Fall is A’Comin’

Little by little the leaves have started their changing from green to gold or brown or red or yellow or orange, but when they are all in their full glory, it is like New England has been set in the mountains of NE Tennessee. We even have a few sugar maples snuck in.

Crisp sunny days, cool snuggle under the blanket together nights, these days are made for walking, hiking, scenic drives, or just sitting on the deck and if you are just at the right moment, you can see Jack Frost paint a leaf. Really!!

Rent a pontoon boat for a day on beautiful Watauga Lake, but take a warm jacket in case the day extends into the evening! Lake breezes can become very chilly.

fallcolorsDownload

Chilly evenings mean a cozy wood burning fire in the Great Room and after a day of hiking, a relaxing soak in the jetted tub, or if you have chosen the Equestrian or Family Memories Rooms, the steam shower is the way to go. Just don’t stay in it too long, you might melt.

So give us a call at 423 768-2446 or go to our website http://www.ironmountaininn.com and book a room before they are all gone.

Looking forward to sharing the magic of the mountains with you this fall and into the Holiday season as well. Later in the year….choose and cut a fresh Frasher Fir at one of our local tree farms.

New website for Iron Mountain Inn B&B

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to put together photos, copy and all kinds of information for a new website which is being built by Scott Richardson of Blue Ridge Media.

He has been a saint putting up with me….my photos, my changes, my not making it easy for him to put this site together.  But I think we are almost ready to go live!!!!

So if you want a preview go to: http://www.blueridgemedia.com/ironmountaininn and let me know what you think.  Would love to get some feedback before it’s set in stone.

And don’t forget … if you have photos of your visit to the Iron Mountain Inn B&B, please post then on our Facebook page  ironmountaininnB&Bandvacationrentals.  Hope to keep this blog a place to keep everyone informed about what is happening in the Tri-State region of Western NC, Northeastern TN, and Southwestern VA – it’s a very lively area and there is ALWAYS something going on year round!

 

Summer ramblings

Rain today which is much needed – even the lake is lower than normal for July.  But after last year, we were enjoying the sunny days.

Funny how once the summer solstices comes and goes it seems that summer races ever faster and faster.  The students in this area return to school on August 4th!  That’s terrible, but I understand they are going to get a week’s break in October!  Personally, but maybe it’s because I come from the north where school started after Labor Day and ended mid-June!  

But then we didn’t have air conditioned school buildings either!  Makes a difference.  Of course, I think school should be year round: the students whose birthdays are in September, October, November and December start in September.  The students whose birthdays are January, February March and April start in January.  And so forth.  By doing this the students will be closer in age..unless a parent wants to keep a child out for a year to mature a little more instead of now where there is often an entire year’s age difference in the students and in First Grade…that makes a big difference.

Also by doing this rotating, a teacher might take a sabbatical during the winter instead of everyone having to have summer breaks.  Each block would complete a block of learning and again, it would rotate so maybe a parent would like to take the family on a 3 month trip in winter…the children could drop out that block and pick it up again next block.

Another thing about this school year, the children won’t have to spend a few weeks catching up and what they learned the previous spring.

But afraid this will never happen…the world gets stuck in their ruts and has a great deal of difficulty thinking and acting outside the box.

Not a bad picture of the full moon over Doe Mountain…can’t see it tonight but it was something on the Super Moon a few nights ago!  Love the full moon. Even got married on the night of the full moon since it seemed that wonderful things always happen that night.

 

Summer Fun in the Mountains of Johnson County, Butler, and Northeastern, TN

It always amazes visitors how much there is to do here in the Appalachian mountains of Northeastern Tennessee during the summer and fall.

Every day there is hiking, swimming, boating, fishing and relaxing.  But there are also a great many activities which are fun for the entire family.

 Just in June alone are the following events:

•  Blue Plum Festival – June 6-8 – Old Downtown – Johnson City – Blue Plum.org
•  Heritage Hall Performance Center – Blithe Spirit – June 20,21,22
  June 27, 28 – Mountain City – heritagehalltheatre.org

•  Watauga Lake Winery – Wine Dinner – June 21 – wataugalakewinery.com
• Roan Mountain – Roan Mountain Rhododendron Festival –
  June 21,22 – roanmountain.com

• An 18^th Century Independence Celebration and Muster – Sycamore ShoalsState Historic Area-June 28 and 29 sycamoreshoalstn.org
•  Old Mill Days – Trade Gristmill – Trade
• Gray Fossil Museum with permanent exhibits and traveling exhibits – Alligators, red pandas, camels, and beavers are among the finds recently discovered while digging at the Gray site – grayfossilmuseum.org

• Doe Mountain – an 8600 acre recreational area for hiking, biking and ATV trails

•  Watauga Lake – swimming, fishing, boating, kayaking, stand up paddle boarding
• Butler Museum – telling the story of “the town that wouldn’t drown”  – Open weekends – http://www.thebutlermuseum.com

And remember, the Iron Mountain Inn B&B and Creekside Chalet in Butler, TN are the perfect headquarters for exploring all that Butler, and Northeastern Tennessee has to offer.

Book your stay by calling 423-768-2446 or for 24 hour online reservations, go to http://www.ironmountainnn.com/rooms or http://www.creeksidechalet.net/rates.html

Looking forward to sharing the magic of the mountains with you and your friends or family this summer.

 

Spring…is it here or not

Warm sunny days so I planted pansies in the front porch window boxes.  Bought some more to plant in the back porch boxes.  Before I could get them planted…snow and more snow.  The porch is just about melted out!

But then I saw some turkeys – 2 toms and a flock of hens about 30 of them.  The one tom was really showing off!  Didn’t have a long lens on my camera so wasn’t able to get a really good picture…but they are around the Iron Mountain Inn property so I’ll head out after I blow the winter leaves off the lawn of the Watauga Lake House.

Leaves and pine needles!  They certainly do cover a lot of lawn.  But the pine needles are great…and when I see them for sale in bags at the market….well, I think to myself…I’ve got them for free!  Time to go back outside and continue blowing leaves into piles to pick up.  The trimmed branches are being loaded onto the pickup truck to haul to the brush pile in the woods deep behind the Inn.

Spring…time to get back in shape by working in the yard!

Almost Full Moon

The almost Full Moon rising above Doe Mountain the other evening…although lots of snow is predicted tomorrow afternoon and into Thursday, right now the sun is shining, the sky is blue with a few clouds just above the mountains and it’s time to go enjoy this beautiful day!

Winter blues

Although the sky isn’t blue due to the winter grey clouds covering the sky, sitting in my Lake House I’m surrounded by blue walls, blue upholstery and blue music…light, airy and it makes me feel like summer will soon be here.  Can’t come too soon.

But in the meantime….we are planning a great Valentine’s Weekend for our guests at the Iron Mountain Inn B&B.  Red and white dinner and red and white breakfasts!  Chocolate chip cookies…probably won’t come out red and white, but we will have hearts!   Dinner is being planned as a very special treat

Did you wait until the last minute and found all the rooms already booked?  Well, let us know because we are delighted to prepare a “Lover’s Getaway” for you anytime you stay with us!  Snuggling in front of the wood burning fire sipping a hot toddy; playing board games or card games with the other guests; trying to decipher the Sodoku puzzles (I never can) – it doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll relax and refresh your soul here on top of the mountain.

Come, share the magic of the mountains with us this year

 

 

Changes they are a’comin’!

Time for some updates!  Time for some new colors!  Time for you to follow our blog and see what we will be doing.

After 16 years, it’s time to make changes in the bedrooms at the Iron Mountain Inn starting with the Equestrian Room.  Working with David Harrell I can’t wait to see the new looks we are planning. He is so creative!  It’ll take some time, but I’ll try to post pictures as we go along. Here is the “before” picture of the Equestrian room and as we progress, I’ll be taking photo updates.

Next will be the Green Room…David wants to paint over the tree…but I told him he has to work around that!  What do you, my guests who’ve stayed in that room think?  We are planning to go Oriental…I have so many pictures and fabric with that theme we decided to use it.

 

After the Green Room, then it’s on to the Great Room!  Moving furniture, maybe cutting an Oriental rug (ooooo), painting walls…it’s going to be very different and much more up to date!  Just as comfortable with feet up luxury, I know we will all enjoy the changes.

Keep checking Facebook as well on the Iron Mountain Inn B&B and Vacation Rentals site for more info and photos.

 

Night time in the Mountains

Iron Mountain Inn front porch welcomes YOU!

A friend invited me to go to a movie today. I don’t know the last time I’ve been to a movie … at least 8 months I’d say if not more.

So tomorrow night for the Oscars, I won’t have any idea of the other movies and stars, but I do know Silver Lining Playbook was very well done! Didn’t know who the actress was until just a couple of days ago, but now I know! She was excellent! I’m sure she will have a long career ahead of her…and she is so young!

Having two friends who are bi-polar, the movie really hit home! One has told me how important hard physical activity is to staying on an even keel along with “light” medication. The other should get more hard physical activity but the meds keep this person so quiet it’s hard to get up the energy needed to work out/walk out/dance out!

Then later tonight about 8:30 p.m. we had major fireworks set off from the top of the mountain. Magnificent and the echo rolling around the mountains.. oooooo!

As long as there has been rain to dampen the forest we do fireworks fore proposals, weddings, anniversaries and any other reason, or for no reason at all here at the Iron Mountain Inn. Having them legal means special occasions can be made even more special with the excitement of fireworks.

Mid-night Musings at 3:00 a.m.

When you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind keeps racing around with all the thoughts stacked in there, it means no going back to sleep.  So, instead of worrying about it, I just get up and do something constructive.  

I look at the piles of papers on my floor waiting to be filed..nah, don’t want to do that.  I look at the piles of papers scattered 10 deep all over my desk waiting to have something done with them such as input data from the papers into the computer, answer those Christmas letters, read the manual for the new camera, mail some pop rocks to my granddaughter…you know, all the things which it would be nice to have a Katie Gibbs secretary do for me!  When I get it all done…then I”ll have that feeling of accomplishment, but right now…just looking at it drags me down.

Filing!  The bane of my existence!  And yet, when I get it done, I love seeing the clean floor, the neat desk, the feeling accomplishment!  But I keep putting it off!  Sort of like cleaning bathrooms…thinking about it I manage to find other things which I need to do, but then when I get to the job it goes very quickly, isn’t difficult and how nice and sparkly the sink, toilet, tub and floor look when I’m done!  Again, a good feeling!  And it didn’t take that long so why do I keep putting it off?  Who knows?

Like exercise…hard to get started, but once I get going, “I’m loving it” as the McDonald’s commercial says.  I love walking down my driveway listening to the birds, looking around to see what Mother Nature is up to at each season of the year.  Right now, in late February in the mountains of NE Tennessee, some of the daffodils are already up 7″!  Spring can’t be far behind, but still have to get through March!

But…it’s the thought of hiking back up the driveway which often keeps me from taking the walk.  After all, I do live on top of a mountain so when I walk down I know I’ll have to climb back up!  But again, once I do it…what a great feeling of accomplishment!

I admire the dedication of those athletes without a coach have the discipline to do the work. they need to get to the top of their event. The people who need physical therapy and do it on their own for months at a time. They all know the importance of consistency, dedication and will and they “get ‘er done”.  Hats off to all of them!