The Best-Laid Plans...Gorges State Park, North Carolina,

Tom wanted to see a waterfall when we went to North Carolina.  He settled for looking at a wall with water falling over it as he sat in a parking lot.

The first problem was that we are from Ohio which has mostly flat terrain because the ice age glaciers smoothed most of our state.  As a result, it is hard for us to estimate how long it will take to drive a distance in a mountainous area.  One and a half hours would have been much more than enough  time in Ohio to get to Gorges from our location.  On the twisting roads in the North Carolina foothills and mountains, the actual time was closer to two and a half hours.

Our youngest son, his family, Tom and I finally arrived at Gorges' picnic area where we ate a late  lunch.  We were hungry.  We were hungry an hour earlier.

There was a waterfall trail close to the picnic area but the trail was listed as strenuous.  Anything strenuous is too much for Tom's scooter, even his new one.  As it turned out, it was almost too strenuous for me.  But I made it back to tell the story so all is well.

Here is a view of Bear Wallow Falls from the lookout at the lower end of the steeply sloping rocky trail.

It was the upward climb back to the parking lot that almost did me in.  Besides being steep, rocks half embedded in the trail offered tripping opportunities and so did the roots of the trees clinging to the exposed rocks and bedrock.

We were short of time since we were due back for a supper with several additional people but we did take time to stop at the park headquarters and look at the view from the walkway around it. Next time Tom and I will look at the exhibits inside

The  water continually falling over the tall wall is behind the V of timbers on the building's porch.

My son walked ahead of me, turned a corner, then returned.  "You'll like the view from the back of the building."

He was right.

We'll visit the park again but next time we will stay in a town closer to the park and plan to take an entire day to explore  Tom will find that scooter-friendly trail he knows is somewhere at Gorges State Park because he read about it on the Internet.