Skip to main content

An Appalacian Hipcamp Road Trip: A Picture Perfect North Carolina Tiny House

The hills were much bigger in Northern North Carolina. 

That's because they're mountains. Well, I guess so are the ones in Virginia.

Apparently there's a mile high bridge on top of Grandfather Mountain. Next time.

All of our locations were at the end of a gravel road.

I should also note we were only like 30 miles from Minneapolis, North Carolina. I really wanted to go, but it would have taken us a lot longer to get here. Next time I guess.

We drove down the wrong winding road only to see our next Hipcamp was down the other road.

Our next stay for the night brought us to a tiny cabin outside of Asheville.

Raven Ridge, a permaculture farmstead tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Our hosts were out so they told us to make ourselves at home.

It wasn't too hard to take them up on the offer.

The stairs leading up to the house were actually dug into the hill. You could see the top of their house below, but still felt private.

The tiny house had a kitchen and eating area downstairs with the sleeping and sitting area upstairs.

I could live like this. 


I think we both can agree that we immediately fell in love with this house.

Pretty much.

The little house was equiped with everything we needed. A little cooktop, hot water, wood stove, cooking utensils, games and books.

We had to all hold hands walking back to the car to get our things.

I settled in right away with a cup of tea and game of Scrabble with my girl.



Meadow was a-okay with sleeping on the floor.

She wanted to roll it out and take it to for a test rest..



After awhile our hosts arrived. 

James has a built a little Shangri-la where he isn't dependent on anything but his land and his hands. It seems like a peaceful existence and is only a short ways from the big city.

Sophie and her eldest daughter are from Sweden. I did notice a Scandanavian influence in the tiny cabin.


James plans on building another little cabin on his hillside acreage.

All the buildings on their property were built by James.

Well, he did get help from a carpenter buddy. 



 His friend had even hand carved the doorknob.

The outhouse is almost as impressive as the two homes on the property.

Another place I wish we could have stayed for more than one night.

Their eldest daughter was a little older than Meadow and they immediately became best friends.

We hung out with James and drank some beers.


Twins.

We were initially planning to drive into Asheville to check it out, but we ended up spending time with James and Sophie and were even invited for dinner in their amazing house.

The hospitality on this trip has been something else.

I had no idea we were going to make instant friends with all of our hosts.

Sophie made homemade pizza with a sourdough crust. We also had some bib lettuce and avocados on the side.

I guess James is always making changes in the home. He mentioned the dining room we were eating in was an outdoor porch a few months ago.

The really amazing part about being a Hipcamp Field Scout is getting to know interesting folks from varying backgrounds in beautiful places.

Meadow did not want to leave. I don't blame her.

It was dark and late when we retired to bed.

Good night, Raven Ridge. 

We woke up too early for Meadow once again. 

We had our oats, cleaned up and headed on our way.


We also had to say goodbye to the world's cutest composting toilet outhouse.

I hope to make it back here again someday.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Japan Family Trip - Part III: Exploring Asakusa, Akihabara, Ginza, Yanaka and Tsukiji in Tokyo

After being away even for one night it felt strange to be back in the busy city. We arrived at  the end of the line for the Tobu Nikko line,  Asakusa Station .  Then we had to walk over to the Asakusa Line which took us most of the way to our aparthotel in Asakusabashi. It may sound confusing, but Google Maps never lead us astray. We made it onto the A line train for a short ride to  Asakusabashi. The kids look pooped. Eventually we followed the road next to the Chuo Sobu Line. Restaurants and cafes are tucked into many of the railways. A clever way to bring some life to what would otherwise be a desolate space. Our last stay was at the MONday Apart. The Asakusabashi Akihabara location. We were starting to get used to slipper life. In Japan you separate your trash into burnable trash and plastic garbage. We decided to get dinner nearby at Pizzeria Buono Buono, but when we arrived there was a note on the door that they were out of pizza dough for the night. ...

Yardwork, Ikea and Pumpkins

My new parents-in-law got us a dehydrator for the wedding. Knowing we were going to be cleaning up the garden and going to farmer's market, we took a gander at our millionth kitchen device during breakfast.   Scott added granola to his oatmeal.  The oatmeal was rather bland, just the way Brooke likes it.   Scott was actually cleaning up so I had to take a quick photo of him as proof.  Scott told me he was, "putting a blanket down for Peanut," while singing. During the winter months peanut needs a warm place to peer through the window. Seeing as it was nearly November, I setup his blanket for him. Seeing as the farmers market season is dwindling down, we headed to the market...once again. The close proximity to the cities central farmer's market has to be one of the best assets of living in NoMi. We were both amazed by the bounty of produce still on sale. We quickly filled up our first bag and took it back to the car....

Japan Family Trip - Part II: Exploring the Shrines and Wilds of Nikko

We had originally planned on taking the bullet train down from Tokyo to Kyoto for a day or two. While being epically fast, it was a bit spendy for the four of us.  After talking to Brooke's coworker we settled on a two day trip to Nikko and its World Heritage Sites to break up our week in Tokyo. This turned out to be an amazing decision. The town is teaming with beauty from ancient shrines to epic waterfalls and some of the best meals we had on our trip. Kyoto didn't seem all that appealing to me when I started researching which location to go to. I too am glad we chose to head north to Nikko.  When we booked our Tobu Nikko Spacia X tickets I upgraded to the premium seats thinking that we'd be sitting facing one another. Instead we ended up with 4 individual seats, two in the first two rows and two in the last two rows. It turned out just fine with the kids sitting in front of us in two groups. Meadow and I were seated at the front of the car. Once in awhile we'd pas...