Back in NC 9-16

This not having satellite every day is taxing my brain because now I have to remember what happened TWO days ago. People ask us where we’ve been or come from and I have to work hard at getting it right. It all blurs together. We constantly test ourselves to keep the brain cells firing!

On Thursday we pulled out from Hillsville and wound around the back roads to get to the highway we wanted. We think Virginia is the best state we’ve been in for road signage. They number every single road and they are not chintzy with the signs. It made it very easy to find what we were looking for. We’ve been in states where there are numbers on the maps but you go through the town and there are absolutely no signs telling you what is what.

Anyway, this part of Virginia is beautiful. I imagine the whole state looks much this way. We came to this overlook and it was nice getting a bird’s eye view of what we had been driving through. We drove along highway 58 at the bottom of the state. We traveled 161 miles. We spent the night at Rudds Creek campground. It was stunning. It is an US Army Corps of Engineers park on a large beautiful lake, the John H. Kerr Reservoir. The sites were large and graveled and were like rooms. Lots of beautiful trees so we didn’t have a chance at the satellite. Had electric and water, no sewer and it was $20. We were on the lake, but it had been pouring rain and the mud was slopposis so we didn’t make it to our edge of the lake.

Our setup took a bit longer. I pushed the button for the big slide-out and NOTHING. Nada, didn’t make a sound, didn’t, budge. So Larry had to crawl all around with his meter checking out all the wiring and the motors and the switch. We had checked the fuse in the trailer, but it turned out to be a fuse in the slide’s control panel. So we were able to open the slide. Good thing too, because our pantry is inaccessible when the slide is in and my dark chocolate was in there!!!! I felt panic rising as time passed, but just in the NICK of time the slide moved. Whew, that was close!

We took a walk later in the evening and found a place that had a rocky path and enjoyed the view. Very peaceful. We considered staying more nights, but we miss the satellite and we were hoping that as we got closer to the coast maybe the humidity levels would lessen a bit.

So, yesterday, Friday we got all ready to go and I pushed the button to slide the slide-out in and….yup, nothing. Larry did the whole routine again, another blown fuse. He decided the rails were dirty and they were dragging too much and stressing out the motor and blowing the fuse. They are exposed under the trailer and with all this rain they had gotten gritty. So they got cleaned off and Larry sprayed them with silicone spray. We got a later start, but it was still around 10:30.

We dropped down into North Carolina at Emporia, VA and continued heading east. Not too many places to stop so we made pretty good time. There weren’t a lot of towns to wind through. The place we were shooting for was north east of Elizabeth City in the upper north east corner of NC. We are way out away from “stuff”…five miles from the nearest convenience store so it is very quiet…no road noise. We traveled 184 miles and have finally seen diesel come down, it was $2.50.

The campground is open but is ringed with trees. It is another Passport America park and it is $12.50 a night for full hookups. It is called North River Ranch and the owners have owned it for 19 months and have put a lot into it in that time. They still have a lot to do, but it is already real nice. We are doing laundry today in the clean, brand new laundry room. When I opened the door, little green frogs rained down on me. We had gotten a lot of rain this morning so they were looking for a place to dry out I guess. We had to watch that we didn’t squish any of them.

The trees are just starting to turn. I can’t figure out why the northern New England states get all the credit for fall color. The entire eastern U.S. is loaded with hard wood trees and there will be tons of color everywhere! I hope we catch some of it. Two years ago we went through the south west portion of Utah and the fall colors in the mountains there were gorgeous!

The slide-out slid perfectly when we got in yesterday, so now we just have to get replacement fuses. I think we’ll venture into town later or tomorrow.

After all that rain we got this morning it is very humid again. I guess there is just no escaping it out here! I see why so many “westerners” that we have run into say they don’t spend a lot of time out east. This having everything damp all the time is yucky and it will be only 72 degrees outside but with 80% plus humidity you get all sweaty doing almost nothing. Just moving causes one to get “dewy”.

We thought the east would be just packed with people, but it is not as dense with people as it is in the California countryside. Of course the urban areas are packed, but the country is still country out here and not full of zero clearance cookie cutter homes. Now the one thing that there IS a lot of are churches. Huge and LOTS of them everywhere. So much money spent in the wrong places…oops now I’ll have to watch out for that lightning bolt!

Enough for now! Gotta go dodge frogs and put the clothes in the dryers.

This last photo is of the tobacco fields that we have seen since we've gotten south. Less corn now and more tobacco and cotton.

Don't forget you can click on the pictures to see them larger. Usually.

Hillsville, Virginia 9-13

Today we took our time heading out. It poured all night and was raining hard all morning. We left around 10:30 and headed north on the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 10 miles until we hit a highway off of it that took us out of the fog. It was foggy today and raining and slow. We headed NE towards Pilot Mountain, there was a State Park we wanted to check out. It took us forever to find it and then it didn’t work for us at all. Then we headed north to Mount Airy, the birthplace of Andy Griffith and the setting for Mayberry. It was very large and it was raining like crazy so we by-passed going through the historic downtown area. It would have been really hard to see anything without parking and we didn’t want to walk in the deluge.

We found a place to pull out on the outskirts of Mount Airy to pick a spot to spend the night. Nothing where we were and not much in the north part of North Carolina so we headed north on up into Virginia. We went to a Passport America park NE of Hillsville, VA. It was pricey, $19.50, full hook-ups and kind of a pain to get to. The last turn to the road this place is on was a very sharp right and the trailer had to really tilt…sloshed some water out of the toilet on that one! Pouring rain while we were setting up of course, so we are feeling tired and soggy. We went about 157 miles today and 119 yesterday.

Now that we have zigged and zagged around down here we are going to point ourselves east to the ocean! There aren’t supposed to be any hurricanes the next week or so, so we should be good to go. Our plan is to drive Highway 12 along the outer banks…that long spit of land that looks like it is waaayyyy out in the ocean. We’ll have to ferry the rig in a couple of places. Should be fun, pray for great weather!!!!

The Blueridge Parkway 9-12

Today we got out around 9:30. The road we were camped on would take us to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway is supposed to be a very scenic roadway. It runs along the crest of the Appalachians and is meant to be driven on leisurely and it has a lot of pullouts/overlooks. We were looking forward to it. We planned on following it north to the top of North Carolina.

The road that took us to the Parkway was quite the adventure. Very windy with tight curves and lots of overhanging trees and bushes and it climbed quite steeply in places. We cringed with every scrape and as we got higher we got into fog. After we got onto the Parkway we stopped at the first pullout we came to and scoped the trailer for any damage. One of our antennas had an interesting curve and we had a minor scratch down the side so it wasn’t very bad.

We never saw a thing ALL day. The fog was socked in for the duration! You could hardly see the trees alongside the road so if we were overlooking valleys or driving by historic farms we never knew the difference. We got behind someone who had never driven in fog before and they traveled between 10 m.p.h. and stop for miles and miles. They were too scared to take one of the pullouts, but finally they did a really dangerous, funky pullout and we were able to carry on at more reasonable speeds. We stopped at a Folk Art Center. I loved looking at all the textiles and the glass and we enjoyed watching a potter throw pots. He made it look so easy.

We weren’t going to make it as far as we had anticipated so we stopped at one of the park campgrounds. Not too many “fools” in there. It started raining by this time so even though we were out in the open we opted not to set up the satellite dish. We were also running on just battery power and with no sun to charge the solar panels we didn’t want to power up the satellite modem and the computer. The heater was by far more important. Being up in the mountains it was quite a bit cooler, from a/c one day to furnace the next. We got in around 2:30 and it was $16 just to park, no nothing as far as hook-ups.

This family of White-tailed deer came through while we were eating dinner.

More Biltmore House 9-11

Here are more pictures from Biltmore Estate. Photography wasn't allowed inside the mansion. There were remarkable pieces of fine craftsmanship and the place was huge, but Larry and I thought the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Ca.was overall the most impressive of the two "american castles" we have seen.

Biltmore foliage 9-11

This is a quick post. I am pooped after hiking through "America's biggest house" as the Biltmore is known and I took lots of pictures of plants and flowers. No photography allowed inside.


I love this plant. This is the ultimate after 40 fig leaf. Covers everything that has gotten wider and has started heading south!!!
More pictures later!!!

North Carolina 9-10

We got up and did our yoga. Painful with the extra pounds we picked up at that RV resort in Bellville, Ohio we spent 5 weeks at. That place has made getting back into “road-mode” difficult. A private setting, prepared meals, private gym, shuttle service to the mall and Starbucks, fresh baked pies and cookies and more that I am sure has slipped my mind for the moment. Thank goodness for that treadmill or we would be talking 10 or more pounds instead of just a few! Today is the first day since we left there that I remembered to take something out of the freezer to cook. Now I am going to actually have to prepare a meal, darn it.

Anyway while I was talking to my sister after doing yoga, Larry was disconnecting us from our landlines. He decided we were moving on. We were tired of the tight sites. Too noisy, so time to move on. Tennessee is more crowded than we expected and we have only seen this small edge of it.

We were on the road by 10:30. Hit 75 to 640 to 40 into North Carolina. What a gorgeous drive through the Cherokee National Forest. As we neared Ashville there were several places where we came to a stop and then crawled. Don’t know what that was all about. We found our current home without any trouble. It is a Passport America park and has a total of 5 sites. Full hookups for $15. We are alongside highway 151, but it is quieter than the road we were on in Tennessee. We are backed up to a hill (thats us in the middle) and the sites are nice and big. We are here because I want to see the Biltmore Estate.

After getting settled in here we started planning our path to the Atlantic Ocean. When I got bored with that I drug Larry outside to cut his hair. We have been too busy to do it and he is ready for a haircut after about 2 weeks and it has been almost 6! Fortunately I have gotten better at this barbering business so he didn’t look bad! So to the sound of the clouds thundering above us he got his ears lowered. It isn’t as humid here and you can actually see the color of the sky. From Ohio, through Kentucky and Tennessee the sky is always gray and obscured by humid haze. All our stuff outside is rusting…yuck. Well, I have procrastinated long enough, that piece of salmon isn’t going to cook itself no matter how much I wish it!

Here is where we were last night. Our noisy neighbors are on the other side, this side was empty but you can see how small the lawn is between and most people's slides hang out over half of that. Very close. I forgot to take a picture from the other side so you could see how close we were. Here is where we are tonight. Look at all that lovely lawn between spaces, very nice. We are backed up to a hill and this last picture is our view to the front.

Smokey Mountains 9-9

Yesterday we went to the Museum of the Appalachia in Norris, TN. It was well worth the admission and it had a large, wonderfully diversified collection. So many displays and they were all so interesting. There were ancient Indian artifacts from the area, civil war artifacts and artifacts from the revolutionary war. They were just placing two very large blown glass bottles from the 1700’s that were used for rum. Amazing that something made of glass could survive for centuries! The largest held close to 3 gallons…that is how big it was! Then there were tons of artifacts from the people that lived in the mountains from the end of the 19th century to present. So many great artisans. Beautifully woven baskets from reeds and white oak saplings, with really intricate patterns. So many wonderful carvers and wood workers are from these mountains. Here is a photo of this amazing triple chain with caged balls that was carved from a SINGLE piece of wood. It took as long to design the piece as it did to carve it from a pocket knife! The photo doesn’t even begin to do it justice. There were beautiful quilts on display and a section on old funeral homes. It was an astonishing collection and put together really well. Then there were the outside displays of original cabins moved to the museum property to preserve their history. One was of Mark Twain’s family’s cabin. It was a wonderful experience.

Today our neighbors woke us at 2 a.m. as they returned VERY noisily. They thundered and screeched and laughed for what seemed like forever but when they quieted down a half hour had passed, by then we were wide awake and it took awhile to get back to sleep. RUDE people. As today was Saturday, probably not the best day to hit a touristy place, but we decided we wanted to see the Smokey Mountains while we were here. Sadly we had to go through Pigeon Forge, home of Dollywood and as we discovered a lot of other attractions and through Gatlinburg which is full of motels and shops. WELL, it was horrifically crowded. Through Pigeon Forge there were 3 lanes of traffic in both directions and they were bumper to bumper and we crawled! There was a large Classic Car show and a motorcycle run all on the same day. People trying to get to see the cars, classic cars cruising and thousands of motorcycles. What a zoo!

Then, shockingly Larry chose to bypass the Gatlinburg bypass and we crept through that town. TOURIST TRAP. Lots of motels, shops and people! It reminded us of a cramped Las Vegas strip. The shops and the people and the traffic…no casinos, but it had that look with all those people!

We finally made it to the Smokey Mountains. Lots of motorcycles and cars going through there and you took you life in your hands trying to stop at the lookouts. It was all very beautiful though and we are glad we saw them. We stopped and took a walk down to the Little Pigeon Forge River. Lots of huge boulders and only a few other people.

I found us an alternate route back home. You can’t completely bypass Pigeon Forge but we missed a lot of it and got to see more of the forest. We had to find a route around Knoxville too because Tennessee University had a home game this evening so the route we came south on would be crazier! So we got to see the eastern outskirts of Knoxville and missed more craziness. Whew, who’da thunk? Things ramp up here in the fall! No special rates here in October, the whole region has a big arts and crafts fair.

So after such an exciting day of traffic and scenery we got home and did some laundry, had supper (not dinner in these parts) and relaxed in the wonderfully damp, noisy atmosphere of eastern Tennessee! Hope the neighbors are tired…!

Tennessee 9-8

Yesterday we left Kentucky around 10:00. We drove 123 miles on Interstate 75 to Heiskell, Tennessee, just north of Knoxville. We got in here around 1:00 and waited a half hour for the office to open up so we could get checked in. We are in an Escapees park. This one allows non-members in for some reason. $13 a day for full hook-ups and $1 a day for cable. (my “corrections officer” pointed out that in Kentucky we did not have full hook-ups, we did not have sewer). The sites here are really tight and we weren’t sure about our satellite shot, but as you can see, we got it.

Tennessee is really beautiful. Hilly and heavily forested with many kinds of deciduous trees with a few evergreens thrown in! Hard to get pictures that are any good because there weren’t any places to pull out on the interstate and then it was pretty hazy. You’ll just have to take my word for it if you have never seen it and will have to plan to see it for yourselves someday!

We got set up and then just relaxed. It is amazing how exhausting catching up on 10 years was! We spent the first couple weeks in the past and then the rest of the time in our childhoods and then working our way up to the present! Lori and I talk on the phone and have stayed in touch, but apparently not very well, cause we had TONS to catch up on.

So anyway, after dinner we took a walk through the woods. The sun had sunk below the hill here and we figured it would be cooler. It was but it was dimmer in there than we expected! We were a little concerned about mosquitoes but didn’t see a one. We did see some interesting fungi and “‘shrooms”. At one point after I walked through a spider web and untangled myself from it and fought off the massively HUGE spider (in my imagination of course) I made Larry go first. I seem to have a knack for seeing creatures that are trying to hide (like that sleeping rattlesnake under the bush that Larry walked by in New Mexico) and I saw this turtle snuggled down in the leaves backed up to a fungi. We weren’t sure if it was just a shell until Larry moved a leaf and we saw its little leg, which immediately got tucked inside. So we left it to its nap and carried on up the trail. It is amazing how noisy the insects are around here. It is noisier at night than during the day!

We had forgotten that Tennessee has a lot of mines. While we were standing around waiting for the office to open we heard a siren (we thought fire department) when all of a sudden the ground shook and there was an enormous explosion and then you could hear debris raining down and then a dust cloud rose up into the air. It was only a quarter mile or so from us, but it reminded us about the mines right quick!

We will only stay here through the weekend. We thought we might stay a week, but we have a rude neighbor so we will move on. The beauty of this lifestyle. When you are this close together consideration goes a long way. He had his music cranked up for an hour or so, and then at 4 a.m. he and a couple buddies were standing outside talking in regular voices which is really loud in the middle of the night! Morning to some of you but to us when sleeping…the middle of the night!

Gotta go check out the local area! Ta-Ta for now....

Into Kentucky 9-6

Up early so we could get going. Lar caught Mike just as he was leaving for work to say good-bye and thanks. Then it was last minute computer stuff with Lori, while I got the inside of the trailer all put away and the slides pulled in. Then he went down and did all his outside disconnecting. I took pictures of flowers I found blooming in Lori’s front yard.

Lori insisted we have a “going away” piece of apple pie. It was stunning pie.


As we drove out of the drive this is what followed us…pitiful, just pitiful! We are lucky she didn’t let the air out of our tires!! We pulled out at 10:15.

For the people that are following us in their atlases, we headed down interstate 71 from Bellville south through Columbus. South of Columbus we picked up highway 62 south to 68 into Kentucky. Then picked up interstate 75 in Lexington, Kentucky and continued south until we hit Berea. We are at the Walnut Meadow RV park, another Passport America park…$11.00, full hook-ups and DSL wi-fi, so Larry didn’t have to set up the satellite dish. There are so many trees here and a hill we probably wouldn’t have gotten the satellite anyway. We went 286 miles and got into the park near 5:00. We paid $2.85 for diesel today just outside of Lexington. In Ohio gas has been going down, but diesel has stayed pretty much the same…it has gone down a little, but not as quickly or as much as gas.

We saw a lot of beautiful mansions in the middle of the huge horse farms here in Kentucky, we are just going through on our way to Tennessee.

This first picture is of a soybean field in Ohio. The bridge is over the Ohio River connecting Ohio to Kentucky on highway 68.

Hitting the Road 9-6

Night before last Lindsay was home from Columbus and Jaclyn had a night off and Lori was home! Oscar the dog was of course in the middle of it all. We had a great time.


This is Larry and I playing Donkey Konga…a video game that you play with “bongos” for those of you that don’t know…we didn’t. It was exhausting, crazy fun.

We are hitting the road this morning. We might make it all the way into Kentucky…we’ll see.

Our Anniversary 9-3

Today is our 29th anniversary. Weren’t we precious children? I met Larry when I was 14 and he was 16 and the following year we became a couple and have been that way ever since with nary a breakup. Now I never said fight or disagreement, no one is perfect, but we have worked our way through it all! The nitty and the gritty, the silly and the grinny.
I was going to write a little history but Lori and I had to go shopping again…maybe next year! Not being near all my photos I couldn’t bore you with more of our pictures. I was just barely 18 and Larry was almost 20! Just yesterday!

Ernesto cooled things off here and we have gotten quite a bit of rain. Feels like fall is heading Ohio’s way!

My Large Past Labor! 9-1

On this day, 26 years ago I was laboring, on Labor Day I might add, to bring this little angel into the world. She was born at 5:12p.m. and was 9lbs, 4oz.; a big girl then...what happened? Now she is a pygmy woman!

Happy Birthday Andrea!!!! Lucky for you the blog site was having trouble and these are the only pictures I could get on, several others are waiting...maybe later...tee hee!

When Andrea was almost one, she couldn't walk yet but she could pull herself up to the couch and coffee table and she LOVED to shake her diaper in rhythm to Manhattan Transfers "Boy From New York City". She especially loved the line "cool, cool, kitty". She still loves to shake her bootie! WE love you!