Labor Day Weekend

I hope that everyone had a fabulous Labor Day weekend! Needless to say, I am not excited to be back at work today. However, I am excited that someone at my school thought it was a good idea for today (the day after a FSU night game) to be a testing day so I don't have to teach. High five.

Obviously the highlight of the weekend was the start of college football season. Magical.

 FSU kicked off their season last night with a victory over Pittsburgh 41-13

On Sunday afternoon, our friends hosted a Labor Day party at their house. 

Jared was out of town for 4 days, so I went a little crazy cleaning and organizing our house. I got rid of a ton of stuff including all the bedding in our guest bedroom. It had worn out its welcome in our guest room (plus Sadie and Lola did their fair share of damage to it), so I packed it up in trash bags and threw it away. Presenting our new guest room bedding...no puppies allowed. Sadie and Lola are sad. 

In the midst of all my cleaning, I also decorated the house for fall and football season!

I also stocked the fridge with massive amounts of pumpkin spice beer. I love pumpkin beer and I seriously will try every single kind of pumpkin beer I can find. This one from Shipyard is by far my favorite. 

Side note: My nails are "Funny Face" by Essie in case you were interested.

The family came over to our house on Monday night to watch the FSU game and I made my delicious white chicken chili for the occasion. Even though it might still be 95 degrees outside, football season = chili. Erika and I celebrated our first FSU Gameday of the season with a little fall treat. Pumpkin beer in a pint glass with a cinnamon rim and cinnamon sprinkled on top. It tastes like fall in a glass. Not to mention that I was excited to use my fancy pint glasses from the Guinness Brewery in Dublin. The Irish would probably be angry that I was putting pumpkin flavored American beer in my Guinness glass, but oh well. 

It was a fun long weekend, the Noles won and I am so excited for fall! Have a great week!

North Carolina {Day 3}

Our journey in North Carolina continues on Day 3 with some more exploring in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as well as visiting the towns surrounding the cabin. Read about days 1 and 2 of our trip here - North Carolina {Day 1} and North Carolina {Day 2}.

Saturday, July 6

The towns of Sylva and Dillsboro lie just at the bottom of the mountain down from the cabin.

The favorite store of the Roche family is Dogwood Crafters. Everything in this store is hand-crafted or home-made by the locals.

We visited a local brewery in Sylva to try some of their beers - Heinzelmannchen Brewery

 Back into the mountains for another day of hiking!

As we were getting ready to hike up the mountain, we ran into this little guy. 

This was my first time ever seeing an elk in person and it was really cool. 

We hiked the Mingus Creek Trail along the Oconaluftee River

 This trail was a nice, easy hike compared to our adventures on the Appalachian Trail the day before. 

All of the recent rain was causing the river levels to rise and flood some of the trails. We were only able to hike a little over 2.5 miles on this trail before we had to take a detour due to flooding.

Our hike did lead us to this historic grist mill right along the river. 

 Mingus Mill in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

After completing this hike, we decided to head back to Bryson City for a little happy hour.

We returned to Nantahala Brewing Company because we enjoyed it so much the first time. Rather than go out to dinner, we grabbed a pizza and some growlers from Nantahala and headed back to the cabin.

We spent the remainder of our evening relaxing on the porch swing enjoying the mountain air.  

North Carolina {Day 2}

Our journey in North Carolina continues on Day 2 with some exploring in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Cherokee Indian Reservation and me getting to check an item off of my bucket list! Read about the first day of our trip here - North Carolina {Day 1}.

On to Day 2...warning: this blog post is going to be quite lengthy and photo heavy. On the bright side, it does contain the only photos (two of them to be exact) that Jared and I managed to take together on the entire trip.

Friday, July 5

Friday morning we headed into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for some hiking and exploring. Jared made fun of me for wanting to pose with the National Park sign. I feel like he should have expected nothing less.

 And here is the first of 2 pictures of us together on this trip. 

I'm in two states at once, wooo! Getting ready to check the item off my bucket list! 

One thing that has always been on my lifelong bucket list is to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail. Let's be honest, there is no way that I'm going to hike all the way from Georgia to Maine, so a small portion of it will have to do.

Here we go! This portion of the Appalachian Trail through the Smoky Mountains is the most challenging section of the entire 2,200 mile trail.

I really enjoyed hiking this trail and getting to check it off my bucket list! 

 Hiking the portion of the Appalachian Trail up to Clingman's Dome

Standing in the observation tower at Clingman's Dome. This is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail at an elevation of 6,643 feet!

Here is photo 2 of 2 of us together. And such a lovely photo of us indeed. Raining, 55 degrees and zero visibility at 6,643 feet. This was definitely not an ideal day for hiking, but we drove all this way up the mountain to get to the trail and there was no way that I was going to back out on completing my bucket list item now. 

 We did it! Maybe next time I'll hike the 1,972 miles to Maine? Yeah, not likely. 

Next item on the agenda, hiking up to Mingo Falls in Cherokee. I love watching the other tourists who come to see these sites. We had to hike up a muddy trail in the rain on the side of a mountain and the family in front of us has their small children in shorts and flip flops, freezing and sliding in the mud almost off the side of the mountain. Seriously? If you are going on vacation in the mountains, invest in boots. 

Mingo Falls, Cherokee, NC

The town of Cherokee is located right down the highway from the cabin, so we passed through there a few times on our trip. One thing I really wanted to do on this vacation was visit the Cherokee Indian Reservation. I know, educational activities on vacation? I'm such a nerd. The real reason I wanted to visit the reservation is because it is part of my heritage. My ancestors on my dad's side of the family were Cherokee Indian.

All throughout the reservation, there are these black bear statues painted with symbols that represent the Cherokee culture.

Look! Jared let me take a picture of him. Bwahaha

We visited the Indian Village where we got to see how the Cherokee people lived long ago and how they preserve their culture in today's modern society. I absolutely loved learning about my heritage.

We had some time before our plans for the evening, so we decided to check out some of the local craft beers. Western North Carolina has quite a few craft breweries, majority of them being in Asheville (we will have to check those out on our next trip), but some of them are in the towns around the cabin. We found a great one in Bryson City, Nantahala Brewing Company. This one may have jumped to the very top of my brewery list as a favorite.

That night, we went to a performance of "Unto These Hills". This drama is performed in an outdoor theater and it tells the story of the Cherokee people. It has been performed in the Smokies every summer for over 60 years and it is a must see if you ever visit this area of North Carolina. The show is very entertaining and heart-wrenching at the same time. I really enjoyed it, especially because I got to learn so much about the Cherokee culture. Overall, it was an amazing day of vacation.  

Germany Revisited

I have been thinking about doing a series of travel posts for a while now to share some trips I went on long before I started blogging. This idea came to me mainly because I have nothing else to blog about, but also so I can reminisce about traveling to all these cool places in the midst of my lack of traveling this summer. Therefore, this will probably be the first of many throwback travel posts. If you don't recognize the girl (aka: me) in any of these pictures that is because all of these photos were pre-brunette and pre-rhinoplasty Jacki. Fun fact that most of you already know about me...I had blonde hair from birth to age 21, although the shade of blonde varied greatly especially from age 19-21. Fun fact most of you probably did not know about me...I had a rhinoplasty during college, but that is a whole other post for another day. Back to my travels...

I decided to start with Germany today, in honor of last night's episode of The Bachelorette. Des and her men journeyed to Munich for some good 'ole German fun. I spent the entire two hours of the episode pointing at the TV saying, "been there...been there...been there", to my mother-in-law who was watching with me. I love seeing places I've traveled to on TV. It always gets me excited. I know, I'm so lame. Alright, on to the slideshow!

May 2007 - Munich, Germany

The summer after my sophomore year of college, my mom and I went on a little European vacation. One of our stops was in Munich, Germany. I loved Germany and I have wanted to go back ever since we left. The two best things in Germany...castles and beer. What's not to love?

Everywhere you go there are beer gardens ("Biergarten" to the Germans), outdoor seating areas with girls in lederhosen bringing you as many beers, brats and pretzels as your little heart could desire.

Linderhof Palace in the Bavarian Alps

Nymphenburg Palace 

Swans are everywhere in Germany, they are like as populous as ducks here in America.

Mommy and me at the Marienplatz

(Des and Chris were frolicking around here last night on The Bachelorette)

The Bavarian Alps

I may or may not have frolicked around on this hill singing The Sound of Music, oh just kidding, wrong country...don't worry I do dance around singing in Austria...but that will be another post.

Right outside of Munich is this little town called Oberammergau. 

All of the buildings in this town are hand painted with these elaborate frescoes. 

Oberammergau is most famous for the stage pictured above that I got to visit. This is the site of the world famous Passion Play. Every 10 years, the residents perform the Passion Play which is a reenactment of the life and death of Jesus Christ for visitors from all over the world. Back in 1633, the inhabitants of Oberammergau promised God that if he spared them from the bubonic plague, they would perform this play in his honor. Their town was indeed spared and it's residents have been performing the play every decade since then, keeping their promise to God. Back when the play first originated, there was only 1 single performance every 10 years. One man in the town volunteered to play the part of Jesus and he was actually crucified on stage. The role was a great honor in the town; however, that element of the play was of course changed as time went on. Now, the performances take place for 6 months during the designated year. What keeps the play unique is that the only people who are allowed to participate in the play are actual residents of the town and every resident is involved in some way. The next Passion Play is scheduled for 2020. 

Head outside of Munich and up into the Bavarian Alps to visit the castle of Neuschwanstein.

Walt Disney used this castle as his inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle in Disneyland. 

Our tour guide then invited those brave enough to hike up the mountain with him and walk out onto a wooden swinging bridge to get a spectacular view of the castle. So of course I did. You know if there is going to be a good photo op then I am going to take it, no matter what I have to do to get there. 

We then went on a tour of the castle, but of course I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside. Trust me, if you ever travel to Munich, you need to visit here. It is amazing. This may have been my favorite part of the trip. 

A visit to Munich is not complete without a beer at the famous brewery, Hofbrauhaus. I think mom and I went to Hofbrau everyday that we were in Munich. Don't judge. When in Rome Munich right? Prost!