Midnight Hole

Midnight Hole was listed as best all around swimming hole on the list I mentioned the other day so we made it a priority on our list. It was about an hour from our cabin, back over the Tennessee border in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

1.5 miles isn't that long of a hike, but it feels like FOREVER if you aren't sure how long it will take you to walk that far and you are scared of missing the spot because it isn't marked. If you go, know that you will know when you are there. You can see it off the trail and it's pretty obvious. We spent a lot of time going off on side trails looking for it. It was HOT and we were covered in sweat by the time we found it. It made the water that much more refreshing!

This was for sure the most beautiful place we found. The water was so clear and those big rocks! The only downside was the water was COLD. Like, your joints hurt it is so cold, and you couldn't really get used to it.

The boys were in within seconds as usual. They loved jumping off everything.

Deciding where to jump. It was very deep between those rocks, probably from the power of the waterfall. I tried to swim up in there but it was too strong!

Marc said he loved climbing up there because it made him feel like Spider Man.

Travis jumping. He is so brave!

I did my usual floating around. That is all the action I need.

Beautiful clear water. I can't believe how cold it was! Even colder than the Florida spring we visited on our road trip last year.

This was a popular spot and started to fill up with people after a while. There wasn't a great place to sit and eat, so we crouched on rocks in the middle of the creek trying to find sun spots. I felt like Gollum (and I loved it).

We didn't stay for a long time, it was just too cold! Maybe if the sun would have been able to reach down through the trees it would have been better. Still, it was gorgeous and I'm glad we went.

We drove back to the cabin to get cleaned up then into town to have dinner with my friend Marrion and her boyfriend Tim. She moved to Asheville about a year ago and I miss her! She suggested a place called Salsas, which does Mexican/Caribbean.

It was amazing!!! I got the sweet potato paquetas. Mmmm, I want to eat it again. That drink was great too. It was a watermelon cocktail.

This is what Travis got. He doesn't remember what it was, but he liked it. How is that for a review?

For some reason we were talking about Batman movies and how we wished Batman Forever and Batman & Robin were on Netflix. Marrion and Tim told us about a local rental place called Orbit. It was awesome! Who knew I would miss video stores.

The only thing was they have everything organized in categories, and who knew Batman would be under sci-fi?

Here is a dog I saw.

The last place we went is called Pour. Asheville has lots of breweries, so if you like beer you are in luck. I don't really, so this place was great! You get an electronic bracelet and you swipe it by the beers you want to try, then you pay by the ounce. It was a cool way to try a bunch of stuff. I didn't find any beer I liked, but I did LOVE the Framboise Lambic and all the ciders I tried.

What a great idea for a bar! We had a lot of fun.

They also have hand cut fries and fried brussel sprouts. Yum!

I love vacation!

Doughnuts and the first of many swimmin' holes

First things first when visiting a new town, go for doughnuts and look for a local alternative paper. We ended up at Vortex Doughnuts and the cover story of the paper that week happened to be 'Our 9 Favorite Swimming Holes." How perfect is that?

I didn't find Vortex on any of my searches because they don't mention their extensive vegan doughnut selection anywhere. Thankfully a longtime internet friend suggested it to me through amazon!

They had a whole counter full of beautiful donuts made with local ingredients and a whole tray of them were vegan! And they weren't just cake doughnuts, they had yeast doughnuts too! I hadn't had one of those since I went vegan.

We got blueberry sugar, chocolate coconut, vanilla, and I forget what the pink one was. They were all delicious! We came back another day and I got a mango margarita one! It was amazing! I really wish a place in Nashville would make doughnuts like this.

Travis and I got iced chai's as well. This one was weird. It was really just a glass a soy milk with spices on top? The second visit it was an actual iced chai, so that first one must have been a mistake. Haha. It still tasted pretty good.

After we got fueled up on sugar we headed for our first swimming hole, Hooker Falls. I think I picked this one first because the trail to get to it was very short. Since it was Saturday the parking lot was PACKED but it wasn't too bad at the falls.

 All these photos were taken with my little waterproof Fuji camera. Sometimes they look great, sometimes they get a little hazy. I think because the water was FREEZING and the air was hot. I still love that little camera. One of my favorite things about it is you can set it up to connect wirelessly with your phone. So you can post your underwater pics on instagram without having to us a computer!

 The water was very cold so it took a minute to get up your courage to jump in.

Does that waterfall look familiar to you? I found out after we left that this was one of the falls featured in the Hunger Games! You can find lots of pictures online of people posing in front of it with bows and arrows.

 Travis loved standing under the waterfall.

 And laying under the waterfall.

 And sliding down the rocks in front of the waterfall.

 Here is his selfie under the water! There is a video too. It's really funny! It looks like the camera couldn't keep up with the speed of the water. And it must be hard to pose while you are getting beat by falling water.

 I just floated around with my unicorn float. It was wonderful.

Does anything taste better than a picnic on the side of a swimming hole? We had tofurkey sandwiches, and peanut butter filled pretzels all week. Yum.

 Is this too many photos? I had 350 from here, it was so hard to narrow it down!

 Of all the places we went over the week, this one was my favorite.

 We all exhausted ourselves swimming so we went back to our cabin and had a fire and a cookout.

 Crystal and I supervised and danced.

 The wood we had to use was a little wet so the boys futzed with the fire. They both love doing that actually, so it was probably their favorite night of vacation.

 We had hot dogs and corn on the cob and beans. We planned to have grilled plums, but Travis forgot they were on the grill for a good hour. Haha, oops!

We ended the night with a wild game of Phase 10! Crystal beat us all, by  ALOT! It was a great day.