Pinch Me High Hampton

I'm looking around myself and thinking, I must be in a movie. The cameras are rolling and I'm an extra on an elaborate set bringing a screenwriter's imagination to life. This is crazy, of course. This is how I think, though.

I look across the green lawn that arches it's back down to the lake's lip, and wonder if the film is a classic flick about the darker undercurrents in the lives of the upper class. Folks mill about in their dinner dress - jackets for men and boys and dresses for ladies and girls - smiling and shaking hands and covering their dissatisfaction with the realities they've created for themselves. Tomorrow in the movie the characters will play croquet and pretend their alcoholism, affairs and maladjusted children are figments.

The lawn behind the High Hampton Inn.

But maybe I'm in a fairy tale, a Disney production. Perhaps a princess or seven dwarfs will start singing at any moment. They'll fling open the windows and pour out of my cottage and all the forest animals will follow and prance around them.

Hampton Cottage at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.

The movie might be a frightful production. Earlier today, as I was exiting a trail, a man was entering. It's a path that skirts the edge of the lake. It's narrow. Not much sun reaches the understory, so the shade is dense. The fellow mumbled into the air, as if whispering a prayer, "This reminds me of Camp Crystal Lake." It crossed my mind that I may be one of the expendable extras that has no clue there's any danger until it's too late.

The Lake Trail at High Hampton Inn & Country Club.

Pinch me High Hampton, because I know this fantasy can't be real. And The High Hampton Inn and Country Club property in Cashiers, NC is so serene and beautiful, I'm perfectly okay with being the expendable extra. To spend a day here in Western North Carolina is a gift. To spend three days is a glimpse of heaven.

Never mind. Don't pinch me. I prefer not to wake from this if it is by chance a dream.