Grandfather and his Chimney Rock

After a long hiatus, here's a blog about an old man smoking a rock. I'm teasing. Grandfather and Chimney Rock are mountains in the Blue Ridge Range of the Southern Appalachians, which is where I was over the long weekend (and week) in May.

Every Memorial Day weekend, we get itchy feet. Spring semester's almost at an end. Winter's over even in Seattle, though wet gray days won't be over until after the Fourth of July. So we flee to warmer, sunnier climes. Along with the natural beauty, Charlotte and Blue Ridge promised a chance to meet dear friends from college and a dear, dear friend I would be meeting for the first time.

First the mountains...

Grandfather has the distinction of being home to a privately-owned biosphere and a swinging bridge that's more than a mile above sea level. Imagine yourself standing on swaying, creaking wooden slats, like a boat at sea, with spaces in between the slats and merely two horizontal bars on the sides. Now, imagine the bridge suspended between two rocks. Finally, imagine looking down and seeing the tops of fir trees 100 feet below. The experience is surreal, as is the view of the slate gray-blue lines of the Blue Ridge mountain range. For 65 years old (if one human year is akin to one million mountain years), Grandfather sure is a spry host. Sixteen different natural communities, seventy rare and endangered species, 200 types of birds, and 12 miles of backcountry trails ensure that visitors are suitably entertained.

Chimney Rock was privately-held by the Morse family until two years ago. "Chimney Top," "Groundhog Slide," "Inspiration Point," Nature's Showerbath," and "Exclamation Point" are some of the places along the Skyline Cliff Trail that you would recognize, if you'd seen Daniel Day Lewis (ooh!) in The Last of the Mohicans. First, we had a chance to ride in a 26-story elevator blasted through the center of a solid granite mountain. Then we stumbled from rock to rock, panted over steep steps, and squeezed through the Wild Cat Trap. Phew! for ice-cream that turns your tongue electric blue.

Sierra Club founder John Muir wrote to his daughter Helen about his summit climb of Grandfather: "I couldn't hold in, and began to jump about and sing and glory in it all." Fear of starting an avalanche kept me from acting in kind though I sure wanted to.

[Chimney Rock, NC Hwy 64 Exit 71-A, www.chimneyrockpark.com
Grandfather Mountain, NC Hwy 221 & Blue Ridge Pkwy, www.grandfather.com]

Now on to the reason for this post...

Our heroes and heroines always have friends. It's through these friends that, as readers and writers, we get to know our main characters better. In doing so, we also explore the nature of friendships and their essential importance to our very being.

I enjoy corresponding with friends, be it hand-written letters, postcards, blogging, texting, or twittering. My first pen-pal (a rather anachronistic word, isn't it?) is now a 27-year-old friendship. I'm still in e-mail contact with my kindergarten friends. I'm just (ouch, Diane) so not a phone person!

I have made some of the most wonderful friends in the romance community since my first entrée via Squawk Radio in 2005-ish. Most of these people I haven't even met yet.

So, when a chance came up to meet one such amazing friend in person on our trip to Charlotte, I jumped at it. She's PJ. She drove across state lines. She hand-crafted chocolate that's far superior to Godiva's and brought it with her. And the three hours that I spent in her company were over in an instant. I have missed her ever since...