welcome to North Carolina

After we left Savannah, we took our sweet time getting to North Carolina.  Well, we were all about the interstates, but we traveled in a very relaxed sort of way.  We're good together in the car because we are a silly people.

Here's when we knew we had crossed out of South Carolina:

MOUNTAINS!  What!  What!  And the temperature dipped lower and lower toward Asheville.  People, it was so refreshing.

A bit of back story on our accommodations.  We had planned to rent an A-frame cabin near Asheville for a week.  As word spread among Steve's family that we were heading to North Carolina for our honeymoon, his lovely cousin offered her cabin to us instead!  Her cabin on 17 acres.  Just outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We gladly accepted!  This is Steve's aunt's cabin on his cousin's property - she insisted we look inside and it was so charming I almost fainted:
'
Maybe what you can't see from this photo are three ponds and a creek snaking through the property.

But here's the creek:

I kept thinking of Tuck Everlasting.

And some flowers on the bank:


And dogwood coming out against the evening on the very same bank:


We sat at this picnic table and listened to that creek for long stretches:


Nature!  I love it so.  The next morning, I caught a glimpse of this cardinal flying from tree to tree:

When I asked Steve if he had a lens to better capture this bird who happened to hang around for a bit, he said, "People who take bird pictures generally don't have a pulse."  Asked.  And answered.