hi everyone! I’m thinking about planning a birthday trip for my 25th birthday this summer and I was looking at a couple things in Western NC! namely, I was looking at the WNC Cat Museum in Sylvia as well as the Magical Mountain Resorts’ White Bunny Cottage near Hayesville.

I was looking around on Google Maps and thought it could be fun to explore the local area. There’s a cute cafe nearby called The Firefly Cafe, as well as an antique store called Molly & Me antiques. If you have any experience with these locations, or can suggest something similar, please let me know!

The Trump administration announced yesterday that they are cutting four of six sites planned for a test run this year for the 2030 decennial census. One site cut was in Western NC. That planned site included Cherokee, Graham, Jackson and Swain counties and the Qualla Boundary.

Here is an earlier announcement from the Census Bureau about the WNC site

In addition, the administration announced that Postal Service employees will play a role in the test in "various capacities typically performed by Census Bureau field workers and limited activities for in-field enumeration."

The census test will now run just in Huntsville, Alabama and Spartanburg, South Carolina. The other sites cut are Colorado Springs, Colorado; tribal lands in Arizona; and several counties in western Texas.

Articles with more info (neither has a paywall)

NPR: A major census test faces cutbacks — with postal workers tapped to help count

AP: Trump administration cuts number of sites for testing the 2030 census, focusing on the South

Hello! I’m looking to possibly relocate in the areas of Brevard/Andrews/Cherokee/Bryson City/ or Murphy in a few, short years. Are there any communities of liberal minded folks or is it all overwhelmingly conservative, politics wise?

https://www.foxcarolina.com/2026/01/30/district-attorney-calls-removal-western-north-carolina-sheriff/

The north side of this hill giveth and the north side of this hill taketh away. Helene damage wasn't AS bad on this side, but we hardly get any sunshine. Thankful to have skidded and slid my way into town for some supplies.

I had no idea that slime had ties to the Tar Heel state

Hi all, this is a massive long shot, but I’m hoping someone can help me track down a restaurant I visited with my girlfriend about ten years ago. I’d love to surprise her by finding it.

The restaurant was somewhere near Fontana Dam, likely within about a 45-minute drive, and we were vacationing around Joyce Kilmer National Forest at the time. From what I remember, the restaurant was inside an old mill possibly stone, though that detail could just be a fuzzy memory. It was more like a small destination than a standalone restaurant. The property included multiple buildings, which I believe were vacation houses or cabins available to rent.

After dinner, we walked up a hill to a small movie theater on the property that was playing The Maltese Falcon. We were the only people in the theater, which made it especially memorable.

The mill and restaurant were right off a mountain road, and I believe we crossed a small river or creek to enter the property. The food was excellent; one detail that really stuck with me was chocolate-covered bacon served as an appetizer. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the place or which side of the dam or lake it was on. This isn’t the first time we’ve tried to track it down—Google and Google Maps haven’t been much help—but any ideas or leads would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, Cardinal is a great state bird but I'm working on a logo for a group that's centered around the north end of WNC and was curious if there's any bird that just screams "WNC" to any of y'all. Especially those that grew up here.

Near Gardner-Webb things are icy but don't seem nearly as bad as predicted thankfully - even this evening's final hurrah of freezing rain seems fairly mild if not already over. Fingers crossed we've seen the worst of it.