Published Wednesday, September 01, 2010 10:09 PM
Updated Wednesday, September 01, 2010 10:10 PM

 

Lowcountry Rffs

As Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part. But sometimes that wait makes the moment of truth that much more delicious.

I had no way of knowing it was going to be such a brutal summer back in April when I first happened upon the website for this quaint cabin in the mountains above Maggie Valley. I only knew we wanted to go somewhere different – and far away – for our vacation/anniversary week, and we wanted to take our furry four-legged children with us. A family holiday, as it were.

This place, the Tree House at Cataloochee, looked nice and was pet-friendly and reasonably priced. A couple of emails later, I sent off a deposit. All that was left was to suffer through the next four months ..,

The morning we leave, I soak three T-shirts loading the car and walking the dogs around the block. The ensuing four and a half hour drive does little to improve my mood, especially when we hit bottlenecking traffic in Columbia and Spartanburg. Battling that kind of traffic – and we do here every single day – is like being trapped in a salmon spawning, the only difference being that most salmon have a good reason for doing that. After two hours, I sprain my middle finger and blistere the car upholstery with an endless barrage of four letter words and anatomically impossible vulgarities I employ to express my admiration for other drivers.

Then suddenly we’re chugging up this winding, tree-lined road. Windows down, we feel the temperature falling as we wind our way toward the sky. We pass this beautiful open, rolling spread, the Cataloochee Ranch, head up a tiny gravel road, take a quick right, and suddenly, we’re there.

Then we tumble out of the car and scramble out on that deck, breathe in delicious, cool, fresh air, let our eyes drink in that magnificent view. Within the space of two breaths, 10 tons of battleship chains slide from my shoulders. I look at my Beloved, who -- in the space of a single glance at faraway, mist-shrouded peaks, green patchwork valley below, greens and blues and grays dappling rolling slopes -- now looks as though she could float away in mid-air.

Our dogs, who moped through the long, hot summer, are now dancing wildly and learning to howl again. It’s something owner Ernie Edwards describes as “dogs learning how to be real dogs again.”

This is just the first five minutes.

My first thought when we first arrive isn’t too profound -- “How cool!” – is about all I can muster. But the more we explore and get settled, the more difficult it is to put this place into words. The whole Tree House experience becomes this bucolic journey of discovery. A humble, yet cleverly designed cabin, it’s rustic enough to make you feel like you’re far away, but it’s also very comfortable – you soon realize you have everything you need. As you get in tune with it, you first appreciate -- then are stunned by -- the meticulous planning that went into this place. Not a square inch of space is wasted; a very deliberate, detail-oriented eye crafted this place. Outside and in, the Tree House is pure joy – and yet, for all the subtle deliberation, I’ve also never seen a place so whimsically executed. Delightful surprises lay hidden in plain sight – the spring-fed bathtub at the bottom of a walking trail immediately comes to mind -- and I know one finds something new with every visit.

All this bubbles from the minds of owners Ernie Edwards and Penny Redfern Edwards, two of the most talented, interesting, kind, genuine, down-to-earth people I’ve ever had the pleasure of running across in 46 trips around the sun. Both are far too faceted to describe in a couple of words here. Suffice it to say that if you ever meet them and don’t like them, please tell me so I know to stay the heck away from you.

As I write this, I realize I have to care about time again. You forget about it there; I never knew what day it was – and didn’t care.

Ernie, always ready with a great story, sums up that phenomenon best. He said one day he and Penny were having, “one of those little disagreements married couples have,” about whether it was Tuesday or Thursday. After a few minutes of discussion with neither convincing the other, they agreed to disagree and headed down to the ranch for lunch. While they were there, they asked someone to settle the question once and for all.

“Turns out we were both wrong – it was Friday,” he says.

For more information on Jim’s vacation destination, visit www.treehouseatcataloochee.com.