North Carolina is wet. Rivers, lakes, waterfalls, rain. We continued south on the Parkway to Linville Falls, where we put up for a couple of nights at Secluded Valley Campground, which was just as idyllic as it sounds. Well back along its own access road, the sites are arrayed around a central pond, with good shade trees and well-spaced. The view out our back window:
We scooted along the river on the way to Linville Falls and the Linville Caverns.
Really, almost the entire state looks like this. Coming from L.A., this was nature overload at its best. The Falls is an upper and lower pair, with an abrupt chute that produces a pretty good roar. We almost had the
place to ourselves, but a fellow hiker was there to take our pic. We’re not wearing long sleeves because it’s cold: it was very hot and humid, but the sleeves kept the sun and the bugs off. The next stop was Linville Caverns,
the five foot sloppy tongue (the green thing at left)
and some icy formations. It was no Carlsbad, but it
was nice to get underground out of the heat. Next stop was Crabtree Falls, which were beautiful, and provided
a nice artsy-craftsy opportunity:
After all this hiking, it was past time for some lunch, so we looked around for a likely spot. The town of Little Switzerland sounded good, and we lucked onto a gem, the Little Switzerland Cafe. We don’t know what top-flight chef has taken refuge here, but this was a real
find. Loni had a smoked trout BLT on a real croissant, and I had a pulled pork barbeque sandwich topped with cole slaw on a bun. Both were terrific. We were totally full, but the dessert cooler was outstanding. We had to have a raspberry chocolate torte and a lemon cream pie. El bloato, but grinning all the way back to our
campsite at Secluded Valley. 
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