From the mountains to the sea.....or vice versa

This week, we went from this on Monday:

         to this on Tuesday:

That's what I love about the Carolinas!

The small black dot in the center is where we live.

If you look at a map of North and South Carolina together, our small town is about smack dab in the center.  A three hour drive one way and you're on the coast with sand between your toes and the sweet warm Atlantic Ocean at your feet.  A three hour drive the other way and you'll be beside a cool mountain stream catching a rainbow trout for dinner.  At noon on Monday at the beach, the temperature was in the mid 90's.  At noon on Wednesday in the mountains, the temperature was 69 degrees.  What a difference!

This sweet little mountain cabin sits right beside the North fork of the French Broad River and belongs to my youngest daughter's family and her mother-in-law.  It's such a sweet place to go and relax and pretend that it isn't the hottest month of the year in the South.

More photos......

This is a Rhododendron bud.  You'll see the full blooms below.

 The next few pictures are of the Rhododendrons.  They are a natural native plant to the Carolina mountains. 
In a good year a single bush can have hundreds of clusters of flowers while thousands of bushes spread out over the mountains.

 We caught two different species of trout.  This is hubby with a small rainbow trout on one end and a LARGE rainbow trout on the other end of his stringer.  This is just a small sampling of what was caught.  He and my son-in-law and grandson caught enough rainbow trout and native brown trout for us to have a splendid meal on our last night there.

Paradise!  This is a photo made from the their patio made of river rocks built right on the banks of the river in front on the cabin.  You can see the "rocky" patio in the 3rd picture from the top.

It was a wonderful sixteen day vacation, but I'm ever so glad to be home!  It's true what they say - there's no place like home.