A cabin in the sky

Sometimes you don't have to go too far away to get away.

Sometimes, 40 minutes can seem like 400 miles.

That's the scenario we ran into last week when we booked a tobacco cabin at Pilot Knob Inn, located about 40 minutes from Lexington and sequestered in the quaint little mailing address of Pilot Mountain. Or was it Pinnacle? I'm almost certain it wasn't Mount Airy, but it could've been King. (See here.)

Anyway, Kim wanted to do this for a long time. I think she'd seen an article in Our State Magazine about 25 years ago about these wood log tobacco barns that had been converted into rustic-but-comfortable cabins standing in the shadow of looming Pilot Mountain (the mountain, not the town).

So we finally got around to doing this.

Our stay was going to be for less than 24 hours, since check-in was 3 p.m. and checkout was 11 a.m. the next morning. That gave us 20 hours, more or less, to chill. Time enough to take a brisk walk through the woods (it had briefly snowed that morning); to enjoy the wood burning fireplace; to unwind in the Jacuzzi.

There were other conveniences: Wi-Fi was available in our cabin, and so was Direct TV, which allowed me to watch bits of the NFL playoff games once I figured out how to use the Direct TV remote (not a guarantee for me, since Direct TV is a technological advance I still haven't quite mastered. Witness: I still use a flip phone).

The only inconvenience of our stay was the fact that our bedroom took up the entire second floor of the cabin. But the cabin's single commode was downstairs – there were no chamber pots – meaning my nightly senior trek required some cautious stairwalking at night. Needless to say, we left a light on.

But that was minor. You pretty much know what you're going to get when you sign up for this and you adjust. The bed was comfortable and I had a restful sleep.

Because the place is a bed and breakfast, we made our way to the main cabin the next morning, where a hearty breakfast was served. In addition to eggs your style, or waffles or pancakes, there was a sideboard filled with pies, muffins, granola and fruits.

All in all, it was a very satisfying experience, and we plan to do this again sometime in the future. Preferably not another 20 years from now.

This was our cabin. We didn't use the front porch. It was 25 degrees outside.

This was our view from the front door of our cabin.

We cozied up to the fireplace later that evening.

You can get a good night's sleep in this place.