9/27/14 : Chasing Waterfalls. Plus some eating and shopping.

Yesterday Holly and I decided to get out of town to hike, play with our cameras, eat food we can't get in Lewisburg, and shop. Roanoke is the best place to go from here for different food and for shopping, so I got online and searched for good photo possibilities between here and there.  I found Roaring Run.  It was advertised as an easy hike with lots of water to photograph.  Perfect.

We headed out of town around 9:30 in the morning.  Roaring Run was about an hour away.  We really lucked out with the weather, it was not too cold, not too hot, sunny blue skies, and the leaves were starting to change.  We found the parking lot without any trouble and started down the trail.  The sign said it was a 3/4 mile hike to the waterfall.  It was a mostly flat trail, with several stream crossings on sturdy wooden bridges.  There were a bunch of wooden stairs built into the hillside right before the main waterfall.  There were quite a few smaller waterfalls along the way.  The whole trail followed the stream, and it was just gorgeous the whole way.  The sun shining through the trees made it all the more beautiful.  We stopped to take so many pictures, it took us over an hour to get to the main waterfall.  (The return trip took about 20 minutes).

The last 3 pictures are from the final waterfall.  It was basically a giant boulder, with water flowing down a small part of it.  We were able to walk up the boulder next to the water fall and take pictures from the top looking down (last photo).


After our hike, we headed to Roanoke for lunch and shopping.  We wanted Thai food for lunch, and found a little place that wasn't too far from the mall.  It was called City Corner II.  It was in a building that looked more like a house than a business, and they had their herbs growing outside in boxes, which is awesome.  I usually get some kind of pad thai, but decided to try something different this time.  Being the pasta-holic that I am, I still wanted to have some sort of noodles. I went with the Roasted Duck Noodle.  A nice break from chicken, which is usually what I end up eating when I eat out.  It was good, but wasn't nearly enough to fill me up.  I was still hungry when we left the restaurant.

After lunch, we headed to Valley View Mall for some shopping.  I got some more running clothes...or course.  And of course I had to stop in Barnes & Noble and buy some more kids Spanish books for my classroom.  We were still in the mall at 4:30, and since I hadn't had enough for lunch, I knew I wouldn't make it all the way home (an hour and a half) without dinner, so we decided to have dinner in the mall at Buffalo Wild Wings.  I had a delicious crispy chicken sandwich with fries and cole slaw.  Eventually, we got on the road home, and got home around 7:30.  It was a long day, but so much fun!  It's nice to get out of town once in awhile, and even more fun with a friend.  Holly just bought a camera recently, and it's been awesome having someone to go on camera-adventure-hikes with! (I might have to do some belated posts about our previous adventures, since they were before I decided to turn this into an everything blog instead of just a running blog).

I finished out my day with a big bowl of ice cream and some photo-editing.  What a Saturday!