I was born and raised in Florida and never imagined myself ever living anywhere else. Yet, here I am, in the mountains of western North Carolina. It's been an adventure, to say the least, with many ups and downs and a huge learning curve.
My journey to the mountains began long ago. My dad's parents lived in Hayesville (a small, remote town in WNC near the Georgia border) and I've visited occasionally. But I never had the urge to move there.
I love the beach. I love the ocean. As a teenager with a driver's license and access to a vehicle, I often drove out to the beach, sitting alone on the sand, dreaming of a bigger, grander life. Or watching meteor showers or space shuttle launches.
Then in the summer of 2006, the song of the Smoky Mountains began its call.
We vacationed in Lake Lure that summer. Matt, Madi and I made the drive from Florida, while my father-in-law, Larry, and his wife, Chris, drove down from Wisconsin. We stayed in the timeshare on the lake, and I think it was our second night there when Matt and I decided to move to the mountains.
We sat on the back deck, enjoying the cool July evening, when we looked at each other and said "Let's move here."
At that point, we experienced three hurricanes in 13 months, drug dealing neighbors both across the street and behind us, domestic violence from neighbors, our wiener dog viciously attacked by a neighbor's pit bull (one of the same neighbors that trafficked cocaine out of Miami), unbridled growth and so on.
So the next day, I went online and started looking for a job. I interviewed with the American Red Cross for a marketing position, but we returned to Florida with nothing but a dream to move to the mountains.
A year later we got the opportunity we wanted - to move to the Smoky Mountains.
