For my birthday, Small‘s took me on a surprise trip. We headed out of town on a Friday afternoon and started driving north. Smalls gave me a few cities to search for campsites on Hipcamp. If you have never tried Hipcamp before, I highly recommend it. It is like VRBO for camping. They offer tent camping, car camping, RV camping and other unique opportunities like staying on an animal rescue farm or a nudist colony. Make sure you read all the details for the site you are interested in prior to booking or you might have a big surprise. I found a spot that seem to fit our needs with good views, only one campsite, and somewhat secluded. We made a stop in Blue Ridge on the way but forgot that it was the weekend after Thanksgiving. Everything was packed. We were able to get into a wine and tapas bar and had some good flatbread pizza before getting to our campsite. As usual, we set up in the dark. It was quite cold and we hung out by the campfire enjoying the stars. There is minimal light pollution and the sky was amazing. We could hear a pack of coyotes pretty loudly and decided to head to bed. Our Mr. heater a little buddy was definitely a lifesaver that night. I believe the temperature was about 24 when we woke up that morning and honestly we were pretty comfortable in the rooftop tent with the heater. We had a quick and easy breakfast before packing up and heading out.
https://www.hipcamp.com/en-US/georgia/matthew-w-s-land-9/choestoe-valley
We chose to check out the balds on the way to our surprise hotel for the night. Our first stop was Wayah Bald. Smalls and I have been here a few times before. It is on the AT and just a short walk from the parking lot to the fire tower. The views are amazing! We have done sunset here which was awesome. While here, we ran into an AT through hiker, shoutout to Bags, and stopped to chat with him for a bit. He shared stories about his through hike. He was actually doing a flip-flop hike where he started in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia hiked to Maine and then came back to Virginia to hike to Georgia. Just listening to him was so inspirational. Smalls and I dream of retiring in time to do some long-distance hiking before we are unable to physically do so.
From here, we went to Siler Bald which is an actual hike but you can see Wayah Bald from Siler bald. This hike was about 4 miles in fairly easy going in until the last quarter of a mile which is straight uphill to the lookout point. This is also along the AT and it was a little difficult at the beginning trying to figure it out which way to turn. The views are incredible here as well. There are a few places at the top to camp which would be lovely in the summer. It was too cold and windy up there this time of year to camp. We took in the views for a bit, headed back down, and then made our way to our hotel for the night. The drive took us all the way to the end of Wayah Road. The ride us gorgeous and probably one of my favorite drives thus far.
Smalls and Talls Outdoors 
Beautiful pictures!
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