Maggie Valley, NC (Part 1)

August, 2024

What do rain, waterfalls, waffles, syrup spills, spilt milk, and falling branches have in common? This adventure of Traveling with the Trapps, of course! 🤣

We took an amazingly scenic drive to North Carolina and decided to head to Maggie Valley. Once we got here, we knew we had some exploring to do. There are so many beautiful overlooks & waterfalls. The Smokies were breathtaking as well. ⛰

Maggie Valley is a very rural area in the Smokies. Located near the Smoky Mountains National Park, it was nice to get back to nature and do some hiking. 🥾

Now for those of you that don’t know us very well–we want to assure you that we do not lead perfect lives and 💩 definitely happens! The night at our hotel was the first hurdle we faced. We stayed at the very clean and comfy Comfort Inn. The hotel wasn’t the problem, but some unruly and obnoxious guests certainly were. 😠 They kept everyone in the hotel up even though the police were called 3 times. Then an unwelcome knock at our door at 6:15 a.m. by said guests didn’t exactly make our day. 😒 Ok, so I’m not a morning person and was going on about 2 hours of sleep, so when I was making Juliana a waffle, I tried to multi-task and get some juice and my breakfast together at the same time. Um, well guess who forgot about the waffle??? 🧇 Yep, ME! This kind man was standing there trying to find the owner of the over-cooked waffle. I’m like Aaaaah! I got my juice to the table without spilling it and with some effort got the waffle out of the waffle maker. Cuz, ya know, I also forgot to spray the waffle maker before I poured in the batter… 🤦‍♀️

Laughing yet? Because it gets better! 😉 The same sweet man waiting for the waffle maker walked past our table spilling syrup as he went. He accidentally poured it on Juliana’s back and her chair and all over the floor. I told him, “Sir, you’re spilling syrup all over!” and he must have been sleep deprived, too because he had no idea his plate was tipped and he was coating the place in a sticky mess! Once he realized, he felt awful and got some wet napkins to help us clean up. What can you do, but laugh and make jokes about it? I was like, “Here I am burning waffles and you’re spilling syrup!” We all had a good laugh and finished breakfast in good humor. 😆

At this point, I went to talk to the desk clerk about the issue of the sleep deprivation. (I didn’t want to go before breakfast since I didn’t want to take the chance of being hangry.) Thankfully the desk clerk was kind and courteous when I told her about our lack of sleep and was aware of the situation as other guests had talked to her about it as well. While I was gone, Joe and the kids finished their breakfast in peace. Or at least tried to… A lady at an adjacent table spilled her milk and it went splashing towards Luke. 🥛 At this point it was obvious we were not having a great start to our day, so more laughs were forthcoming. 😁

We were determined to get past these hurdles, so we went for a drive to see the mountains. 🏔 Maggie Valley in the morning is quite a sight to behold. We stopped at a scenic overlook and didn’t want to leave. The kids were so enthralled they both said they would love to move there someday. 🥰

After some peace on the mountain, we decided a morning hike was just what we needed. We drove to Soco Falls–and of course missed the turn and got a bit lost, lol. In our defense, our phones didn’t have any service in the mountains and we didn’t have a map. Ugh! But we eventually found it and had a nice trek to the falls. 🥾

After a bit of a rest back at the hotel, we thought more waterfalls would be a good idea. This time we did screenshots of the maps in case we lost service! 😏 This drive took us through the heart of the Pisgah National Forest and some twisty turny roads. We stopped at a few overlooks and eventually reached the Moore Cove Falls Trail. There was a decent hike through some hilly terrain and for no reason we can figure, since it wasn’t windy at all, both kiddos had branches fall on them. 🤯

Now, I want to point out that the weather was sunny and beautiful without a spot of clouds when we left the hotel. However, it didn’t stay that way, lol. While we were on the trail in the middle of nowhere, it started pouring. ⛈ Not just a bit of a spotty rain, I mean this was a full out deluge from Mother Nature–thankfully without thunder and lightening! Since there wasn’t much of a refuge where we were, we continued on to the falls. I mean, why not? We were already drenched. 😂 The path was getting a bit trickier as we went on, though. With all the rain, the clay on the trail was getting slippery. We carefully, but a bit more quickly made our way to the falls. It really was worth it! Moore Cove Falls was beautiful! We were also able to climb behind it and seek a safe spot from the storm. After the storm abated, we finished taking pictures and hiked back out–looking like drenched rats, of course!

So what do we do after getting back to the car? We drive to another waterfall! The rain cleared up and it turned warm and sunny. So of course when we got to Looking Glass Falls, we were the only ones who were soaked to the skin. Oh well! We took the steps down to the falls and had a great time looking around. There were quite a few people swimming at the base of the falls, but we were wet enough, so didn’t really see the need. 😉

We decided to get back to the hotel and get out of our wet clothes and into the hot-tub and pool. We got to our room, and of course our key didn’t work. I mean, why would it? 😅 So we sat in the office with the air-conditioning and froze in our wet clothes while they remedied this. Needless to say, after we got our swimsuits on and warmed up in the hot-tub, we decided to just “chill” in the hotel room for the rest of the night. 🥴

Stay tuned to see if the drama continues on Traveling with the Trapps. 🎭 We added some videos on our YouTube channel to go along with the post and you can find them here: https://www.youtube.com/@TravelingwiththeTrapps

We hope you are enjoying our travels! We’d love for you to share it with your friends, if you’d like. Thanks so much and stay tuned for more Traveling with the Trapps! See you next time! 🤗

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