North Carolina Haps With Norsworthy's 21Aug21-22Aug21

We boarded the Southwest C19 pod donning masks for a 3 hour flight east to Raleigh-Durham. Karla & Kevin both stayed up late to pick us up @ RDU @ 1am... then stayed awake to debrief for a bit; good friends, err family.

 

We arose to do some day drinking at Bottle Mix and pick up some local IPAs (for Kala & me). Nice place with mixed can 6 pack deals AND taps for a dozen brews... I chose a tasty Burial hazy with some long name. We did Mexican at Driftwood for lunch. We had evening plans beginning with the very good Italian spot Mother & Sons near DPAC (Durham Performing Arts Center) where we enjoyed great pasta dishes and a fine Sangiovese. We then saw the awesome show from Brit Floyd, an excellent Pink Floyd tribute band, with lasers and video and a 9 piece band. I'd never heard of them but the show was really good and the sound was decent at DPAC.

After returning to the estate in N Raleigh I cracked open some of the DDH IPAs purchased: a Benchtop Robot Squirrel and an Anchorage Beached.

Sunday we headed for Lake Toxaway (yep - real name) in the western mountains of NC. On the way @ Black Mtn we dined at Ole Guadalupe on a nice stream; I began to think these guys were fixated on Mexican, but Kala had asked for some so all's fair. We also stopped at Sierra Nevada's eastern brewery in Fletcher, NC. OMG the place was gorgeous and huge and packed and playing live music in a fabulous back yard. Hazy Little Thing was OK, but the spot was over the top.

We arrived in the mountains and immediately sought waterfalls. Kevin is a waterfall aficionado and mapped out a couple of days of waterfall hikes. In fact the first falls, Toxaway, were immediately adjacent to and visible & heard from our condo! This afternoon's hike yielded a very cool set of falls near the top of the mountains. Storm Fred had very recently laid waste to the area with flooding and downed trees so we hiked on a sketchy AF trail abutting the Broad French river to a great set of waterfalls called French Broad and Mill Shoals and then Rooster Tail and Bird. The French Broad was raging ~ the storm had even brought down a van!