I booked the Rustic Refuge cabin in Blue Ridge the first weekend in November for all the girls. Tiffany and Megan couldn't make it so I invited Kristi in their place. Kristi already knew Kim, Melissa and Britany and had asked about joining us a time before. The weather cooperated nicely. It could have been cooler, but overall, things were great. Kristi was supposed to ride up with me, but she got delayed at work so I drove up alone. I was so looking forward to our two hour ride together to catch up, but I just didn't want to wait around and get stuck in traffic going north.
I ended up catching up with Kim in Ellijay at Krystal's and we followed each other the rest of the way. I couldn't figure out what this was in the background, just above the trees and then realized it was smoke from the forest fires. It was so weird though because there was a clear line on where the smoke was and wasn't.
Kim and I arrived at 4:00 and got unpacked and hung out on the swing on the front porch. For supper we did our traditional antipasto platter with tons of salami, cheese, crackers and pickled items. Obviously very low in fat, calories and sodium.
Everyone else got to the cabin within 30 minutes of each other. Kristi was the last one to arrive, but not that much later. We all poured drinks and began chatting. Oh, and made sure to grab the selfie stick. Very important for documenting!
Shots!
My face! I'm clearly such a big fan of shots.
After supper we all climbed in the hot tub. And stayed in there for a long time. And discussed many different topics. I played my first game of "Never have I ever." It was all done very loudly. See, the jets were on and we had music playing so we were trying to talk over that, but also partly because we were all pretty much drunk. We didn't realize how close our neighbors were and found out the next morning they may have overheard some stuff they didn't want to.
Then we took a bunch of pictures that no really remembers doing or knows why we did. Because-alcohol.
I do remember someone (possibly me) saying we could probably get a lot of money if we sent in a picture of all of our legs/feet to one of those fetish sites so that's why this one here was taken. Oh the quality is undeniable.
Melissa was crushing hard on this tree and wanted to forever capture her love for it. Hippie.
But then she made us all get out of the warm water and walk across dirt and leaves to show our love for it too. Then she wondered why the hot tub was so dirty afterwards.
More drunken photos I literally didn't remember taking the next day. You know I was drinking because I typically remember everything even when alcohol is running through my system.
I may have crawled up the steps a few times that night in fear I'd fall off or backwards if I attempted to walk. Laura and Melissa enjoyed watching this.
The next morning everyone was feeling a little "off." We had mimosas and Britany fixed eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy. Kim served yogurt with bananas and candied walnuts.
I was in my sock monkey onesie for most of the day.
I had no real intention of going anywhere all day Saturday, but Kristi wanted to go for a hike. I'd completely forgotten I'd brought my tent until Kelsie mentioned how nice it would be if we had one. So I loaned it out to her. She napped while Kristi and I hiked and got caught up.
We went somewhere Kristi had hiked before not too long ago. It was a nice, slightly cool, overcast day. But.....the forest fires were burning and the smoke was blowing over our way. That made it a little difficult to breathe here and there, but not terrible.
This is a crappy picture, but it's a cross section of a log. It split open and inside is an acorn (which I'm sure some kid shoved in) and the tiniest mushrooms I've ever seen. It was very difficult to get the flash to work and focus at the same time hence the less-than-perfect photo.
Due to the horrible drought we were in, the waterfall wasn't exactly flowing as it should have been. Basically, this entire spance of rock should have been covered, but it was just a tiny trickle. Rhododendron bushes were all around, but extremely limp and weepy looking due to being so dry.
We found the most vibrant leaves on the forest floor. I collected a handful to bring back to Stella.
After breakfast, I'd put on a pot of soup in the slow cooker for supper. It was a white chicken chili and was amazing. I served it with firecrackers and Melissa brought that yummy slaw mix from Costco and bread.
Then Melissa made brownies and made the whole cabin smell incredible. Kelsie brought caramel syrup (for the apple cider mimosas we were supposed to have but didn't) and we had whipped cream (not sure why) and the leftover candied walnuts, so we all made brownie sundaes.
We played Cards Against Humanity and listened to late 90's/early 2000's boy band music. Not my first choice in music, but entertaining as hell to watch.
Kelsie ended up standing here singing along to BSB while Britany, Laura and Lauren danced along. That video is the.best.
We didn't stay up as late Saturday night since we had to be up somewhat early to straighten up and check out. Plus, everyone had hit it pretty hard the night before so this was just a low-key thing.
The next morning, we had a good laugh over what is and isn't a "tub." Laura asked where to put the sheets and towels and I said, "Just throw them in the tub." Later she asked "You meant the washer right?" I said, "No, I meant the tub. The bathtub, but that's fine." Turns out, she thought "tub" was Southern for "washer."
So later on when I was walking around some stores in downtown Blue Ridge and came across this, I had to snap a picture and share with our group.
We all left right at 10 am. Everyone but me and Kristi had other obligations so we met downtown and walked around for a bit. We did a little window shopping, tried on some clothes and actually purchased a few things. It was a nice way to end our girls trip. Already looking forward to the next one.
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