Summer of 19 - #11 - Parson's Falls & Glen, & the Circle of Life!!!

Thursday August 22nd, 2019
We started out on another waterfall day.  There will probably be a few of these over the next month, as we  are in waterfall country.
Pearson's Falls & Glen was our destination today.  Although there are many waterfalls here that are free to hike to, we chose to pay $5 each to visit here.  I think it was worth it.

We soon came to streams and mini waterfalls.

There were benches, at frequent intervals, where you could sit and relax and listen.  We didn't take advantage of them too often as we wanted to get to the falls.

Giant cobweb

The Ethel James Chase Bridge, a memorial to a former member of the Tryon Garden Club and built and dedicated in her memory by her family.

The bridge seen from the mini waterfall

Susie ready to go over the bridge

and on the bridge

Mini waterfall seen from the bridge

After crossing the bridge we walked up a bit further until we saw Pearson Falls.  There was a family enjoying a picnic lunch, at a table to the entrance to the falls, but apart from them there was no-one else here.  We had passed a few people on the trail that had already been here though, so I think our timing was perfect. We walked to the first viewing area.

There were two viewing areas.  As we walked to the second one, we passed this huge web.  We have seen a lot of these in the trees as we have travelled this year.  These are not spider webs. Fall Webworm Moths lay eggs on the underside of leaves in the trees. The eggs hatch into caterpillars, that form a web over the leaves.  This helps protect them from predators.  They then make cocoons, which develop into moths. The circle of life......   Here's a LINK that will explain them.

Back to the waterfall.  The second viewing area had a bench, that we were happy to use.  Just sitting listening to the falls was awesome.  It's so relaxing.

I saw a small butterfly and mentioned it to Bryan, who told me he had just taken a picture of a bigger one, and showed me it fluttering around.

Wildflowers

After a short while we decided to start back. The children that were picnicking, passed us on the trail.  There was no sign of who I assume were their grandparents, and I worried that they were getting too far away from them.  I mentioned that they shouldn't go too far ahead without their family, but it didn't make any difference.
It was getting darker and darker, and in the distance we could hear thunder.  I started to walk faster as I didn't want us to get caught in the forest with lightening around us.
The girl left her brother and headed back to where the "grandparents" were. Now, I really got worried as the younger boy vanished out of site in front of us, and on his own.
After a short while, I turned around and was relieved to see the "grandfather" and girl catching up with us.  The boy was now in view in front of us, and they caught up with him and proceeded to head toward the car park.  There was no sign of the woman, who presumably was still packing up the picnic.  I hope he was going to go back, and help her as it was quite a long walk to carry all the things they had back to the car.  Anyway, we'll never know as they vanished out of site.  We didn't see them or her again.

We got back to the car park and headed home.  It wasn't long before the heavens opened and we had torrential rain.  It seems to be a pattern here that it rains mid to late afternoon, sometimes lasting into the evening and sometimes not.  Sometimes we get thunderstorms as well.

Traffic going slowly and carefully

As we got closer to the RV park I took some pictures, as I'm not sure we will be going out again from here.  As I mentioned before there are a lot of apple orchards here.  These were next to the RV park.

Here we are, back home.

The entrance is bordered by the owners homes, which provides a good screen disguising the park behind.  It is very well done and very pretty.

At the end of our row is what looks like an old disused barn.

Tonight the rain stopped and we got a double rainbow.  If you look closely you can just see the upper rainbow in this picture.

Another beautiful day even with the storms, which thankfully started after we had finished our walk.  I hope that lady got back to her car safely with everything, before the rain started.

We are going to have a couple of days resting before heading on to our next destination.  Until the next time, take care.