We have run races on the Fourth of July for many years and in many different locations: Bryson City, Brevard, and last year the Independence Day 5-K in Asheville combined with a celebration of our 43rd anniversary. One race I have never run is the Peachtree Road Race, in which 50,000 participants crowd the streets of Atlanta, more a festival than a race. We know several runners who went to Peachtree this year, including my 84-year-old friend Fred, who is recovering from hip surgery and decided to walk the 6.2 miles. Good for them! As for me, I decided this year to go running in Highlands, where I could enjoy relatively empty streets and the cool temperatures. That did not stop a woman I did not know who was walking on Main Street from calling out to me, “You should be in Atlanta!” I told her, no thanks, too many runners for me, and asked if she had run Peachtree. “Oh no, I’m not a runner!” she replied. Some people just love to give advice.
Although we did not run a race this year, we did celebrate
another anniversary, and in the same location as last year, Echo Mountain Inn
in Laurel Park, just outside of Hendersonville.
This was the fourth time we have stayed at this beautiful, hidden gem on
a mountaintop only minutes from Hendersonville.
It is family-owned and was originally built in 1896 as a private
residence, then used for years as a girl’s camp – “Camp Happiness.” Last year we discovered many attractions in
the area that we had not had time to explore in the past, such as seeing West
Side Story at Flat Rock Playhouse and visiting the Carl Sandburg House, both
just a few minutes away. There are also
good restaurants in the area, and our first stop on Wednesday was at one of them, White Duck
Taco Shop, which features some of the best tacos in the area.
After lunch, we had plenty of time to walk around Main
Street before climbing the winding, narrow Laurel Park Highway to Echo Mountain
and checking in. The family that
operates the Inn is a friendly one and they remembered us from last year. The family matriarch, a remarkable 93-year-old
lady named Marcy, also lives full-time there and it is always a treat to talk
to her. We found out last year that she
and her husband had celebrated 60 anniversaries before he died of Lou Gehrig's
Disease. When she found out we had “only” been married 44 years, she told
us we were just kids. “Time goes by so
fast,” she told us wistfully, and as if in corroboration Martha noticed that
she was wearing a necklace made of several watch faces.
We enjoyed dinner in downtown Hendersonville at a newly-discovered place called Shine, and then walked up and down the wide sidewalks where it seemed that every restaurant had outside dining.
The next morning, on our anniversary itself, we explored
another new place that Martha had read about, the Park at Flat Rock, a former
golf course transformed into a park and operated by a foundation. It includes gardens, a lovely water-lily lake,
and walking trails where cart paths had once connected the tees. The Park is right down the mountain from Highland
Lake Inn, and I remembered running there on the same cart paths several years after it had been abandoned as a golf course but before it had been transformed into a park.
From there we drove to Marked Tree Vineyard, which one of
the owners at Echo Mountain had told us had been named one of the country’s top
ten new vineyards by USA Today. It was located
on top of a peaceful mountain surrounded by rolling hills which we looked out over while enjoying smoked trout and a bottle of Grüner
Veltliner, a white wine we had not encountered before and a 2023 NC Fine Wines
gold medal winner. On the northern
horizon, a hazy Mount Pisgah could be seen in the distance.
We drove back to Flat Rock and spent some time shopping
before freshening up for our anniversary dinner at Season’s Restaurant, located
at Highland Lake Inn. We have enjoyed
many special dinners there, including Easter, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day,
and this one proved just as memorable.
Returning to the Inn, we engaged in a romantic 44th
anniversary activity – a torrid, passionate game of Scrabble.
Friday morning, we left after breakfast and drove to Pearson’s Falls, just on the other side of Saluda and only a 30-minute drive from Echo Mountain. It was another place we only had time to explore because we were staying in the area for several days. A short hike up a trail nicely-maintained by the Tryon Garden Club led along a cascading branch to one of the prettiest waterfalls in the area.
We returned to Saluda, had lunch at The Purple Onion,
and spent some time walking around the historic town, which was preparing for
Coon Dog Day on Saturday, which attracts 10,000 visitors to celebrate said dog,
known for its unique bark and keen sense of smell.
From Saluda, we returned to Flat Rock and
watched the newly-released and final Indiana Jones movie, The Dial of Destiny,
at the Flat Rock Bistro Cinema, a cozy little place just across the street from
the shops we had visited yesterday. The
movie was pure silliness – Indy running along the top of a train, ducking just
in time for the tunnels, Indy swinging from ropes as in an old Tarzan movie, Indy
diving at a shipwreck in the Mediterranean amidst clusters of eels in search of
a precious artifact, Indy riding a horse down the New York subway – but it was the very last adventure for Harrison Ford, whom
I later read made $25 million dollars for the movie.
One of the graphics that appeared over and over in the movie was a globe-trotting plane flying from place to place, as in old timey movies, and I remarked to Martha that, although a lot less perilous, I felt a little like that on this trip as we flew from adventure to adventure.
So onward we flew to dinner at West First Wood-Fired in Hendersonville (delicious), and then walked down the street to the Hendersonville Theater and a performance of Rock of Ages. Whew! Our final flight of the day took us up the now-familiar road to Echo Mountain Inn.
Saturday morning, we packed our little Mini and bid farewell to the Inn, and to Travis and Bud and Marcy and the rest of the family, and started heading back home. But first we took a 30-minute detour to a place we had visited decades ago, and only once, possibly before we moved to Highlands: Chimney Rock State Park. Like Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, where the iconic “See Rock City” signs originated, we found Chimney Rock less of a tourist trap than you might expect. The Town itself was a small one and had its share of places selling fried Twinkies and the like, but it also had a fine establishment called Bubba O’Leary’s General Store, named after a gentle, laid-back English Labrador dog (the third generation was calmly dozing by the front counter), with wooden floors and nice merchandise, similar to Mast Store in Hendersonville.
And there was Chimney Rock itself, a remarkable rock
formation accessible by either 499 steps or by an elevator. We opted for the steps, and thoroughly
enjoyed the climb to the summit, which we considered “cross-training” and a good
substitute for the usual Saturday morning group run in Highlands.
We had lunch at Old Rock Café overlooking the river, and then made our way back through Hendersonville, through Brevard, and on to Highlands, where we were just in time to listen to some good music in the Park before (yawn) finally winding our way on the last leg of our anniversary adventure down the Walhalla Road to home.
It was a wonderful anniversary! And I am thankful once again for being able
to celebrate the adventure every day with my beautiful wife.
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