Take the Long Way Home

Departed: Pine Mountain  11:00 a.m.

Arrived: Home  (via Providence Canyon) 4:30 p.m.

Hey Friends,

We woke up to a beautiful but cold morning at the Pine Mountain RV Park surrounded by lots and lots of very expensive motorhomes.  Gene and his dog, Buddy, walked the entire park and counted the number of the Bluebird motorhomes and decided there was about 30 million dollars worth on the property.  The Bluebirds are the ones that celebrities often get custom made for their travels. They are mighty fine. 

Since we were in no hurry, Bill suggested that we go by Providence Canyon, which we have seen signs of on the way to Columbus for years, but never had time or took the time to go check it out.  The Bells had already been there before so we excused them and they trucked on home.  So we turned right on Highway 27 and took off to “The Little Grand Canyon”.  Well, let me say don’t make a special trip there. I was pretty underwhelmed. I was mostly irritated that I couldn’t get close enough to get any impressive photos to share with my blog buddies. So we spent about 15 minutes at the Providence Canyon.  As we were leaving Bill says, “so what do you give it on a scale of 1 to 10?”  We both said “4”.

Here are my attempts to show you what it looked like.

After looking at the pictures, maybe it would be better to go in the dead of winter when there are no leaves on the trees and you could get a better look!

 By now it’s time for a little lunch and we had seen a sign that said 4 Way Bar-b-que in Lumpkin, Ga.  We found it in an old house in downtown Lumpkin.  If you can picture an old brick house with a wrap around porch maybe like one might find on Dawson St. in Thomasville, that’s what the  bar-b-que place was like.  There were three big smoker/cookers on the front porch, of course it smelled delicious.  We placed our order and waited on the front porch.  There was a rather, shall I say, “earthy” couple sitting outside on the front porch. We struck up a conversation.  They had been to Providence Canyon for TWO days!! They hiked to the bottom and talked about how awesome it was! We, of course, agreed what a marvelous sight. HA! I asked how long it took them, they had hiked the rim one day about 3 hours, and then to the bottom and back up another 4 hours!  I guess we just didn’t get far enough away from the motorhome!!

So we decided to go home a different way continuing down highway 27 through Cuthbert, Blakely, Bainbridge etc… Bill said a nice drive through lots of farm land.  However, those of us in the passenger’s seat were snoozing.  So here we are at the end of another adventure. And here I sit working on my blog rather than emptying the motorhome. Tomorrow’s another day!

Thanks for riding along.

Carla

Recalculating...

Departed:  Hiawassee, GA  11:00 a.m.

Arrived:  Pine Mountain, GA 5:30 p.m.

216 miles

Hey Friends,

What a difference 216 miles makes? Left this morning it was 38 degrees, drizzling, windy, freezing. Arrived to 65 degrees and sunny!! Needless to say we changed our plans and came south a day early. After having breakfast at the Georgia Mountain Restaurant with the local yocals, we decided we weren’t real keen on hiking in the rain or boating in the rain, or golfing in the rain so packed up and hit the road.  Wise move.

So next question is how to get to Pine Mountain without going through Atlanta? RVs and Atl, not a good combo. We really put the Garmin through a workout today. Of course the Garmin kept wanting to send us through Atlanta, and we didn't want to go that way, so we heard a lot of "recalculating" today from the "bitch in a box" as a certain unnamed friend likes to call her Garmin. But ours is a man, so we need to give him a good name.  Anyway, we went west on a very scenic drive on some road that said APD …. Never could figure out what that meant, but a nice 4 lane road through little towns like Young Harris, Blue Ridge, Blairsville, Ellajay(I’m thinking Zell Miller may have had something to do with the building of that parkway) that eventually sent us south to Cartersville then on US 27 through Carrollton, Lagrange and finally Pine Mountain.  Many days we call the rv park that is our destination and ask for two places side by side, etc. Didn’t call today because we’ve been here a couple of times and it is usually half full at the most.  Well, naturally we pull in today and there is a line out the door to check in. We look over at the sites and see a bajillion long bluebird rv’s (that’s the real expensive kind). They are having a rally and have pretty much taken over the park. But no need to fear we got two places in the older section of the park, where there is NO cable tv… how dare they… what’s camping without cable tv!! But there’s wireless, so can’t complain.

I almost forgot… yesterday afternoon Bill says our propane is running low, and we should try to get some tomorrow down the road at a place that will fill rvs.  For you non rv’ers propane is what the heat runs on and the refrigerator when you are rolling and not hooked up runs on.  So it could be a little critical that we fill up before nightfall, as this box of tin does not have a whole lot of insulation! We stop at a place on the way out of Hiawassee and the guy tries to fill our tank and his nozzle won’t fit in our tank. So no worries we’ll stop along the way. We continue on our lovely drive… see a couple of places, but are already  past the place before we realize it. (one doesn’t slam on brakes in a 32 ft. rig!) Bill says I think the campground has some… o.k…. we’ll take a chance…. We get the kind gent at the Pine Mountain RV Resort to fill us up… He takes a look…. Hmmm… I’ve never seen a tank like this with this kind of opening. He plays with it and just takes a part off and thankfully is able to fill us up with propane. We’ll be warm tonight!! Bill is off the hook! 

Random pics below are around Lake Chatuge in Hiawassee.

Happy Camping!

Carla

Brrr!!!

Departed: Asheville  NC 10:00 a.m.

Arrived:  Hiawassee, GA  12:30 p.m.

106 miles

Hey Friends,

We went to bed with it raining and woke up this morning with it raining. It was not as cold as I thought in Asheville, but when we got out of the motorhome upon arrival in Hiawassee, I think the temperature was at least 30 degrees cooler! The temperature on the bank clock in downtown Hiawassee showed 43 degrees this afternoon at 3:00. So now after making fun of Mary in her coat and gloves yesterday morning when it was 55, I am now eating crow while she is digging in her closet for her reject pair of gloves to give me. I will be thankful for them when walking the princess!

We saw a restaurant right near the campground on the way in, looked it up online, yes, it even had a website… Chop House, decided it was too cold to grill so we tried it out …  excellent!!!  The chef trained under Emerill, and has several restaurants around, one on Lake Burton and a few other places. I had the best filet ever and blonde brownie with ice cream and caramel to die for!!

This campground is located right on Lake Chatuge… I am now a believer in “lake effect” weather…it is colder outside our motorhome than it was at the restaurant!  We have been here before, I think in the spring two years ago and were amazed at all of the geese here… well maybe not amazed, but more like aggravated. They are messy, make noise, and Halle drags me along, as she is trying to chase them. As we were driving this morning I told Bill, surely they’ll be gone for the winter. Not so… this flock of geese is still hanging around, surely they are going south sometime soon!   They will be wishing they were in the morning, when we awake to 35 degrees! But we'll be cozy between our fleece sheets!

Happy Camping!

Carla

Love those Grayline Tours!

Hey friends,

So we toured the mountain valley town of Asheville today in yet another Grayline tour. Seems like we've done quite a few of those throughout our travels. Dean, our tour guide, a little cheesy, but very informative was full of cute stories and facts and figures.  Of course, I have already forgotten just about everything he told us. I did however get the big picture, quite a few wealthy people came to Asheville for their outstanding hospitals, mental and physical. Many of them stayed and brought a lot of wealth to the town. Dr. Grove made a mint on a concoction that helped fevers and built the Grove Park Inn. Many musicians came to the area and stayed. And of course there was that family, the Vanderbilts, that left a little trinket in Asheville, the Biltmore House.

After our tour we found a nice little sidewalk cafe and enjoyed a great lunch outside in the beautiful weather. It was a gorgeous morning in the mountains, cool enough for a sweater that we shed after lunch. Now we are chillaxing outside by the RV watching the clouds roll in for this little front that we've been hearing about and are planning where to go next. Think we are headed to Hiawassee, GA.

Here some pictures of scenes around Asheville.

Through the Palmetto State

Departed: Fripp Island, SC  10:30 a.m.
Arrived:  Flat Rock, NC 4:00 p.m.
278 miles

Hey friends,
This is Sunday and Monday's blog, as we had a poor wireless signal last night.

Back in the motorhome again after a fun weekend at Fripp Island with a few of the Inman clan. The weekend was a huge success, sweet wedding ocean side followed by an awesome party in an unbelievable beach house. As they say, "a good time was had by all!"

So we came up I 95 to I 26, through countryside I had not traveled through before, so that made it a bit more interesting. However, I was a bit distracted as I was finishing up a trash romance novel on the kindle.... hey, it was only 1.99 for the download, it was worth at least that much! Oh, and I mustn't forget rode by Inman, South Carolina. Here's proof:

As we rose in elevation to higher ground the fall foliage was looking pretty impressive, I'd say at about 75% towards peak.

So we arrived at Lakewood RV park. A very nice quiet park, after a while I realized why it was so quiet... it was a 55 and older park...no children and bicycles, just dogs and wheelchairs! We had some of Mary's delicious, quick and easy brunswick stew for supper and went to bed early. Well some of us went to bed early.

Monday, October 17, 2011
Departed: Flat Rock   9:45
Arrived:  Asheville  10:15
30 miles

Oh, to be a Vanderbilt!

So as we are watching the morning news in Asheville, we realized that Obama was going to speaking in Asheville this morning at the airport. Too bad, you had to have tickets to go hear him. You know we would have ridden through fire and brimstone to get there! So we were a tad concerned that there might be traffic issues on the way to the Biltmore house, but thankfully that did not prove to be so. We did see a pile of policemen waiting to block off the interstate for the King of Hope and Change.

We arrived at the Biltmore house got our ticket and made our way to the RV parking lot. We all commented, boy they sure are organized, parking attendants everywhere, helpful shuttle bus drivers etc. It was also a gorgeous ride down the two mile driveway. We rode the shuttle to the house and all along had been thinking, Monday morning, shouldn't be crowded, we can leisurely walk through
the house. Boy, were we absolutely wrong! We found out later that this weekend had been their busiest in about 7 or 8 months, and it spilled over to Monday, too. Of course we couldn't take any pictures on the inside of the house, here's the outside gate and then a picture of the front that I'm sure most of you are familiar with. Then there are a few pictures of scenes around the estate.

After the tour of the house we rode to another part of the estate about 5 miles away, the Antler Hill Village where we ate lunch and walked around with the pups. It's hard for me to fathom that the estate is 8000 acres! Here are a few more pics.

We checked in this afternoon into Bear Creek Campground right off the interstate, which I'm sure I'll be hearing tonight. We got situated into our site which was extremely close to our neighbors. We noticed that they were from Michigan, and shared that we had been there this summer, etc. Struck up a conversation and ended up inviting them over for happy hour. Great folks, that's the best part about camping is meeting people from all over the country.
Happy Camping!
Carla

Fore!

Hey friends,

Well they say at the Ocean Point course at Fripp, you measure your golf outing by how many balls you lost! Yikes! I think there was water on 7 of the 9 holes we played, I only dinked two in the water. Not bad, but with my game there are worse things that hitting in the water! In spite of the few lost balls, it was nice to be outside on a gorgeous day. And I forgot to mention how windy it was. Steady 18-20 mph, of course I don't think the wind was my problem! I did have a few good shots, was putting for par a couple of times, was at the "beach" (in the sandtrap) more than I've ever been. But enjoyed playing with my niece, (the bride), and her brother, (the pro of the group) and the hubby.  I think tomorrow I'll give my place to Josh and Julie and I will enjoy sitting on the beach with the pups.

Here are some pics of the beautiful sunrise, golfing, and a baby alligator we came upon while golfing. 

Frolicking at Fripp

Departed:  10:00 a.m.
Arrived:  4:00 p.m.
302 milesfor

Fripp Island, South Carolina

Hey friends,
Here we are at the lovely Fripp Island just north of Hilton Head. We are here for the wedding of a niece. The weather looks to be perfect for Saturday!

First of all I must admit I really wasn't going to blog today but planned to wait til Sunday when we head on our Fall Foliage adventure in the Smokies, however I had to share a funny that happened as soon as we were getting cranked up this morning to head out.  You may have to scroll back down or (however you get to it) to my first entry for our trip to Michigan when Bill had the bad day with the tires, me losing the wallet with all of the special membership cards, Bill spilling his chick-fil-a etc.... I digress... anyway back to this morning, I'm checking the dashboard for the walkie talkies, phone, camera, etc., can't find the second walkie talkie so I'm digging around in the compartment between the two seats and lo and behold but what do I find but the wallet with all the membership cards!!! I burst out laughing and show it to Bill... it was stuck up at the top of the compartment where I wouldn't have seen it unless I stood on my head and used a flashlight!  I knew I hadn't thrown that dadburn thing away!! Hooray!  I'm vindicated!!!

We had an uneventful drive east on 84, and a short while on I-95, so far so good... well you think when you see an exit sign that says Hilton Head, Beaufort SC... oh good we're almost there.  Not so fast.... 50 bridges later and crossing the intercoastal waterways I don't know how many times we finally arrive.  You look at the map and say oh that's not too far... ha... if you were a bird! Anyway, got here, parked the rv, loaded up the brother-in-laws truck and moved all of our stuff into a neat house right on the ocean. (No camping at Fripp.) Looks to be a great weekend. Here are a couple of pics outside the front of the house and of Halle and I walking. We have already had numerous encounters with deer. They are everywhere!

Off to the Boathouse for some supper and to catch up with the cousins!

Happy Camping, (well I guess Happy Beaching since we really aren't camping.)
Carla

Pine trees and Kudzu

Departed:  Natural Bridge, VA  7:-00 a.m

Arrived: Home Sweet Home 10:30 p.m.

622 miles…. A new record for one day driving!

Hey Friends,

I can’t believe it ….. that we drove all this way in one day. We really did not set out to do that, it just kind of happened. We did mean to set out early today and thought we would get to the Augusta area for tonight.  We came down I-77 out of Charlotte turned right at Columbia.  Bill said, "pine trees and kudzu I think we're finally in the south." 

We started looking for camping places in the Augusta area… there’s not much over there…. Continued on to Milledgeville where we had seen an ad for a campground that was on Lake Sinclair. Got there at 5:30, office closed, no instructions and campground looked pretty full with permanent type trailers. So Bill said heck let’s just go home, so we took off. Had a supper break in Warner Robins, went through a major thunderstorm and here we are.

So, after approximately 3,000 miles of wonderful sights, beautiful scenery, 12 campgrounds and driving through 13 states, it's home sweet home! Thanks for riding along!

Happy Camping!

Carla

Bottom line, They won, We lost.

Departed:  Gettysburg, Pennsylvania  12:00

Arrived:  Natural Bridge, Virginia  4:45 p.m.

Natural Bridge KOA

232 miles

Hey friends,

First thing this morning we took off to the Gettysburg National Park Visitor’s Center. A very impressive place in itself. We saw a short video about the Battle of Gettysburg narrated by Morgan Freeman., love his voice!  I guess the biggest thing I came away with was, what was General Lee thinking. He had more men, but trying to storm the Union soldiers when they had higher ground just was not going to work. Hard to imagine 50,000 soldiers lost in that one battle (pretty even on each side). And then for the people of Gettysburg, which only numbered about 2400 at the time, to try to deal with all of the wounded and dead.  After the video we saw an awesome cyclorama of the battle by some French guy. They did such a good job it was hard to tell where the painting ended and the foreground props began.  We then rode around to some of the sites where the different battle outbreaks took place in the area around Gettysburg. When you then see the terrain of the area where the Confederates were trying to storm the Union, you really see why it was such a bloody battle. 

You can't really tell from this picture but the Confederate troops at one point were going up this wheat field with no cover to the Union troops at the top of the ridge.

One good think about Bill and I and our sightseeing mode, we are a lot alike, that we are happy hitting the highlights and getting the gist of the area and moving on to something new. The Bell’s are like that, too, so it made for smooth sightseeing.

 So after hitting the highlights we head west to I-81 which we hop on to speed south.  We got through the rest of Pennsylvania, a few miles of Maryland, and a few miles of West Virginia, before getting to Virginia for the majority of this afternoon. It was a lovely drive through the Shenendoa Valley, with valley in the foreground and the Appalachian Mountains in the background. 

We have stopped at a campground that we have actually stayed at before at Natural Bridge, Virginia, not far from Lexington, Va, the home of Washington and Lee University. Lovely shaded campground, although not too level. I wish it didn’t cost 20.00 to go see the Natural Bridge, as it is a very neat area, but we have been there, done that, so we  aren’t going to pay 20 just to get another picture. Although, I know my blogging buddies would love it!!

So it looks to be a quiet night, light supper, computer and tv time. A bit too hot for much else. The last time we were here I believe it was cool enough, that we broke out the jackets, built a fire and made smores….. how about smores in the microwave,  my kind of camping!

Happy Camping,

Carla

Departed:  Lewisburg, Pennsylvania  8:45 a.m.

Arrived:  Gettsyburg, Pennsylvania  4:45 p.m.

221 miles (mostly in a circle)
Gettysburg KOA Campground

Hey friends,

What a gorgeous day!! We left Lewisburg and headed for Hershey, Pennsylvania and then Amish Country in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.   It was a very lovely ride along the Susquehanna River. It is a very wide river that flows through much of the area we were in today.

We arrived fairly soon to Hershey, Pennsylvania. I had checked online and saw that there were short tours that were free and that you got a free sample of Hershey's chocolate at the end. Perfect.... well apparently everyone else on the east coast thought it would be perfect, too! We turned in and waited for about 10 minutes just to get into the parking lot. Needless to say, wasn't worth that much to us, so we decided just to drive through the town. Here's a few pics of the town,  Hershey Kiss street lights and neat shrubs spelling Hershey.

I had found online last night where you could tour an Amish farm, ask questions, buy fresh bread, homemade items etc. So I entered that address, and we continued on our quest.

We were going down Highway 30 east a very busy thorough fare and I saw that  the Amish Farm was right up ahead. I’m thinking no way, jose…. We’re right in the middle of suburbia, Walmarts, Target, the usual. Well sure enough right across from an Outlet Mall no less here is a “replica” of an Amish Farm complete with covered bridge. That is not exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking rolling hills, “ oh look there’s a little roadside stand with the cute Amish girl in her long dress and bonnet waiting to sell me fresh produce, and homemade bread with jelly.” NOT…. So we pulled in to eat a spot of lunch at the OUTLET Mall (no shopping) and decide to follow a road that Bill had read about being very scenic through Amish Country.  Good Move, daddy-i-o!! We pulled out and found state road 772 and followed it for about 35 miles through the most gorgeous countryside you have ever seen. One silo after another, we saw quite a few Amish farms, which we discerned by the lack of electricity, buggy in the barn, and clothes on the clothesline.  I do believe Pennsylvania is now the favorite state of the week! And they have good roads! Mind you there were quite a few being worked on, which slowed us down a bit, but who’s complaining.  (I told myself before I started writing this that I would try to stay in one tense, that being  past tense,… sorry English teachers , can’t seem to do it!) Here are a few pictures. I was a little embarrassed to be seen taking pictures of them. Didn’t want them to think I was staring….

Another thing we noticed was the Amish girls on bikes, well they really weren’t bikes. It was like a combination bike and scooter. Bike wheels and the scooter stand where the seat would have been. Thank goodness I have a picture so you can understand it better. Actually this is a little boy. I’m guessing the girls couldn’t manage their dresses on the bicycles.

I was too quick on the trigger with this picture!

And then too slow on the trigger with this one!

 And I think this is the town of Lititsa.

An interesting tidbit about the Amish, their cancer rate and heart disease rate is half that of the rest of the country. Could it be all of the “natural products” that they produce themselves or maybe all of the hard work they put in to support themselves off the land. Either way, it’s a good thing. Wonder what would happen if I told Bill no more electricity, and I’m going to have a garden! No point in wondering, neither is  going to happen!!

We drove through quite a few small towns, after leaving Lancaster, went through Intercourse, PA( kind of an ironic name being in the middle of the most conservative people ever)  a very nice little village that was tourist heaven. Then there was  Lititsa, PA, another gorgeous village, which I had the feeling was a college town, but I never saw the college. A lot like Tville, very cute downtown.

 While we were in the Amish countryside we came up behind this guy who was the most talented tractor grass cutter, I have ever seen. We were behind him for quite a ways because there were curves, hills, etc. and we couldn’t pass. He could take the blade right up to the pole he was about to run into pull  up the blade and plop it back down in perfect position right after he passed the pole.( You see it doesn’t take much to keep me entertained while on the road!!)

So by the time we finished our scenic tour we were just about back to where we had started our journey this morning, and were ready to head to Gettysburg. Just get on the 30 west interstate and take off. Now a funny thing about Pennsylvania interstates, they can just stop being interstates with  the placement of a sign!! (however, they are in good shape, which I’ll take any day) So 30 west the interstate turns into 30 west the very busy 2 lane road through untold small towns and it takes about 2 hours to go about 50 miles. But we are here in Gettsyburg at a lovely campground, very shady lots, not on top of each other( which I was afraid of in a touristy area), slide out is out, hookups hooked up and toddie poured! Life is good!

Tomorrow we’ll head to the visitor’s center at the Gettysburg National Park. I may have to do a little boning up on the Civil War tonight. Where is Rick Fenlon when I need him? He is the expert! I think he took his family to every Civil War battlefield he could find one summer!!

And a last note to my teacher friends, have a good day tomorrow, on your first official day at work, ( I think)! Here’s to a great 2011-12 school year!

Happy Camping!

Carla