Springtime near Black Mountain, NC

Our favorite rose bush at the Inn in bloom

Spring is always beautiful in the North Carolina mountains, but this year, we’ve seen the mountains gradually wake up to Spring, which is different from the past two years when Spring sprung right out of the gate in mid-March and quickly headed into summer by May. Since springtime has been more normal this year, guests of the Inn on Mill Creek Bed & Breakfast have been thoroughly enjoying the weeks of vibrant green leaves on the trees and gradual blooms as springtime makes its way from our neck of the woods around Asheville and Black Mountain to higher elevations along the Blue Ridge Parkway nearby, just in time for the Parkway’s official opening this weekend.

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Recipe: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every once in a while, we get in the zone with baking and make a lot of one kind of thing. Lately, we’ve been on a muffin kick, and now it’s cookies. We’ve landed on a pretty awesome chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe, which is a variation of one from Pillsbury. Not a bad idea to double this recipe, because these go fast!

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North Carolina Mountain Birds: Indigo Bunting

If you look up in the trees near the Lake House at the Inn on Mill Creek in the spring or summertime and see a blue-colored bird perched at the very top, and he’s singing, and singing, and singing some more, and you go out for an afternoon of sightseeing and come back and there he is, still singing, then you’ve met the Indigo Bunting. [Photo below of two Indigo Buntings by our guest, Sharon Hurst]

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Southern Steam 630 Excursion Train

The beautifully restored Southern Railway Steam 630 locomotive made a visit to our neck of the woods during the weekend of April 20-21, 2013. The excursion train, owned and operated by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM), is part of Norfolk Southern 21st Century Steam Program. [Photo below of the 630 near the Inn on Mill Creek taken by Bob Elliott]

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