Road trip across America week 2!
Mt. Norwotuck with my aunt and uncle from Georgia.
The adventures didn’t stop for week two of the road trip, we did a whole bunch of hiking, spent a few days exploring the incredible area around Asheville, NC, finally decided on a name for the Tacoma, and spent a few days with family at a lake house. I even broke down and bought a spinning rod again!
The main objective of week two was exploring Asheville, NC, and after a quick run up Mt. Norwotuck on Monday morning and visiting a few more friends last minute, I aimed the newly named Lola south, and drove straight through to Mount Mitchell state park in North Carolina. Mt. Mitchell is the states high point standing 6,684 feet above sea level. I made it to the base of the mountain around 5pm and with 1,400 feet of climbing to go, I hopped to it and made the summit just after 6:30pm. The view was fantastic, the hike itself was super fun, and the run down to beat sunset was exhilarating. River and I were beat and as the heavy rains set in from a tropical storm off the coast I knew camping was out of the question. So I made a quick call to a hotel in town and ended up spending 3 nights there. I never enjoy spending hundreds of dollars on hotels, especially when I have a perfectly good tent, but I really do enjoy getting them, it’s incredibly convenient to have a solid room with a comfy bed and a hot shower at the end of long days in the mountains, and as a brewery lover it’s great having a place within walking distance instead of driving and searching for camp in the dark after a few IPA’s.
Mt. Mitchell summit
Day two in Asheville started with a scenic drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, what an incredible road with outstanding views! The Road twists and winds its way through 469 miles of Virginia and North Carolina countryside, and I cruised along about 50 miles of the road, ending on a fairly tame 20 mile OHV trail connecting me back to downtown Asheville. After knocking out the quad-killing 4 mile shope creek and rock knob loop hike, we made our way over to New Belgium Brewery, one of the biggest breweries I’ve been to. While River made friends with every dog in the place, I sipped on two beers only available at the brewery, both versions of their wildly popular Ranger IPA line and both with shockingly high abv’s. Both at over 10% and served in 10 oz. glasses, they were absolutely delicious and it was now time for me to find somewhere for dinner. On this trip I decided to eat out most nights and I am so glad I did, there was some delicious cuisine I would’ve otherwise missed out on had I brought a camp stove along. I went to Burial Beer Co. all four of the days I was in asheville and TwinLeaf Brewery twice among many others. Burial had some insanely delicious tacos to match their equally tasty, though oddly named beers and I just couldn’t get enough. TwinLeaf, not to be outdone, had some very fun offerings of their own, I was there for trivia and karaoke night and both were a blast! Overall Asheville was a solid 10/10 and I can’t wait to go back!
TwinLeaf brewery on trivia night!
Waterrock knob summit
Moving on from the Smokies and into Georgia, I spent the weekend with an uncle who lives on a lake. After 2 days there I was already on Zillow looking for lake houses, what a great time it is waking up to coffee and paddleboard fishing, a nice mid day rip on an old school jet ski, and an evening cruise on his boat visiting all the neighbors. It’s tough to complain about lake life, even with temps in the 90’s and humidity up there as well, it was a blast and the most relaxing part of the trip. All too often I cram an absurd amount of activities into road trips because I have very little time to adventure and so I want to make each trip incredible. This trip while I did do some insane driving days, I really spent the time needed in various areas to get some solid R&R.
River cooling off on a hike as always.
After leaving Georgia I set out for nearly 1,300 miles on Interstate 20 with only one planned stop. Two great friends recently moved from where I live in California out to east texas, so I made sure to stop by and spend the night visiting and eating myself into a bbq induced coma. The next day would once again put Lola to the test with temps pushing 110+ the entire 1,000 miles across Texas. After an unnerving detour taking me within a few hundred yards of the Mexican border at 2am, and border patrol checks every 30 minutes, I finally crossed into New Mexico and quickly into Arizona where I was able to catch a quick snooze laid back in my front seat. I managed to find a nice dirt road that lead a few miles off I-10 and while I didn’t sleep long, I slept very well. Up with the sun I made a delicious cup of coffee, all of the coffee I made on this trip was from Mammoth Coffee Roasting Co. and from Matador Coffee Co., easily the two best places I’ve ever bought beans! Passing back through Phoenix I stopped by to see my dad before driving straight through back to California.
I rounded out week two enjoying dinner and some beers with friends before heading north to my favorite place in the state, Mammoth Lakes California. The final week of the trip was filled with high altitude adventures and a few days of RV adventuring!