Don't Back Down

After visiting Ghost Town in the Sky (and not enjoying it much), and visiting Santa's Land (and probably enjoying it more than we needed to), it was time to decide where we were going to stay. If you'll recall, the original plan for the Maggie Valley trip was to try - yes - camping. We even had a whole bunch of food packed up so that we would be able to be somewhat self-sustaining for the entire weekend.

The first thought was to try and find a hotel with a refrigerator, so that the food we had packed in the cooler at least wouldn't spoil. But then it came to us that if we actually preserved the food, it wouldn't really do much good unless we could prepare the food as well - and even a hotel room with a microwave wasn't likely to help much, when a lot of what we had was designed for open-flame cooking. Sure, hot dogs could go in the microwave, and in a pinch, so can many other things - but without certain accessories (bowls and the like), cooking eggs, chili and other products was out the window.

Add to that the face that we were confronted with another dilemma - there was some sort of Shriner's parade in town for the weekend, and it meant that most of the hotels were booked up anyway. The one room we found that even had a refrigerator and a microwave was ten times what we were planning to spend on the camp site, and trying to at least attempt to stick to the original intention was not looking good.

So we went to the Soco Craft Store. Actually, we stopped here only to check out the view from the tower (which was pretty nice). The 90-foot observation tower has a small admission fee to get in, and the metal of the tower gets a little damp in the morning dew (or if it's raining). But the climb is worth the price of admission. It's certainly better than spending the money to go up to Ghost Town. Other than the tower, the actual craft store is just another souvenir stand along the road, and doesn't offer anything special.

But on our way back to town, we spotted another sign - that of Twin Brooks Resorts. Apparently we had been too focused on the river side of the highway, and missed this place on the other side. That, and it's tucked way back in the woods, so you really have to look for it. Only the sign is visible from the highway. But once you drive up a meandering driveway - and make sure you get the right one, as there are a couple that look like private drives, you come to a smallish house that doubles as the office. Out front is an enclosed pool (score!).

Behind the office is a longer road that winds up the mountain, passing over and across the creek, and through 16 or so cottages of varying sizes. The real bonus is that each is actually a little house. After some hit-and-miss luck (which was the way things were going on this trip), we found a winner, and stayed a couple of nights.

There were two downsides. The first was that we paid more than we had intended, but it still was less than we would have paid to get a regular hotel room and eat out all the time because we were able to make use of the food we brought along. We could also take advantage of the DVD library they offered and the pool that they had. The second was that the owners were apparently away, and the kids (grandkids, perhaps) were running the place. While nice, and very helpful, they just didn't seem to always have the tools to get things done.

We started off with the choice of two cabins - the Laurel (#6) or Frenchie's (#8). We chose #8, as it was better suited to or needs. However, it had a gas fireplace, and when we tried to light it, it wouldn't work. So we went swimming and told the office, and they tried to fix it while we were gone. We came back to find that the whole place smelled like gas - and that's not a good thing. To their credit, they moved us to another cabin (the Dogwood, #10), which was larger, for the same price, but it was just a bit of a pain to have to do is all.

That said, the facilities were nice enough. Until we tried to watch a DVD. I know - it's a cabin. In the woods. It's peaceful. But hey - if they are going to give us a DVD and a player, we're going to try and watch it. And it worked. For a while. But then it didn't. Not much is worse than stopping halfway through the movie. So we were unable to watch the end of the movie, and it was midnight, and to make matters worse, there was no cable attached to this particular television - so we just turned it off and went to sleep. In the morning, we let them know about it, and again to their credit, they did their best to fix it - but it would have been nicer if everything worked "out of the box" (isn't it always?). So they gave us another night at the discounted price. I can't complain about that at all - they did a nice job of making up for it - it just would have been nice if things were in better shape.

View the Maggie Valley Gallery (4 Images) »