So, for this year’s summer vacation my dad and I had tons of plans, places to see people to visit. But unfortunately I was only able to visit one of the places, North Carolina, and surprisingly I am satisfied.
Now, I had already been to North Carolina, but it was during the winter, so I really didn’t get to see much. This time it was completely different, I really felt like a different person there. From the first day, I knew I had entered a completely different place. There were no more palm trees or loud construction sites; everything was tall and green, peaceful. For the first couple of days we obviously went to look around the major shopping centers. My cousins and I went ballistics shopping, like any other group of girls.
But after that, my uncle planned to take us nature watching!! The first nature park we visited was Lake Norman State Park. It was majestically beautiful, different from anything I had ever seen. The first part we visited was the small swimming area. It was part of the lake designated for visitors to relax and children to splash around. It wasn’t my favorite part, there were too many kids, and the water was icky hot. We wandered off to the canoeing area; where we rented two canoes, and headed for an awesome adventure. We were only allowed thirty minutes in the canoes, but that was enough to enjoy the beautiful. As we rowed our ways around the lake, we tried flipping the other canoe over and also tried racing to the other side of the lake. At the end of the day I was super exhausted, but overall well worth the trip.
Our second nature trip was to Chimney Rock State Park. This had to be one of the greatest places I had ever visited in my life. Right when we entered the city, I knew it wasn’t going to a blast. They had an amazing view of the mountains, and overall the town was small and cute. The park had so many great areas for site seeing, I was glad my cousin brought her Nikon D5000. We took tons of pictures. We had a hard time hiking up the mountain, but we made it. When we reached the top, we saw a marvelous waterfall. The first waterfall I’ve witnessed. Of course we each took turns to take a picture next to the grandiose waterfall. After walking around, for what seemed hours, we decided to go, what the locals called, rock jumping, meaning going inside a river and climbing over the rocks trying not to slip over them. It was crazy fun; we fell so many times, but still kept going. The water was so refreshing over the hot blistering sun. I was sad to leave, but excited for our next trip to Virginia.
So the next day we packed up our bags and went to Virginia. There we went to a small park that had a river. We met up with some family friends and played for a while in the river. After, my cousin and I decided to walk along the river and pick places to take pictures with her DSLR camera. For this trip we headed home a little earlier, since we had a long way to go back.
The whole to North Carolina was a life changing experience; I got to realize that shopping is not the only great part about traveling. Getting to know nature a little closer was millions times more exciting than a trip to the mall.
Dear Reader: This page may contain affiliate links which may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Our independent journalism is not influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative unless it is clearly marked as sponsored content. As travel products change, please be sure to reconfirm all details and stay up to date with current events to ensure a safe and successful trip.
