Mountain air and joy

I absolutely love living in Western North Carolina. We moved here about four years ago from New Jersey in search of more nature—places to hike, kayak, and play. On our first trip, we discovered the Linville Gorge and Lake James and immediately knew this was the place for us.

There is, however, one big downside to living here: our kids are far away. Our daughter still lives in New Jersey, more than 600 miles from us, and our son, Alexander, is even farther. Since he owns his own business and can work anywhere with a good internet connection, he’s spent the past two years living and exploring three different countries outside the U.S. For the last year and a half, he’s called Panama City, Panama home.

We visited him there in February and had a fantastic adventure exploring that beautiful country. So when he recently scheduled in-person trainings with clients in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, we were thrilled that he took the extra time and effort to come a bit farther east to visit us.

During his week here, we did a lot of catching up, eating, laughing, and some hiking. He had never been to the Linville Gorge before, and we lucked out with the prettiest fall day for our hike up Hawksbill and down to Linville Falls. He can never resist a cold plunge so he even jumped right into the very chilly river!

Now he’s back in Panama and our place is quiet again. Our daughter was with us when we first hiked into the Linville Gorge in 2021, and now I’ve been able to share it with my son, too. I can’t help but hope that someday this gorgeous land will work its magic on them and pull them a little closer. It could happen! Until then, I’ll look through my photos and smile at the memories.