Hi there..on Day 5 we left the beautiful town of Cheokee, NC and to travel to Stone Mountain State Park in Roaring Gap, NC. We meandered down HWY 19 through the blue ridge and got onto Interstate 40. Most of the trip was interstate. We stopped in Black Mountain, NC at Phil’s BBQ pit, we saw the billboards from the interstate.
Inside the restaurant, the atmosphere was upbeat and modern. There were cool hats, pictures, license plates, and this cool hog mounted on the wall..looks like Pumpba from the lion king!

The bbq was good, not great. The meat was a little dry but the sides were good and the sauce selection was pretty cool, never seen a white BBQ sauce before..

We got back on the road and headed to Stone Mountain State Park while jamming to Courtbouillon. They’re a side project staring Wayne Toups, Steve Riley, and Wilson Savoy. These are the top cajun musicians of today. They recently won a grammy for their album, check it out its on Itunes.
We arrived in Stone Mountain with plenty of day light left. We set up the camper and put on our hiking gear and we headed to Wolf Cove Trail and Cedar Creek Trail. We made the loop up to the top of the summit and had some unbelievable views.


On the trail, we saw this huge snake. Aimee was walking up a head of me and all of sudden I heard a snakes rattle. I turned to my right and saw a 6 ft black snake coiled up about 3 feet away from me. If you know me, you know I can’t stand snakes, I probably screamed like a little girl. Thank goodness the snake slithered away!
On the Cedar Creek Trail, we were able to view Stone Mountain, check out the pictures, you can see why they call it Stone Mountain. It’s a popular place for rock climbers, but there were none today..

And we took a detour to the Moon, here’s a picture of Aimee walking on it without her astronaut helmet..

At the bottom of the trail, there was a homestead from the 1800s. There was a butcher shack, corn storage building, house with detached outhouse! We self-toured the community and the park did a really good job telling the story of life in the 1800s..

Tired and sore from the 3.5 mile hike, we went back to our campsight. We had an easy dinner, left over jambalaya and hot dog salad (aimee’s creation). We lit a fire from some wood we collected from inside of the park and had a run-in with the park ranger. Yeah, didn’t realize you weren’t supposed to collect wood from inside the park, we actually had to return it to it’s original location! Pretty crazy rules up here in Stone Mountain.

Well that’s all for now, until tomorrow, Bon Soir!