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06 August, 2007
Panther Falls, Virginia

What a jam-packed weekend! Whew! Jimmy and I headed up to Panther Falls for some camping and swimming! He’d been there a couple times before with his friends, and this was my first time heading up. Panther Falls is a swimming hole near Natural Bridge and the city of Buena Vista, Virginia. We got a late start after work on Friday and didn’t get in til almost 1 a.m.

The camping there is not a campsite, it’s just…THE WOODS. I didn’t think I’d be into it but I loved it. We pitched the tent, Jimmy the boy scout made a fire and we caught this little guy trying to break into the tent. After a while we tried to get some sleep. Note to self: bring an air mattress or SOMETHING next time.

The next morning we hit up the grocery store in town and got some goodies to grill out before Jimmy’s dad came to meet us. Who says you can only eat hot dogs and smores in the woods? We made kabobs, grilled corn, veggie burgers and tomato sandwiches. Sooo good.

After we ate we headed down to the falls and got in some swimming. Sooooo fun! The water is freezing cold but felt really good, it was deathly hot outside.

There were tons of butterflies around both swimming holes we went to. I think they like to sit and drink on the rocks. It was awesome.

The crazy jumping boy talked me into swimming into a cave and popping up behind that waterfall (it only took me about 10 tries), but he could not talk me into jumping off that rock. Look at his crazy self.

The place is pretty popular and there were a lot of families there with kids and dogs. The little kids were like penguins, jumping in, swimming, jumping back in, swimming, all in a line.

There were plenty of waterfalls to slide down, which was a little scary but also extremely fun.

After a while, we headed over to another waterfall on Pedlar River Rd. This one was a really deep “holler” (ok I don’t know how else to describe it, sue me) and had waterfalls and pools that cascaded down two huge cliffs.

We took a really steep trail down through the woods and I got stung by a bee (fun!) but we finally made it to the bottom of the holler. Jimmy slid down some dangerous-looking waterfalls and then we climbed back up to meet his dad at the top.

Two people showed up with their little kid and a dog which promptly slid right off a rock and fell pretty far. We could hear the dog screaming, I guess he got stuck for a minute. But then he climbed back up and seemed to be fine. It’s definitely not a place for kids or dogs, Panther Falls is fine for that but this one was more dangerous.

After we had enough sun and freezing water, we headed to Jimmy’s mom’s house and hung out with this crackhead. His name is Chase and he never EVER stops snorting.

On the way home, we took a little detour to grab some lunch at the Pink Cadillac Diner in Lexington. We’d been there once before when we headed up to Natural Bridge and it was so fun to go back.

Big gorilla & little gorilla.

It’s a fun little place. The walls are covered in vintage ads, records and posters and there are several vintage jukeboxes and soda machines around the restaurant.

I had some fried cauliflower and a baked potato. Yum. We zipped home just in time for the Art & Craft Swap Meet. What an exhausting weekend. The house is trashed and there’s lots to do after work today! Back to normal life!

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