Blue Ridge Mountain Zipline

Day 27: Why not fly through the Blue Ridge Mountains on a zipline? It’s a lot faster than hiking 😊. But first, coffee. Chad and I spent the night at, you guessed it, Cracker Barrel and we woke to see three parked police cars in the lot. Good morning angels! I walked in to use the restroom and two of them were playing checkers on the front porch. On the way back, I did a lap around the building so they wouldn’t see me walking back to our camper (lol hi, jetta).

Moving the car across the street to a grocery store, we prepped for the morning spraying some of our clothes with 90% isopropyl alcohol (gotta prevent stinky humans!), tidying the car, and cleaning ourselves. Wet wipes anyone?

I searched online for unique coffee shops in downtown Asheville and found an article detailing Trade and Lore Coffee makes specialty syrups, flavors and has soda coffee. Say what?? Done.

The morning streets were quiet and the GPS lead us to an older part of town. The shop was located on Wall Street and there was a massive old flat iron statue on the corner. I’m feeling a little ‘pressed’ for time, so I didn’t stay long.

We tried their pistachio and hopscotch lattes. MMM the pistachio was so rich and I liked that one the most. The hopscotch had splash of butterscotch and other tastes I couldn’t place; I would order this by itself because the pistachio flavors were so strong.

Chad was able to catch up with some friends back home and talked 90 miles an hour because of the caffeine. I attempted to upload the MANY photos of the Biltmore Estate from the previous day’s tour to a post, but the internet was so slow. We ended up having to pack up and head to our next destination.

As recommended by friends in Florida, we signed up for a ziplining tree canopy tour in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Woof. The mountains aren’t as large (or they don’t feel like it anyway) as the mountains we passed through on the west coast trip in Colorado. These mountains just look like massive rolling hills covered in greenery.

We went to Navitat for the day adventure. Two guides, three couples and one van driver piled into a large Ford passenger van to take us to the first zipline. Holy buckets. The road was absolutely steep. The gravel underneath seemed like it was slipping underneath the tires and the driver casually chatted with one of the guests in the passenger seat.

Meanwhile, it was a short van ride, but it was directly up. Unbelievably up. The tight corners seemed impossible, but we made it around each time. It was like one of those hills you would attack with a snowmobile and without momentum, you would fall backwards. This was that feeling. Gunning it would only spin the tires on the loose gravel. Please don’t roll backwards down the mountain!

“Should we start praying, Chad?” I asked. Chad replied with, “it’s a little too late for that…”

I had the window seat and looking over the edge, it was a legit edge. No support rails, no pitstops, only one way up, no turning around….gulp. Trees and shrubs were the only companions that would maybe stop us from rolling all the way back to base camp.

On the last curve the driver started repeating the phrase, “think light thoughts. I am a balloon. I am as light as a feather,” while he gunned it up the only cemented portion of the steepest hill.

We made it to the top and spilled out grateful to make it on solid ground. Cheese! The view was spectacular, my cortisol was spiked.

I happened to be hooked in to go first and all was well until the radio signal from the lady guide reported the line was clear to send me. My stomach dropped a little. I’ve zipped a little before in a ropes course in Florida five years ago, but I completely forgot the feeling of flying through the air.

My feet left the platform and I whizzed through the air. Silence.

A small buzzing from the wire was the only background noise. The surrounding mountains were gorgeous, and I wanted to stop in the middle of the line and really take it all in. No nerves, no jitters, no nothing. I was in awe of the trees, mountain hills and the blue sky. Wow, what a stunning day to be out in the trees.

We spent the afternoon clipping into six different lines, talking about the varieties of plants we saw and joking around. During the zip we crossed rope bridges, scaled a spiral tree staircase and finished with rappelling to the forest floor. Our guides, Bob and Stephanie, were fun, laid back and great to work with.

Stephanie reminded everyone that we could use our outside voices and yell while we zipped.

I responded with “I think I’ll save my outside voice for help. I’ll save my help voice.”

Chad chatted with Bob often and we were able to hear about one of his ziplining horror stories. Bob said there was a lady that had brought someone’s ashes on the zip and she let them loose while she went across. But, the wind brought the ashes back and hit Bob in the face (yes, he has now tasted death!). He didn’t know she was going to do this and had no idea what hit him!

Chad asked about what the procedure is for when people are scared and don’t want to continue. From that question, Bob said his best story he has is when a girl was cromiting. What is cromitng you ask? I guess it is crying and vomiting at the same time.

There was a girl who went with her boyfriend and he made her keep going from line to line even though she had tears in her eyes. Eventually, the tears merged with vomiting and she zipped in as a massive mess. Ick.

We finished the tour and Chad was having great conversations with Bob about duel sport motorcycles. He was sharing he wanted to trailer with some friends out to Oklahoma and ride these bikes on scenic dirt roads all through the west.

Bob said he would feel comfortable riding 80 mph on loose gavel backroads. That’s absolutely a different world than we are used to with our Harley Touring Bikes (we are skittish of loose gravel so we don’t dump on a turn). Super fun to learn about a different way to travel the country.

Now we have to do a Harley trip! Bye, Bob. Thanks for the advice and thoughts.

Chad’s thought of the zipline: “It was fun to knock it off the bucket list!”

Taking the suggestion of Bob, we made our way using some back roads to get access to the Blue Ridge Mountains Highway. We made it halfway up the mountains (dueling banjos, anyone???) and the road was closed. The rains must have washed it out pretty good yesterday. Turning around, we backtracked and decided to get out of town. There will be more mountains! No need to get stuck and have to spend the night in a sketchy mountain cabin/home…..NEVER lol.

We pulled into McDonald’s (it’s not what you are thinking lol) and I used their WiFi to post all of the pictures from the previous day. Finally, fast interest! Meanwhile, Chad mapped out new places to visit.

We made another nummy salad with spinach, kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, an avocado, sardines olive oil, vinaigrette and sea salt. Oh. So. Good. I had three tubs and Chad matched me. Dinner tonight was $7 per person (including costs for ingredients we already had).

After food, we found ourselves heading towards Johnson City, Tennessee and came across a scenic overlook. There was a massive hill and we decided to run up it. Holy Toledo. Out of breath. That’s like a 12% grade (I don’t know lol all I know is that it was steep!)

Romantic setting for two on the highest ledge in town overlooking the city: check. Cracker Barrel happened to be on a mountain side and we camped for the night overlooking the shops below and twinkling lights far out. The air was chilly and we used our blankets for once and cracked the windows. There was rain in the forecast for the evening - car wash for Hall! Night night!