Camping Trip

Hello, everyone!

This past weekend, a couple of friends and I went on a little hiking/camping excursion to a place called Graveyard Fields in the mountains of North Carolina. It is located about an hour south of Asheville on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway. The weekend was, shall we say, an adventure. But before we get to that, let's talk about how the day started!

We got to Asheville around lunch time and met one of my best friends, who lives in the area, for lunch at the Laughing Seed Café downtown. I'd done some investigation into their menu online before I went, and knew exactly what I wanted before we even arrived. First of all, their entire menu is vegetarian to begin with, and a huge number of the items are vegan and/or gluten free, or can be made that way upon request. They are more than willing to accommodate your individual needs. I was faced with a bit of indecision because everything looked so amazing, but I saw two items that particularly jumped out at me and fit perfectly with my current eating plan. First was the Omega Hempnut Burger. It's made with a hempnut patty and served with lettuce, tomato, red onion, clover sprouts, grated carrots, and red cabbage with a red pepper aioli. However, there was also another item that caught my attention called the Dragon Bowl. It's part of a couple of items they have on the raw portion of their menu and contains (are you ready for all this?): cauliflower-nut rice, seasonal vegetables, arugula, avocado, and a sunflower seed-beet paté, all topped with house made kim chee, organic purple kraut, and miso-tahini sauce.

Now, before your overwhelming anxiety sets in wondering how I could ever possibly choose between these two incredible options, let me put your mind at ease...I ordered both! For the burger, I just had them leave off the bun, and normally their sandwiches are served with organic blue corn chips, but I upgraded this to their jalapeño onion fries because...well, why would you not? I figured that I could just take any leftovers that I had with me up to the mountains to either eat as a snack during the day or to accompany our dinner that night (more on that later). This wasn't an issue though, because there was nothing leftover to take. I happily and shamelessly devoured it all. I would have loved to have taken a picture to show you the glory that was placed on the table in front of me, but my primal instincts kicked in before I ever had a chance to grab my phone. If you're ever in downtown Asheville looking for a unique, affordable place to eat that emphasizes quality, healthy, local ingredients, you MUST visit The Laughing Seed Café located above Jack of the Wood pub. Check out their website and menu here and be sure to Like them on Facebook!

Pleasantly full, we headed out to the mountains. The weather during the day was absolutely PERFECT for hiking. When we arrived, we immediately went to the campsite and set up the tent to save our spot.

Me setting up the tent. Photo courtesy of April Gardner.

At Graveyard Fields, there are two sets of water falls, the upper and lower falls. Our campsite was just below the lower falls, so we walked back up to them and spent a bit of time just relaxing in the sun on the rocks in the river, enjoying the spray of the falls.

Vitamin D at its finest. Please pardon my pastiness.

We then decided to start the hike to the upper falls. It had rained the previous day and night, so there was quite a bit of mud and extra water running along parts of the trail, but it was still a very enjoyable hike. When we arrived at the base of the upper falls, there was a dry enough path up the rocks so that we could walk up them to view the upper falls in their entirety.

I'll take views like this any day.

We then hiked back to the parking area to gather the reminder of our supplies for the evening (including all of our firewood and water) and hauled it back down to the campsite. By this time, the sun was beginning to set and the temperature began noticeably dropping. We got the fire started then began to prepare our food. The night before, we had already chopped all of our vegetables and put them into plastic containers. We also took a bottle of olive oil and poured in part of a packet of chimichurri herbs that I had and let it sit over night. We then placed the vegetables in foil packets with some of the oil, then placed them by the fire. We actually had three different packets. One contained potatoes, carrots, onions, and bell peppers. Another contained eggplant, zucchini, and sweet potatoes. The third contained some apples, pears, and bananas (no oil in that one).

Our cooking set-up (no idea why the fire's purple) and one of the packets. (Click for larger image)

By this time, it was getting cold...not just a little chilly out. No, I mean COLD, as in ice-forming-on-all-our-stuff-including-our-sleeping-bags cold. After eating a bit, we made the executive decision around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. to break camp and head back to the car. What had taken us a total of 3 trips throughout the day to carry down to the campsite we somehow managed to gather up into one single load. The distance back to the parking area was only about 1/3 of a mile, but there's quite an elevation change, so it took a solid 20 minutes to get everything back up, not to mention the added weight of all our gear (my packs alone weighed a total of about 55 lbs). After all of that, I was glad that I had eaten all of my food at Laughing Seed plus one of each of the packets we'd made, otherwise I'd have been struggling. Once we got back to my trusty 4Runner, I drove us back down off the mountains and back to my friends' place in Johnson City with the comforts of heat and cats to keep us warm, where we arrived a little after 3:00 a.m.

My portion of the gear in the back of the 4Runner.

All in all, it was still a fun experience, and we're already planning a redo sometime once the weather gets warmer, though possibly more in the area of Hot Springs, NC. I'm hoping to go grocery shopping again this week and to try some new recipe ideas I've got circling around in my brain. Stay tuned to see how they turn out!

Much love to you all,

Jon