The Doolittle Gambit: A Home with a View

In June we enjoyed some family time in the mountains near Boone, North Carolina. Some friends, Jim and Marianna Musser, graciously opened their beautiful mountain home to our family while they were away in South Africa. We have many tales from our week long adventure with four adults and three small children.

We thought travelling at night would be easiest on the kids, so we set out for the 8 hour journey at 7PM on a Wednesday night armed with two GPSes, one of everything in the house, and a hope to be there by 3AM. We should have known we were doomed when my father-in-law uttered the words, "The GPS is never wrong." Come to find out, the GPSes are often wrong in the mountains. I wish I could blame the GPS completely for our aimless middle of the night wanderings, but I must confess I was also at fault. Just before we left our house I wrote down the address to Jim & Marianna's home. Jim and Marianna live on Poplar Leaf Drive. I wrote down Poplar Drive. Funny, but these two addresses will not take you to the same place. I also had an old address for Jim and Marianna (the county changed the name of the street a few years ago) which included the street name Eagle Ridge Drive (one would substitute this name for Poplar Leaf if the GPS did not pull up Poplar Leaf). I, however, thought Eagle Ridge was the town, not the street. Needless to say, we arrived, with the help of a kind police officer, at our destination at 5AM after a very dark and long tour of the mountainous Boone area. There was an amazing amount of calm in the car despite the frustration of being lost all night.

Our favorite family stop was the Valle Crucis Community Park. It was a large park with play equipment, lots of green open space, a creek running by the edge, and a 1 mile running trail around the outside. We also enjoyed some real live mountain bluegrass music in the park.

Theia wasn't sure about swimming in the creek at first, but she quickly changed her mind.

Jim & Marianna are situated on the mountainside and the view was breathtaking in the early morning and at sunset. The girls enjoyed the large porch and yard which provided ample space to run and play.

They even had a hammock!

A creek ran right by their property.

On the porch and all clean after bathtime.

Xandra learned about skunks on this trip. She would alert us when she smelled one outside the car as we were travelling. One morning at the breakfast table someone was holding her and she exclaimed, "I smell skunk." Turns out it was just the morning breath of her human chair.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma for coming with us! You helped make the trip more special and gave Joe and I a break!