I wanted to get up early and see the eclipse first thing in the morning. My alarm didn't go off but Ralph woke me up just after 6 :00. I raced outside to watch. It was hazy out and the moon was hugging the tree line of the forest. By the time I got the camera on the tripod it had almost disappeared behind the trees. What I saw was pretty amazing.
After that I woke up Ralph and we enjoyed a nice breakfast. We planned to be at the first falls by 8:30. As we were driving we passed a bunch of guys fly fishing in the river. It was pretty cool to see. It reminded us of the Lotto 649 commercial. We went back later and look some pictures.
The first falls that we saw were called Looking Glass. It was quite large and powerful. It was beautiful. We spent about an hour here.
From there we continued through the park and came upon a few others. We then headed to the access of the Parkway only to discover it was closed. They had experienced a very difficult winter in North Carolina and it appears that the road itself sustained damage. Hmmm we thought. Where do we get on now? We asked several people but no one seemed to know. We stopped at a craft shop and the store owner told about a few other falls that we might find interesting, so we took his recommendations and changed our plans. We drove down Highway 64 and enjoyed 2 beautiful falls. The first was called Bridal Veil. It was a much finer waterfall, where the water fell into a basin and subsequently flowed under the road. Many people were attracted to this waterfall because you could drive your car behind it.
From there we went to see Dry Falls. By the sound of the name you don't think it will be much. We were pleasantly surprised. This was a really large waterfall with lots of water running down. It was awesome. These both were in Nantahala National Forest.
By the time we finished taking our pictures it was almost 3:30. It was time for us to go as we still had a 5 1/2 hour drive to Georgia. We got a bit lost in the park and found ourselves driving down a gravel road. Ralph wasn't too happy about this, but I thought it was quite an adventure. We received some directions from a nice man who was clearing a fallen tree off the road. We were finally on our way. We arrived in Tifton, Georgia at around 8:30. At this point we were tired. We enjoyed a quick dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening.
