Weekend Adventure in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee & Asheville, North Carolina

This weekend my wife and I decided we'd had enough of the rat race so we hit the road for a short weekend trip to Asheville, North Carolina for a yoga workshop led by Kino MacGregor. We left Saturday morning and headed to one of our favorite hiking trails that leads to a pool in a mountain stream called Midnight Hole. The water was much too cold to swim in the deep part but I did wade a bit and did some sort of risky yoga poses on some of the rocks in the creek.

Handstand (of course)

The handstand kind of rattled my nerves a bit because the rock surface was very uneven and if I went over backwards who knows what I'd have landed on (rocks inevitably but it could have been bad--calculated risk....). But I held it for about 15 seconds and felt that was sufficient.

Flying Pigeon

Side Crow Pose

The hike was about 4 miles round trip as we made it up to mouse creek falls which is a bit past the pool that people swim in with about a 10 foot rock that's fun to jump off of when the water's not bone chilling cold.

Maybe later this summer I'll do it. Didn't snap any pictures of the pool..oh well, maybe next time.It was nice to get in a moderate hike and not wear ourselves out the day before the 2 hour yoga class.

We really enjoyed getting back to this spot to which we've hiked several times, it's not very crowded and the scenery is beautiful.

It's tucked away just off Interstate 40 near the North Carolina / Tennessee border and even the views from the interstate (despite the traffic ahead and ugly orange signs) were amazing.

I actually didn't really take any pictures beyond the hike Saturday as we were in the hotel the rest of the evening and the class was the next morning. It was a Primary Series Ashtanga class and the length of time she made us hold all the poses was insane. Slowest. Counter. Ever. I've been sore for the past 2 days and work has been kind of a drag but oh well. Gotta live life, right?

What actually helped spur this trip was we were about to lose our free night's stay that we earned on Hotels.com so we used it two weeks before it expired. Also good motivation to get out of town.

Now we're back to the grind of the work week anticipating our next adventure together in July.