

Jaxton is still light enough and small enough that he's okay riding on Grady's back. He's almost always content to ride along and take things in, and man oh man, is he a cute little guy! He waves to other hikers. He holds twigs and pretends to shoot things in the woods. He nibbles on crackers and drops crumbs down Daddy's neck. Not much longer before he outgrows the carrier and family hikes tone down for a season until his little legs grow enough to keep up.

The fall colors weren't anywhere close to peak, but they were still beautiful. The reds and yellows were brilliant on the mountain tops. And with the recent rain, the falls were spilling much more water than earlier this summer.

Plenty of family photo ops, BUT.

But someone always had eyes closed, or head turned, or hair in the face, or hands moving, or...! I ask my kids to just stand still and act normal for 10 seconds, and Grady tells me that dorky family pictures are the things we'll laugh and cry about 20 years from now so I need to let it go.

Whatever.

It's no secret that Fall is my favorite season, and I'm so thankful to live in an area where we can enjoy being outside, seeing the colors, and exploring God's creation. North Carolina is a beautiful place to live!

After plenty of fresh, mountain air, and once everybody's legs were tired and sore, we called it a day.

Home in time for the bedtime routine, and just like that, our mountain getaway was over. Interesting that a two hour drive made us feel like we were a world away from home.