SPECIAL TO WNC PARENT
Performers at Cherokee’s Oconoluftee Indian Village perform a traditional dance.
for adults, $12 for children and free for 5 and younger. The Thursday-Saturday guided tour is $22 for adults, $14 for children, with 5 and younger free. To get to Oconaluftee take I-40 west to Exit 27 (the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway). Continue west on U.S. 74 past Waynesville, Sylva and Dillsboro to Exit 74. U.S. 441 will take you into Cherokee. Drive time from Asheville: 1 hour, 15 minutes.
Grandfather Mountain Or how about heading north, toward Grandfather Mountain? With lovely scenery and a chance to glimpse wildlife like river otters and deer, hiking the easy trails with the kids might prove fun, especially since the habitat paths are stroller accessible. The Nature Museum houses exhibits about the region’s history, a theater with nature movies, a restaurant and gift shop, as well as a fudge shop. In the visitor center is an elevator that can take you up to see the Mile-High Swinging Bridge, so named because it is exactly one mile above sea level, but only 80 feet off the ground. “The mountain itself falls away … into the valley below,” says Catherine Morton, marketing director. Repairs in 1999 left it with fewer joints, meaning the bridge doesn’t swing as much. When the wind comes through the bars it makes sounds “like a harmonica,” Morton says. May is blooming time for endangered pink shell azaleas, which only grow in three North Carolina counties, says Morton. “The largest single native populaContinues on Page 12
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