Mount Mitchell

The breath of air that I had just taken is the freshest that I recall since my trip to the Canadian Rockies. It’s like a high end bottle of water. As we carve our way up the Blue Ridge Mountains, the view is indescribable. What I am seeing in front of me right now is one that you usually find at Hallmark, with a Bible verse or inspirational passage over top.

Our goal is to arrive at Mount Mitchell by sunset, but with the traffic in front of us and a max speed of 35 mph, could this be done? Well, it just had to be. As we climb the mountain range, what resembles a design of the gods, due to its magnitude, the temperature drops, from 70°F to 54°F instantaneously, without warning, just like the 180° turns that we’ve been experiencing.

I find that my head is just as far out of the window as our dog’s, sniffing and keeping my eye out for animals. We haven’t seen any mountain cats, bears, or deer, we did see a ground hog, some baby raccoons, and a lot of birds.

We finally see the sign to Mount Mitchell, and with the sun beginning to set, and the park closing at 8pm, dinner was to be at the peak of the highest mountain east of the Mississippi, and so it was. After parking, bundling up, throwing on a couple of layers and a scarf, we were forced to foot it to the summit. A 360° view, and a whole bunch of posing and picturing, this was just unreal. The sky did that thing that I love most, the orange, purple and pink thing.

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This evening we are dining at the summit.  We watch as the sun dots the hills, providing the perfect spotlight to what mother nature wants us to pay attention to.  On our little camper stove we are doing a two potter meal; the leftover pasta and minnestrone soup, in the other.  With my breath dancing in front of me it the soup doesn't seem hot enough and neither does the pasta, but the pots that we cooked them in are keeping my fingers from falling off.  However, despite all this, and eatng on the floor, how many dinners have you had on the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi?