Day 2 - Maggie Valley

The remainder of Day 1 was spent having a lovely dinner at the recommended The Sweet Onion and getting groceries for the cabin in the neighboring town of Waynesville.

Yesterday (Day 2), I let the hubs sleep in nice and late. I got up and went out on to the porch, so I could listen to the bubbling brook and see what the morning had brought (peace and quiet). The weather was warm and sunny...a perfect day for exploring. We had originally planned to go to Asheville, but no matter how much research I did online and through brochures, I just did not see anything specific jump out at me. That's not to say I won't explore it sometime, but I do better with a place to start, a destination, before I can "wing it".

Case in point.....we decided to "wing it" by exploring Maggie Valley and Waynesville, because we saw some cute shops I wanted to visit. Welllll, it turns out that Maggie Valley is the very definition of a "sleepy little town" in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Right now, they're between ski season and summer tourist season. Our very first destination on the outskirts of town, with an observation tower for awesome pictures, had a For Sale sign on it. Bummer. But the view from the ground there was still quite lovely.

Maggie Valley view

We drove back towards the town, and decided to just stop when we saw something interesting. Half of the shops and the restaurants were closed, and some of the places kept short hours. One of the shopkeepers said she was only opened Fri and Sat during the ski season, and just opened completely last week. We still had another two or three weeks before more places opened. They were touristy-type shops, but still cute and kitschy. A couple of really cool antique places that were open were fun to explore, too.

 

 

It was 1:30pm, and I was getting hungry for lunch, but most of the eating places in Maggie Valley were not open for the season yet, or closing at 2:00pm. Brad noticed a Bojangles nearby, and I said I really wanted to avoid chain places, and eat "local". After going back and forth with each other, I finally conceded defeat. It's just lunch, and not a life decision, but a tiny part of me died as I bit into the yummy fried chicken. I should have known I was in trouble for lunch choices, when the log cabin owner made a point to mention that a new Chik Fil A opened in Waynesville recently, like that was front-page news.

Sleepy town is sleepy...

From the soul-sucking Bojangles, we drove into Waynesville so I could visit a large Antique Mall and the Mast General Store I saw the night before. Downtown Waynesville is super charming, and they are operating as a normal town, and not just seasonal. The general store was very cool, and the antique mall was the kind of place I like to get lost in. We drove back to the cabin to make ourselves some supper and relax for the rest of the night.

Day 3 will find us at the casino! Stay tuned!