Thanksgiving in the mountains

It's always great to get away.
My parents' house in Blowing Rock, NC is the perfect place to relax, soak up nature, hike, and rest.

We had a great Thanksgiving holiday with my parents & my brother Tim.

Hiking to the top of Flat Top Mountain.

View of Grandfather Mountain from the top.


We hiked up the real trail, but in winter you can actually climb straight up this mountain from the house through the woods. It's about a 15 minute walk below the summit.

A walk in the snow (flurries) with my mom after Thanksgiving dinner.



As is our tradition, we cut our Christmas trees at our favorite mountain-side tree farm. However, this year we sort of underestimated the height of the trees. We ended up with a massive 10 foot tall tree!


But that's not the end of the story. A few days before Christmas, our tree started hatching unwanted guests! Millions of little bugs & flies!! We fashioned a sort of diaper out of the plastic drop cloth, which managed to catch "most" of them. So we could keep our tree up until Christmas... but it was pretty nasty... although still a beautiful tree...