Road Trip: Valle Crucis

A few days before I left, Alexis and the boys and I took a little road trip to a town up in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Valle Crucis. It's an adorable little place.

Things of Note:

Valle Crucis' community park has an amazing creek that was PERFECT for swimming. Unfortunately, we didn't know it was there and arrived unprepared. So the boys jumped in with their shorts on and Bennett stripped down to his diaper, and I remembered my funnest summers swimming down at the river with Emily. There is nothing I like swimming in more than rivers.

Bennet's post-swim diaper was hilarious. It obviously all turned to gel, must have weighed about 15 pounds, and hung off him with a 3-inch gap in between the diaper and his bum. (Please see below.) He was totally oblivious for the hour we were playing in the river, but then as we walked away, he's like, "Aunt Kinzshie, my diaper fall off." Indeed it did.

This is the Mast General Store. It's huge and chock-full of random stuff, including local jams, preserves, and baking mixes with all sorts of southern specialties (e.g. hush puppy mix), pretty placemats that I bought fro $1.50 each, and toys and candy galore. I bought a pecan roll (YUM) and gummy bottles. Alexis and I had a standoff over whether they were cola or root beer. The package didn't say. I went with root beer, but I think I'm wrong. And I bought pumpkin butter.

There was an apple tree out back that I robbed for the boys. I thought they were crab apples, but instead they were little tiny granny-smiths that actually tasted divine. Also, Bennett can consume a popsicle bigger than his head.