North Carolina

October 28, 2012

Hi all, just a quick update: 

We have been traveling through North Carolina and enjoying the state.  After seeing Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh, we stop at Washington, NC.  This is a little town on an estuary with a marina and long boardwalk. It's great to be on the water again.  We haven't seen the ocean since we turned inland in New Brunswick, Canada.  Again we have a sparkling, sunny day as we have often had on our trip.  We then find a nice, large, very well maintained campground near-by.   Seen below in the picture - we find a nice site on a pond where there is lots of bird life.  Here is a large heron we see.

After leaving Washington we head for the Outer Banks.  It's great to see the ocean again and it brings back memories of the beautiful Canada Maritimes.  We find a Kitty Hawk campground on the beach and Gwen spends  the day playing on the beach with me and then Neal while Phil is still wary of the beach.  We move on to find an ideal campground on the water in Cape Hatteris. The pictures below show the boardwalk and beach of our campground.  We were planning to stay a while and then take the Ferry back over to the mainland but our plans changed with the appearance of Hurricane Sandy on the weather maps.  We head inland.  The last two pictures show the beach the day we leave for higher ground.  Stay safe everyone!

"I want to be helpfulish"

Phillip:  Can we pet your dog?
How old is your dog?
What's your dogs name?
Does your dog juggle?
Mommy, what did you learn?

Fishermen packing up in anticipation of Sandy

Miscellaneous

October 16, 2012

The Blue Ridge Mountain Highway was very crowded today - a Tuesday.  Many outlooks were too crowded to pull in to.  We're in Boone NC for two nights.  We found a nice KOA campground with a petting zoo and playground.  Downtown Boone was very pretty and trendy.  Neal stopped at a Whole Foods like store and got fresh bread.

Here are more pictures:

From October 15, 2012 more Parkway:

Miscellaneous Road from Lexington to Bryson City:

From the car window: Route 129

A view traveling on 129

Phillip after arrival at "just right campground"

Fontana Dam and river

Blue Ridge Mountains

October 15, 2012

Cumberland Gap, Tennessee

We have hit the 5000 mile mark on our trip!  After leaving Lexington we head south ending up in a middle-of-no-where campground east of Knoxville.  This is a  campground that might have been active in the middle of the summer but is now all but abandoned.  We follow the GPS on Neal’s phone and end up on another hilly winding road with switchbacks.  We call the campground for directions and the manager tells us, “Well see, you came in the back way.”  “Oh you’re in an RV.......   well the road narrows and you have some switchbacks ... but you can probably make it.”  We  worry about another Blue Mountain experience.  As it turns out it isn’t too bad.  We stay one night and I'm glad to hit the road the next morning and leave the place behind.   

Next day is great.  We reach the Smoky Mountains taking Rt.  129.    This is a really beautiful road and though there were switchbacks, the road is really good.  There are mostly motorcycles on the road with us - lots of them and on many turns photographers taking photos of all the passing vehicles.  They have  signs up with the website name  to contact and purchase pictures.  It’s a big parade of the motorcycles and us.

We stop at a beautiful campground - Fontana Lake - in the high mountains.  This is the kind of beauty you might  think of when you dream of camping far out in nature.  The stars are sparkling, the Milky Way is clear, you only hear crickets, frogs, insects, the water - nature is not quiet, but it’s very peaceful.  

Next day we move on eastward and we have another interesting trip, now in the North Carolina Rocky Mountains.  We pull into a gas station that is roofed and grab the attention of motorcyclists there.  “Well, I’m not sure you’ll be able to pull the RV through.” “Your air conditioning is to high.”  “I don’t see any light between the top of the RV and the roof”  and so on.  So there was much chatter and standing around.  But when we get back in and pull forward, we don’t hit the roof.  They were right though, it was close.

We stop in the little town of Bryson City.  It has a “Western” feel to it.  It’s filled with tourists, motorcycles, trains, bars, outdoorsy stores, and souvenir shops, all with a mountainous backdrop.  We find a “just right” campground here.  They have goats for Gwen to feed, lots of playgrounds and a creek.  It’s loaded with families in RVs and tents.  Everyone has fires going at night, and dogs to walk.  We decide to stay 4 nights here as the kids will have a lot to do.  We buy lots of tubs of goat food for Gwen and also sometimes for Phil.  Gwen feeds the goats one pellet at a time so her tub will last a long time!

We head for Asheville.  This turns out to be a great city.  Large and active downtown filled with restaurants and shops and the like.  All nestled in the mountains.  It’s pretty everywhere you look.  Neal and I both thought it had a trendy feel to it.  

Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway

We take the Blue Ridge Mountain Highway up to just below Boone, NC.  It is a beautiful but exhausting drive.  We take lots of pictures.  But it is cold tonight and windy and we leave our campfire at dusk to come into the warm RV.  Tomorrow, Boone and then east through Raleigh to the the North Carolina shore.  It’s getting cold up here.  I notice our temperatures here are a bit lower then those in Charlottetown, Prince Edwards Island.  Low tonight in the high 30’s.  In the RV, this means head for warmer temperatures!

Lexington, KY

Wonderful Lexington, Kentucky

Catching up on the front porch

Lexington was our first great big stop back in the US and it was our longest stop-over so far - 11 days.  (The other long stop was Campobello Island, Canada for 5 days.)  We were lucky enough to be parked in Rick and Kim’s driveway. We really loved Lexington - it has everything: culture, shopping, family-oriented events, sports and of course Rick, Kim, Emmy, Eli and Izzy.  

Mingling

Highlights:

Rick’s special Vegan burritos brought to the horse park.

Gwen’s sleeping over in Emmy’s room. 

Gwen’s participation in Emmy’s sleepover party (fairy dust necklaces made, Willy Wonka movies watched by a group of rowdy 9 year olds + Gwen, courtesy Aunt Kim).  

Checking out Rick and Kim's new office space in downtown Lexington.

Kim and me shopping.

Guy campout.

Phillip

Children’s museum.

The kids mingled and Eli and Gwen did a lot of bonding. 

University of Kentucky football game (Neal, Rick and Gwen).

Phillip says, “Izzy was my favorite part because he is so good and he didn’t bite me!”

Eli and Gwen

The amazing Carol C., Kim’s mother, who met us in Frankfurt, KY and showed us around.  (Thanks for the tour Carol, the bourbon Buffalo Trace distillery, bringing us to your home, the app recommendations (I like the pool), and the beautiful original artwork you and Kim and others created and you’re displaying around your home, the hospitality .....)

Gwen says the thing she liked most about staying with Aunt Kim, Uncle Ricky, and Eli and Emmy was “EVERYTHING!”

Izzy and Rick

The Blue Mountain and Blog Updates

I finally got around to updating our blog layout.  Now readers can conveniently get email notices when a new post is uploaded.  Hope this meets the needs of our friends and family and anyone else who is interested in our journey.

Now that we have hit the 2 month mark of our one year trip across North America, I thought it would be fun to highlight some of our most memorable adventures.

Early on (maybe a week into the trip), Lisa and I were looking at the map and were decideing how to proceed from Allentown, PA to Bar Harbor, ME.  To get onto the main highway we had a choice; backtrack about 15 miles or; take side roads north.  To Lisa it was a no-brainer; "I hate backtracking," she informed me.  Lets take the backroads."  This was music to my ears.  I really think you get a feel for a p[lace by meandering through the hinterlands as opposed to speeding along on the super highway.  So off we went.

All was well as the GPS steered us on to one road to another.  Than I saw a series of mountains in front of us.  "I guess there is a pass through," I thought.  Then we made a left onto the now notorious Blue Mountain Road.  The road started out paved, but with quite a few curves.  Then the road narrowed.  No way to turn around now. The we hit a few hairpins. I had to slow down to 10 mph.  Before we new it, the road had turned to gravel.  It narrowed further and became rut filled and rocky.  Each turn the RV precariously tilted away from the mountain.  No sign of any other car.  I was now down to 3 mph.  I had to look for rocks to drive over to keep the wheels away from the mountain from not tipping too low.  Felt a roll over was not far off.  As I wiped the sweat from my brow and moved my fingers on the steering wheel to keep my iron-clad grip of resulting in severe muscle fatigue.  As we ever-so-slowly approached the summit, I passed a shocked backpacker as our behemoth tilted back and forth.  As we finally hit the summit, the road deteriorated into a mountain trail.  I stopped as we headed down the back side of the Blue Mountain.

 After this excursion, I did become much more adept at handling our 29.5 foot travel monster.  However, we did become a little more careful about how we selected future routes.