Grandfather Mountain, NC: A Mile High & Swinging

The mountains in this part of North Carolina are beautiful and today the weather matched the spectacular scenery. We woke up to lots of sunshine and pleasant temperatures. It was a perfect day for riding the motorcycle so that's exactly what we did.

We rode ~10 minutes up the twisting & turning RT 80 to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then headed North. Ran into four motorcyclists all riding the same type of bike I ride when we stopped to take pictures at a scenic overlook. Three men and a women, all riding Harley touring bikes, had driven up from Miami. They started in Cherokee, NC and planned to ride all 469 miles to the end of Skyline Drive in Virginia.

After that we rode to a small village called Little Switzerland. Really no more than several connected stores it's a small and quaint. After a quick bite to eat at a small cafe where the food was delicious, we jumped back on the bike and drove to Grandfather Mountain.

I have this memory from when I was a small boy when we stayed at a friend of my dad's, high up on a ridge. I remember three things very distinctly: 1) the house sat up high on a ridge where the land fell away in front and in back of the house; very steep 2) they kept bees and we gathered honeycombs from the hives and made honey right in their kitchen, scraping the honey and the combs into big canning jars and 3) we went someplace and crossed a swinging bridge. All I could remember from the bridge was that it was a mile high.

For years I've tried to figure out where we were staying and where that 'mile high' swinging bridge is located. No one in my family could remember the details.

Well, I finally figured it out. Grandfather Mountain has a swinging bridge at an elevation of ~5300 feet or "a mile high". As soon as I saw the swinging bridge I knew this was the bridge from my memory. Such as small thing and yet it's one of those questions that's been floating around in my head for years and finally, there's close. I'll definitely sleep better tonight. Just kidding -- but I will sleep well from the short but steep hike up, across and back. Combined with all of the walking we did yesterday I'm exhausted this evening.

Anyhow the view from the swinging bridge and the point of land on the other side was incredibly beautiful. MLA was a little nervous. Not about crossing the bridge; she did great with that. She was nervous about walking the rocks on the other side to the highest point. The land just dropped away all around. Made for spectacular vistas but MLA was holding on to the ground even when she was sitting down. That said, she did it and she did great. And she survived, as I promised her she would.

Afterwards we explored the nature center and the animal exhibits. The animal exhibits consisted of animals that had been injured and were unable to return to the wild. They had three bears, deer, an otter, a cougar and a bald eagle. All were kept in a natural habitat that still allowed us to get a pretty good view of them.

We watched a film in the nature center on black bears and what happens to them during hibernation. Scientists are studying this process because bears have a similar metabolism to humans when they are not hibernating. When they are hibernating they exhibit similar characteristics to humans who have certain illnesses and yet, when they wake up, they have no lingering side effects. Scientists think bears may hold the key to several significant medical breakthroughs, that is, unless we force them into extinction first.

The ride back late in the day was perfect -- all in all a terrific end to a great day.

See Ya!