We’re back from a beauti-FULL weekend of car rides, quick tours, celebrations, coffee stops, and family.
I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Things we loved in St. Augustine:
A great weekend filled with lots of new memories 🙂
Last weekend one of my good friends from college got married in western North Carolina, giving me a chance to mark item #72 off of my 101 in 1001 list: take a mountain trip.
Our decision to make it an overnight trip happened last minute so when we began the search for a place to stay, hotels were either booked or prices were way more than what we like to pay. After looking for a bit with no luck, we were happy to see a bed and breakfast called Carrier Houses pop up and we gave them a call. They had one room left for the night and we quickly decided to book
We left Friday morning and made our way west and by 10 o’clock, I was starting to get hungry. Fortunately, a gem called Biscuitville appeared on Google Maps and we made a stop for breakfast!
Full of carbs, we continued to make our way towards Ruthefordton and arrived just a few minutes before our check in time. The bed and breakfast was located on the main street of the downtown so we took a quick walk to explore the shops, restaurants, and an antique shop before checking in.
Once we returned we met our innkeepers {and wonderful hosts}, Dan and Lynn. For the next few minutes Dan showed us around the house, told us about breakfast the next morning, and gave us some recommendations on local places to try.
image from the Carrier Houses website
We had talked about visiting Chimney Rock {about a 25-30 minute drive}, but because it was almost 4pm and the park gate closed at 5, I wasn’t sure if it was worth the trip. But thankfully I married a man who is much more positive and he said we should go anyways. So we did! Five points for you, G.
On our little adventure to Chimney Rock, I was reminded also that my husband 1.) is smarter than me because the drive alone was worth the trip 2.) loves me despite my athletic ability {hello huffing and puffing on our walk up to the Chimney}. But we made it and enjoyed some beautiful views!
I took the picture below after I asked G where our mountain home was going to be. Unfortunately, he wasn’t pointing closer to Lake Lure, but whatever… we’ll hang it in our mountain home one day and look back at the picture and be reminded of our young newlywed days.
One of my favorite views is Exclamation Point and it was the last stop on our tour-de-Chimney-Rock-in-a-hour. As always, it was fun to experience a new place with G. Hot-hubs alert below…
We headed back to Ruthefordton for the night and grabbed dinner and hot chocolate downtown before heading in for the night {I know, I know, we bring the par-tay}.
The next morning we woke up and made our way to the house next door for breakfast with other inn guests. The company was good and our food was even better {egg and spinach crepes with cheese grits, fruit, and muffins}.
Before we left for the wedding, we snapped a few pictures outside. Overall, we were both pleasantly surprised at how much we liked staying at the bed and breakfast {a first for both of us} and we definitely will check into local options more often!
Since we had time between check-out and the wedding, we made our way to downtown Asheville which is full of shops, restaurants, and interesting people. Hopefully one day we will head back and spend more time {and maybe even spend some time at the Biltmore}.
Onto the wedding where Marky-Mark got married to Molly! Just three months ago they were celebrating with us at our wedding, so it was fun to celebrate them on there wedding day. Not to mention, seeing these familiar faces is always a treat!
ps – if you invite us to your wedding, we promise to be fun.
After our first day of traveling and the next two days of storms and sunshine, we were finally ready to explore the island of St. Lucia! And what better way than a few local tours! Before going to St. Lucia, we had asked a few friends about tours they had done. When our concierges confirmed that those were our best options, we were all set!
On Thursday, we went out with Simon Says Tours. And no, he didn’t make us play a game:) This tour had a little bit of everything, which we loved! We left around 9 or 10 that morning and headed down to our shuttle for the day… a boat! There was probably about 15-20 people total, including our tour guides which made for a comfortable ride.
Along the way we made stops at Marigot Bay…
Jade Mountain {bonus: this is where the Bachelor finale was filmed when Jake picked Vienna}…
the majestic Pitons…
a snorkeling spot…
a bat cave…
the town of Soufrière {where we visited Sulphur Springs Park and took a mud bath and rinsed in the hot springs, more on that below}…
a local restaurant…
and a quick dip at the bottom of Toraille Waterfall.
Probably the most memorable part of the day for Gary and I was the mud bath. But unfortunately, it wasn’t memorable for a good reason, although now we can laugh about it. Like I mentioned before, we had both gotten sunburned the previous day. When we reached the mud bath site, we found out that in order for the mud bath to work, you have to take a dip in the volcanic spring (over 100 degrees in temperature). I love a hot bath but not when I’m sunburned… and this was hotttt. I have never seen a more distressed look on Gary’s face until that moment. And did I mention how you get the mud off? Well you take another dip in the hot water! Picture me pool-side, trying to splash hot water so I don’t singe my skin but eventually having to jump in as quickly as possible. Like I said before, we both laugh at this story now but oh-my-goodness I wish we didn’t have sunburns when we visited.
Happy at our resort after a fun day with Simon!
Our next day had us wearing hairnets, harnesses, and helmets in the rainforest with Treetop Adventure Park! We both wanted to try ziplining and zipline we did!
In total we did 12 zips and were able to soar above and through the beautiful, lush, green rainforest!
Here is a video I tried capturing on one of the zips. {just a warning: it’s shaky and sometimes the audio and video don’t sync}
On the way back from our zipping through the forest, we made a stop at the overlook pictured below. It was beautiful!
Our two days of adventuring through St. Lucia were over, and our honeymoon was coming to an end. I’d say it was a pretty good first week of marriage:)
But the adventures were just starting and we had another waiting for us when we got back to Georgia: moving!
atwelladventures.com 