Trip to Grayson Highlands
- sarahwilk24
- Jun 17, 2022
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 17
Naptime at the Mountain Hut
119 pieces | LEGO: 41031 (retired)
Assembled by Hunter Williams, January 2025
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
June 17-19, 2022
About four months into their relationship, Sarah and Hunter drove to Grayson Highlands State Park for a long weekend of camping with Sarah's dear friends, Nena and Ryan, who had moved to Chattanooga a couple of years prior. It was Hunter's first time meeting them. They set up camp and circled the campfire, Sarah sitting on Hunter's lap (it was a time in their relationship when they couldn't be apart for even a moment), telling jokes and laughing until well after dark. The next day, they set off to hike and look for wild ponies. Hunter, the silly goose, forgot to empty his hiking backpack of clothes before starting up the mountain, so his shoulders weren't too happy. They didn't intend to, but ended up hiking up a far steeper part of the mountain and reached the peak of Mount Pinnacle. They saw no wild horses, but were surrounded by incredible vistas. Hunter snapped a photo of Sarah on the mountain that remains his lock screen to this day. At one point on their hike, they encountered a little mountain hut, which Hunter promptly lay down in for a quick power nap.
The Bean Taco Incident
182 pieces | LEGO: 40694 (retired)
Assembled by Sarah Wilkinson, December 2024
Interaction Rating: 5 / 5 (interaction with the set is encouraged)
Back at camp, they played ladder ball (which Sarah and Hunter had bought on a whim while picking out their tent for the trip), and Nena made bean tacos and banana boats (bananas stuffed with chocolate and marshmallows, wrapped in foil and baked in the fire coals until they were gooey) for dinner. Sarah was the undefeated ladder ball champion of the weekend and was the first of the group to make a shot from about 50 feet back. Hunter eventually made it from that far back, too, but he also got a bola stuck in a tree branch and struggled for a comically long time trying to get it down. Nena and Ryan thought the couple was adorable (and a little gross, if they were being honest) as they began to fall in love with each other. That night proved to be an important test for their relationship as Hunter devoured bean tacos and then climbed into a tent with Sarah. Let's just say that any modesty they had about farting around each other ended with that trip. Sarah wrote in their date log of the experience, "Hunter is never again allowed to eat bean tacos before climbing into a tent with me." They laughed about it then and still do now. It was the first of many camping trips they would take together.
