Hiking Otter Falls

Blue Ridge Trip '24 #19
Seven Devils, NC - Thu, 5 Sep 2024. 11:30am

We got going earlier today than yesterday. It wasn't hard since we didn't leave our hotel until about 11am yesterday. Today we were out by 10. Maybe by tomorrow we'll leave actually early. 🤣

Our plan for today is to hike a bunch of shorter hikes. Put together they'll make a pretty full day. Though while our first hike, at Otter Falls, is short in distance— it's just over 1 mile round trip— it's steep, with a climb of 300' back up on the way out.



Otter Falls is in the oddly named town of Seven Devils. It's odd because why give a town a name like that in such a religious state? I mean, this is a state where there are "JESUS SAVES" posters on every second telephone pole along the highway. OTOH, Seven Devils is clearly a WealthyPeople CountryClub town. Instead of old farmhouses and aging double-wides close to the road the houses here are all bespoke country mansions set back from the road, and every street other than the main one is marked "private drive". Wealthy people don't care if it their town's named for satan's cohort. Religion is the opiate of the masses, not the 1%.

Wealthy people also can afford to have nice hiking trails in municipal parks right in their town. Though this one also has a big signboard with all the donors' names up at the entrance. Wealthy people can afford nice parks.. but they demand recognition for funding them.



We followed the maze like trails down to the bottom of the canyon. Here we reached the main branch of the creek and started walking back up it. First I paused at the lowest cascades (above). though.



Walking up the creek is always better than walking down it. Walking up you see all the falls and cascades. Walking down, it's too easy to miss beauty because often it's hiding behind you.



There aren't too many cascades to Otter Falls. After all, the whole hiking trail is just over a mile, and most of that is the down and back up part. We spent time at the all the cascades and lace falls along Otter Creek.

As you can tell from the gray sky in the background of these photos the weather was a little grim. A heavy fog hung over the mountains around us in Boone. The forecast showed no rain for today; just this fog hanging over us until noon or 1pm. The thing with enjoying waterfalls, though, is that foggy/cloudy weather is actually okay. It creates a cozier ambience around the creek. And the clouds/fog also keep away the crowds. We were able to enjoy these falls entirely to ourselves even though once we returned to our car there were already two other cars of visitors starting down the trail.

Trade Show Day 3. Wrap. Headed Home

Today was Day 3, the last day, of the trade show I'm working in Austin. The show is JFrog SwampUP, BTW. Yes, that's a kinda weird name with a bunch of weird capitalization. But it's been a good show. Similar to the JFrog show last year.

Today was another longer-than-it-should've been day, though. When I arrived at the booth at 8am prospects were already chatting with exhibitors. Breakfast opens at 7:30 in the same space as the exhibitors, so attendees go wandering around with food in hand to talk to people before the keynote starts at 8:30.

The day then extended until 3:30pm, technically. After that it was tear-down. Tear-down involved both good news and bad news. The bad news was all my colleagues had left by then. I'm a bit bothered by the lack of discipline that people sign up for staffing a conference that runs 'til 3:30pm then book flights home that leave at 4, meaning they desert us at 1:30 to get to the airport. But I'm only a bit bothered because I've decided to take it in stride and stop holding myself to the high standard of being there for the full count that literally nobody else in my company holds themselves to. I slack a bit but still do more work than almost anybody else at these shows.

The good news was that closing down the booth by myself was fine because it was a one-person job. The booth itself is provided (and thus torn down) by a vendor. All I needed to do was pack up our demo laptop and leftover swag into a cardboard box, tape it up, affix the preprinted shipping label, and leave it in the booth area for the shipper to collect later in the day. BTW, in case this description sounds incredibly basic, please understand that most college graduates fail at it. I excel at it... perhaps because I am not just a college graduate but an Ivy League graduate... and advanced degree holder. 🎓

Now I'm at AUS airport resting my feet after eating a bit of dinner and awaiting my flight home tonight. The flight's at 6:45pm, arriving 8:30pm Pacific Time. So far it looks on-time. Yay.

One of my California colleagues is flying home tomorrow. I'm like, "Dude, why?" I did consider 6 weeks ago when making travel plans whether to stay another night. The hotel is nice and its $400+/night rate is paid by the company, but I've got work tomorrow that needs to get done. And I'd rather sleep in my own bed with my spouse tonight than spend another night in almost any hotel. And there's a nonstop flight that gets me home not just before midnight but well before midnight, hours before midnight, and didn't require me to sneak out early from the conference. This is the way.

Update: My flight actually left 5 minutes early— a thing that virtually never happens on Southwest Airlines anymore. 😲 And we landed 15 minutes early. Ditto about virtually never happening anymore. Then my spouse came to pick me up at the airport so I could feel "at home" right away instead of waiting for, and riding in, an impersonal Lyft or Uber. All in all, I was home-home just before 9pm Pacific. It felt good to be home after 3 long days of business travel.