I’m Engaged

(See Spring VA vacation for the rest of the vacation read)
On Monday May 5th Robin and I headed to the Blue Ridge Parkway for a hike down to Apple Orchard Falls; to Robins knowledge, that’s all it was but to everyone else they knew that it’s where I planned to ask her to be my wife. The trail is 1.2 miles to the falls and intersects with the Appellation Trail. We made various stops along the way, one of which calmed my fear of a wilted waterfall, we came across several flowing streams in which we stopped and photographed as well as several dead trees that were pecked to its structural limit. Near the end of the hike there’s a mini-waterfall with a very nice wooden bridge which Robin wanted to stop and watch as she has never viewed a waterfall in person, needless to say I was very anxious to head to the main attraction that was merely 600 feet away. I enticed Robin to hurry down the trail while she was playing with a millipede she came across stating that I was getting hungry.

As we descended down the man-made wooden stairs that carried us around the outer edge of the mountain a large waterfall came into view through an opening of trees; to Robins surprise she jogged down the stairs and crossed over the large wooden bridge onto a wooden platform where we sat our gear down and took in the beautiful vista while being cooled by the spray of the waterfall. I retrieved a small bag of Chocolate Chip cookies that we made the night before that hid the engagement ring and sat on a large boulder in front of the falls. I said to Robin, “Let’s have a snack”, she made her way to the rock and I handed her the bag of cookies. As she was opening the bag she noticed a smaller ziploc bag that concealed the ring, she asked, “What’s this little bag?” while reaching for a cookie and I suggested that she open the bag to see what’s inside. As she unraveled the bag she paused once she saw gold and I took it from her hands, got on my knee and asked her to be my wife. I will never forget the look on her face as I proposed and after as she was running around with joy. We were able to eat our lunch and photograph the falls once Robin started to calm down a bit. Robin is one of those women that are very good at guessing things, and fortunately I was able to through her off the entire plan, she was completely surprised by it.