Linn Cove Viaduct

In June 2020, we vacationed to the Blue Ridge Mountains for the third time since we first discovered them two years prior. On one of our last days on this trip, Opal and I decided to wake up super early and venture to the Asheville area with the kids for the day. After spending the morning in and around Asheville, we hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway and just started driving in a direction we had not previously seen.

We drove and drove, soaking up the beauty that only the Parkway offers. We made impromptu stops along the way and did some hiking at Mount Mitchell State Park and Linville Gorge and Falls. And we kept driving. And then it happened!

We arrived to the Linn Cove Viaduct.

We drove over the Linn Cove Viaduct with all the windows down, and I was geeking out!! Driving across the Linn Cove Viaduct had been a bucket list item of mine for years!

Laying eyes on this international engineering marvel was a dream come true and, to be able to experience it for the first time with our entire family, was just icing on the cake!

What we didn’t know on that day is that just six months later we would move to these mountains! We had NO IDEA then that we’d completely redesign our life and live in a place where we could cruise these mountains anytime we wanted!! Like, sure it was a dream of ours someday, but an actual relocation just months later was not even on our radar.

This past Sunday was a point of pride for me. It was the first time that all seven of us returned to the Linn Cove Viaduct since that day in June 2020. We were enamored by the fall foliage there, and we spent the day hiking above, beside and even below the viaduct!

What made this day even more epic was, for the first time, we hiked to the exact location to capture this iconic photo of the Linn Cove Viaduct.

To be able to finally capture this picture was another dream come true for me, and, to be able to experience that for the first time with our entire family in tow…well, that was just icing on the cake!