the blowing rock, nc

This past Saturday, we took 2 carloads of adventurers to The Blowing Rock in North Carolina.  While we missed the beautiful fall foliage by a few weeks, the views were still beautiful.  For those who don't know about the Blowing Rock, legend has it that an Indian chief wanted to keep his beautiful daughter away from the white man, so he hid her in the mountains with a squaw mother to care for her.  One day she saw a Cherokee brave and playfully shot an arrow towards him.  He was taken by her beauty, and they fell in love.  Some time later, the brave thought to return to his tribe as was his responsibility.  The maiden cried and begged him to stay, so he jumped off the cliff.  The maiden was heart broken, and cried to the spirit of the mountains, and a wind came and blew the brave back up and into her arms.

 Now, while the formation of the mountains do create a unique wind funnel and Ripleys added this site for the snow that falls up, I'm not convinced that that wind would blow a man back up. But it is a beautiful story, with beautiful views.  The kids loved it, and this worked well with our recent homeschool lesson on mountains.  As you can see, everyone had a smile on their face, despite the cold temps.

 This last picture is my favorite, the girls looking for their handsome braves perhaps?