Camping trip

Harrison and I had a very fun weekend, even though our plans changed pretty drastically. We planned to camp at Lake Santeetlah, in Robbinsville, NC with about eight of our Asheville buddies. Harrison went to claim the campsite early on Thursday and then Christen, Adam and I met up with him on Friday night. We were pretty tired, so we talked by the fire for about an hour and then climbed into our tents for the night.

On Saturday, we ate breakfast and made some delicious coffee with Christen's French press. Afterward, we reserved a boat for the afternoon to take out on the lake when the rest of our friends arrived. While we waited for them, we floated around the slew in our inner tubes and got a little sun. About an hour after the rest of our crew arrived, the sky turned black and a massive thunderstorm ensued. We sat in our cars, hoping that it would just 'blow over,' but when the rain let up, we realized that the campsite was a muddy mess and we wouldn't be able to stay there for the weekend.

Luckily, we were able to cancel our boat reservations. Christen made some calls and was able to reserve three yurt cabins for all of us at the Nantahala River which was about 20 minutes away. We quickly packed up all of our gear and began Plan B. The yurts were adorable! They were well-decorated with a queen size bed, a double size futon, and mini-fridge.

There was a large hot tub that we all jumped into almost immediately upon our arrival. It was so nice to soak in it after being soaking wet from the cold rain! Unfortunately, pregnant Lesley could only dip her toes in the water :(

The rain had tapered off and we were ready to cook dinner. We had a ton of food that we were planning on grilling at our original campsite, so we piled everything together and made a smorgasbord at the pavilion. It had a nice size charcoal grill and we also used Christen's camp stove. We had chips, dips, burgers, dogs, burritos, corn-on-the-cob, veggies, and quesadillas! The food was so good!

After dinner, Harrison and Andy took our canoe out on the little lake/pond near the yurts. Christen was showing Melissa how she casts her fly fishing rod and she unfortunately caught a Melissa! It was a tiny hook and it got her in the arm. Melissa didn't even notice it.

I got Harrison's Leather man (to use the wire cutters) and a pair of tweezers and performed a little outdoor surgery on the spot! Melissa was a trooper and the hook was out in no time. Look at how great she handled the whole ordeal:

SUCCESS!

Later we went to the girls' yurt, which had the most amazing view overlooking Lake Fontana and mountains in the distance. The sunset was breathtaking!

We spent all night on their porch just talking and having an amazing time! We're going to miss these friends so badly when we move :( but we still have one more month to spend time with them all!