From GregEnslen.com:
Events, activities and other hometown items going on in and around Tipp City, Ohio Asheville, NC by Greg Enslen
Last week, my family and I headed down to North Carolina for spring break, so I thought it would be fun to change Tipp Talk to Asheville Talk this week and next week. After that we’ll get back to all things Tipp City, but read on to hear highlights (and lowlights) of our recent trip…
Off to North Carolina
Traveling is always stressful, but it seems traveling with kids is crazy, no matter how much planning you put into it. And with Katie, our third, getting bigger and bigger, it’s made things even more interesting. She’s got her own pile of stuff that has to come along now, like her stuffed duck—“Ducky Mo Mo,” that is.
This trip we drove to NC to stay in a cabin with my family, but for some reason it seems like we packed even more stuff than when we’re going to Florida—I think it’s because we’re driving, so everyone knows there’s extra room in the van.
We headed out on Sunday afternoon and stopped in at the Kenwood Mall on the way through Cincinnati. I’m a sucker for Legos and really enjoy putting together sets with my kids (and, to tell the truth, by myself. Here’s a confession about what I did Sunday night after everyone went to bed: got caught up on “Fringe” while building Xander’s intricate White House Lego set).
We picked up the White House set and one of the new “girl” sets for Anna, hoping to put them together during a quiet moment at the cabin.
Knoxville and Thai Food
We stayed overnight in Knoxville Sunday night, taking it easy and relaxing at a hotel before tackling the mountains Monday morning. We managed to find a local Thai food place near the hotel and enjoyed a relaxing meal of pot stickers (Katie is convinced they’re called “popsicles”), Drunken Noodles, and spring rolls. One thing I have to be very thankful for is that fact that my kids are brave eaters—they’ll try anything!
The next morning we picked up my brother-in-law Steve at the Knoxville airport and headed south on 129 into the mountains. Our cabin was just outside of Bryson City, and I had studied the map, looking for the best place to go over the mountains. I-40 is a straighter road (it’s an interstate, after all) but I wanted to swing by the Cheoah Dam, where they filmed the famous scene in “The Fugitive” where Dr. Richard Kimball jumps off a dam to escape the U.S. Marshall chasing him.
Anyway, I picked 129, not knowing that it was a famous (or infamous) stretch of road known as “the Dragon.” Yikes. I’m NEVER driving on a road with a name again—it earned the name by having 318 curves over an 11-mile stretch of mountain roads. Motorcyclists come from all over the world to drive this stretch of road ON PURPOSE. The road starts at the Tabcat Creek Bridge in Tennessee and ends at Deals Gap, North Carolina.
The Dragon
We swerved and weaved our way through the treacherous turns and steep drops, and all the while my kids’ faces were getting greener and greener. Samantha often has a problem with motion sickness but, for some reason, she was okay—maybe it was the four cups of coffee she had at IHOP, or the giant iced mocha from McDonalds that she sipped on the entire 11 miles. I wasn’t feeling quite as chipper—in fact, I had to pull over twice to settle my stomach and allow nutty motorcyclists to pass us. And I was driving!
The bikers seemed to enjoy the road—they would race up behind my slow van and throw on their brakes, then go roaring around us when the road allowed it. I could see how driving the road would be a thrill for someone on a bike—there were even photographers established at four locations along the road, snapping photographs of the bikers, presumably for sale. And they even took pictures of our van tootling along, but I know I won’t be buying those photos. Who wants a picture of a bunch of folks in a minivan, all looking like they’re about to lose their lunch?
After what seemed like hours, we finally made it to the Cheoah Dam and stopped to take photos. After that we turned east and met up with my parents at the McDonalds in Bryson City, then checked in at the cabin rental place. After a quick stop at the grocery for meats and cheeses (and supplies), we headed back into the mountains for another twisty, windy road that lead to our cabin.
And you’ll never guess what we found at the cabin…
