The River Awaits

My plan is to blog while I'm on vacation. Why, you ask? Because I love to. And because I can... they've rigged my camping area with WiFi - no kidding.

Vacation! For fourteen out of the last sixteen years Shari and I have taken our vacation in the same area, the mountains of western North Carolina. We camp beside a quiet little lake in Swannanoa with the Blue Ridge mountains as a backdrop. From our campsite we watch the sun rise over the mountains to our right, and we watch it set over the mountains to our left.

In North Carolina, I am up each morning long before anyone else is. I absolutely love the quiet, cool mornings by the lake. Some of the best reading, praying and thinking time I've ever enjoyed have happened there.

During the days we swim and tube in the Rocky Broad River, head over to Cherokee where we picnic on at an island park and tube in the river. Once or twice each trip I put the fear of God in the area's trout population (the truth be told, they probably gather and watch me as if a comedy tour has come to town). We'll spend a day or two sliding down Sliding Rock... there's nothing like sliding 10 stories down the side of a mountain into hypothermia-cold water. No trip to the area is complete without spending a day in Hickory Nut Falls and visiting Bubba O'Leary's General Store and this little vegetable stand where the owner remembers us each year and treats us to some of his private recipe Cajun Boiled Peanuts. At night we spend our time by lantern light and wind down as a family, thankful to be alive and together.

For some people vacation is theme parks or cruises, entertainment and sight-seeing. For me, give me a cold stream, and inner tube and hide my wristwatch and alarm clock.

What's the perfect vacation for your thinking? Where do you find rest and refreshment? Click comments and tell us how you define vacation.

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