Mother's Day

Martha had wanted to go somewhere different this year on Mother’s Day and decided that an overnight visit to the Fryemont Inn would be just the place to go.  We read about their Covid protocols on the website and it seemed like one of the safest destinations, with large rooms that could be aired out and a spacious lodge and dining room.  

The Inn is located on a hill overlooking Bryson City, just a little over an hour from Highlands, and although we have never stayed there we had heard good reports.  Constructed a hundred years ago by Amos and Lillian Frye (thus it’s name) it is listed on the National Register. 

Amos Frye had access to some of the best timber in the Great Smoky Mountains at the time, and he used it on the Inn – oak and maple for the floors, locust for the beams and columns, poplar bark for part of the siding, and interior paneling from the great American chestnuts that were at the time being killed by the chestnut blight.  Martha’s grandmother’s home on Fourth Street in downtown Highlands, where we briefly stayed 38 years ago when our home was being built, had similar paneling, come of it rare clear chestnut (as opposed to “wormy” chestnut), and when we walked into the lodge it reminded us of that wonderful old home.  It featured a huge rock fireplace in which a fire was blazing.  It seemed to be a laid-back place; a group of guests were playing a spirited game of Scrabble on a big game table, and someone was curled up with a book in front of the fire.  

The Fryemont reminded us, too, of the Historic Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem where we have often stayed on our way to the Outer Banks and Atlantic Beach.  A converted cotton mill, the Brookstown has that same quirky layout, uneven floors, and crooked corridors.  The Inn has been owned by only three families, most recently the Browns since 1978.  We met Hotel Manager Monica Brown when we arrived – her husband is the Executive Chef and her daughter works there during the summers.

We wandered down dark corridors and peered in unoccupied rooms that were open, some of them containing old-fashioned sinks with separate hot and cold faucets, like the historic old Blue Swallow in Tucumcari, New Mexico, where we stayed on our trip to California in 2016.

Historically interesting, but a bit of a challenge when washing up!  (Do you want ice cold water in your face, or scalding hot water?)  Unsure about some of the rooms in the Main Lodge being musty, Martha had arranged to stay just a short distance away in one of a group of comfortable and more modern rondettes called the Balcony Suites, where hot and cold water commingled in a single spout thanks to the miracle of modern plumbing.

It was a great place to stay, quiet and airy, with rocking chairs on the back deck.  We had arrived early enough in Bryson City to spend some time walking around, but now it was appealing to sit and relax under towering shade trees in those rockers waiting for dinner.  Dinner was in a spacious dining room, and we sat at a table with a window facing a stone terrace; the only other diners were on the other side of the room in front of the fireplace.  The menu included trout prepared six different ways, and we each tried a different way, the apricot-ginger glaze and the white-wine-and-mushroom sauce equally tasty.  While we were eating, Martha remarked that this was the first time we had dined indoors at a restaurant in well over a year.

The next morning, we returned to the same dining room for a bountiful breakfast, and then left Bryson City on a rambling, circuitous route, warm enough to put the top down on our Mini Cooper.  We stayed on two-lane roads to Robbinsville, then back over to Topton and a beautiful drive down the Nantahala River gorge to the Nantahala Outdoor Center (the NOC), popular with tubers and kayakers across the country.  

 We had a little picnic across the river, watching the water cascade over the rocks.  It was a little early in the season for venturing out in the water, but we watched a single kayaker expertly maneuver his craft upriver.  The Appalachian Trail actually crosses the Nantahala River on the bridge alongside the NOC, so after we had walked across the bridge we were able to say that we had hiked on the AT for Mother’s Day. 

It was a good Mother’s Day despite being tempered by the sadness of such holidays.  Martha heard from our own daughter, and she also heard from her sister and her brothers, who were united in missing Martha’s Mama who died last June.  But we were fortunate to have our mothers for as many years as we did, weren’t we? - my own mother lived to be over 90 – and it is a comfort to know that we tried to love them as much as they loved us.