After 3 consecutive snow days I was super happy to stick the kids in school and get out and enjoy the sunshine… (that just sounds wrong, doesn’t it?) Along the Parkway I found more evidence of spring – the melting of hundreds of icicles along the rocks. The sound of all that drip, drip, dripping was pretty enjoyable, too.

After a quick stop at Starbucks (I swear that’s not the only reason I use the Parkway) I tried to photograph the mountains. But alas, big barricades prevent dummies like me from driving up tall, winding mountain roads in icy conditions. So I settled for this view from the back of a car lot (not on the Parkway!) I will say that the snow does make the mountains pretty – they’re not as brown & hairy with a nice coating of dandruff on top. Okay, that sounds gross. Really, truly, they’re pretty.

After meandering some more I headed over to the park by the French Broad river, which was gurgling and bubbling and practically overflowing with all that extra mountain ice & snow melting into it. When I first pulled into the park I was totally admiring that gorgeous blue water (from my car) when I spotted…

…this. This opossum. Having never encountered an opossum before, I found myself wondering whether it could be a vicious attack animal. I didn’t really want to find out, so I called Mark (had I been thinking I would have just looked up “opossum” on Wikipedia on my phone and spared Mark the amusement.) He assured me that they moved pretty slowly but warned me to stay away from it if it was foaming at the mouth. Since I didn’t have a telephoto lens with me, I couldn’t really tell if it was foaming at the mouth…but I did get out of the car and he/she didn’t seem very keen on chasing me…so I took some pictures.

When I showed the kids these photos they said, “Awww, cute!” And I said, “Really? You think that thing is cute?”

It should also be noted that Mark never did call me back to see if I survived my vicious animal encounter.

After taking a few more photos it was time to pick up Harper from preschool, thus ending my adventurous (and enjoyable) morning out! All hail the kinder, gentler weather that is in the forecast. Too bad Cole has to go to school on Saturdays to make up for the snow days…

As long as I ignore the 10-day forecast I’m totally happy with this little glimpse of things to come.

I am not fond of winter. At all. But one nice thing about all of this snow & cold sticking around longer than usual is that we’ve had quite a few backdoor visitors.
Copious amounts of birdseed seems to help as well…

Our neighbors gave us this bird feeder for Christmas. Isn’t it cute? I think it makes the real birds think they already have friends at the feeder.

Big, bad birdseed hog…

Bravest bird of the bunch…

You are not a bird!

All photos were taken through the window with our 70-200mm 2.8 lens.

Our poor flowers – the cold/rainy/warm weather has confused them and they seem to think it’s spring again. Don’t we wish we could just skip over winter?

Our azaleas, rhodos, hydrangeas and lilies are all blooming.

As are the wild roses, though I don’t think they’ve stopped blooming since March or something…we bought them on clearance a few years ago and they have just taken off like crazy! They must like the Carolina clay.

The milkweed is finally going to seed, however. (Let me know if you need some seeds to start your own butterfly garden!)

And further evidence of the remnants of fall…the beautiful leaves have come and gone.

Some might call me stubborn….or at the very least, persistent. But I really didn’t want this trip to be our primary memory of the mountains in the Fall, and I was still curious to see what the fuss was about. So, back we went (Aunt Kris, Grandma, baby Lark, Cole and I.) Back up the bumpy, windy 5 mile drive up and around and around and around. Back to the overfilled parking lot with other eager hikers climbing up the trail. Back up with a hat, scarf, mittens and extra shoes in the trunk…just in case.
But look there! It’s the sun I spy! We’re in luck! Or perhaps we just paid better attention to the weather forecast this time.

A sudden reminder of our past adventures…mud. But not nearly as much as last time.

Not that we minded, because shortly thereafter we saw this! Ah, yes, now this is worth it. The view was goooooorgeous, and stretched on for miles in every direction. Mmm, can you smell that mountain air?

When Cole came back home he told Mark that he’d seen “the whole world”. It felt like that just a tiny bit.

Mission accomplished.

PS. Baby Lark slept right through it…which I guess means we’ll have to go back again. at some point. just not this year.

Saturday was exquisite here in WNC!

I heart colorful leaves!