Thursday, October 30, 2014

We are at Roan Mountain State Park in Tennessee, not too far from Molly and Nick.  We’ll move closer to them for Friday and Saturday nights, heading for home Sunday and Monday.

We left Rocky Knob campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway and headed for Mabry Mill, an old mill on the Parkway that was supposed to have a nice restaurant next door.  But it was Sunday and by noon they were using the overflow parking.  No one was organizing the parking and I was afraid we might get parked in.  It was a gorgeous day and everyone was taking advantage of it.  We decided not to even try to get a spot at the restaurant and just wandered around the mill for a bit.  Turns out they were having live music that afternoon, so Obi and I found a place to sit and listen for awhile.  Steve got a great shot of the mill.

We left and headed south.   We found a picnic area that wasn’t full and I climbed in the trailer and made us a picnic lunch.  It was a perfect day for it.  There were lots of people picnicking, some in picnic grounds, some in wide spots in the road or adjacent fields.  We were heading for a KOA campground at Fancy Gap.  We needed propane and frequently the easiest place to get it is at a campground.  With our experimenting with no hookup campgrounds this trip, it looks like we can go about 4 days with adequate power, water and propane and not having to dump.

But those four days mean no microwave for heating up leftovers and no TV without the generator (Steve says that’s on his fix it list).  The refrigerator and stove both run off propane, as does the furnace.  The refrigerator will also run off electricity if we have it.  It’s the microwave I miss the most!

Internet access is variable, depending where we are in the mountains.  It’s pretty much like cell phone service.  Sometimes you have it, sometimes you don’t.  Some of the campgrounds have great wifi, some have poor and some have none. 

After one night at Fancy Gap, we headed for Stone Mountain State Park, NC.   Not too far off the Blue Ridge Parkway and water and electricity.  Although the parking lot at the ranger station was empty, he said this was his busiest time of year.  We still managed to get a site with a stream next to it. This is a nice campground in a beautiful park.  It’s one of the nicest campsites we’ve had.

Our campsite at Stone Mountain

We drove up to one of the falls that wasn’t far off the road and the trees were great.  The leaf turning season is interesting.  We’ve been up high and seen trees just turning and at a lower altitude, seen bear trees and vice versa.  At this point, the Blue Ridge Parkway was just past peak, but the drive from Stone Mountain State Park back to the Parkway was absolutely gorgeous.  We’re seeing more evergreens and rhododendron, whose dark greens really set off the fall colors. 

We spent the next night at Julian Price Campground on the parkway.  No hookups, but a view of the lake through the trees on the side and a view of the woods out the back.   A deer wandered past at one point, making it the second deer I’ve seen, the fourth for Steve.  There are lots of signs to not feed the wildlife, but we haven’t seen much.

On Wednesday, we headed for the last part of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be built, the Linn Cove Viaduct.  It transverses Grandfather Mountain.  It’s basically a bridge that stands away from the mountain a bit so that the mountain didn’t have to be blasted to complete the Parkway.  But it had to wait for computers to design it and the chemists to come up with epoxies to build it.  They had a nice visitor center to explain it all, including a video.  It’s an amazing engineering feat.

Wednesday was cold and rainy.  We’ve been lucky and not had much bad weather.  Although it was dreary, the rain wasn’t too bad to drive in and held off until after we were over the Viaduct.  We headed for our current camp at Roan Mountain, making stops for diesel and groceries.

This is another gem of a state park.  The campground is well laid out, with water and electric at each site.  Each site has a paved parking area and a grill and fire ring.  Tonight I think we are the only ones camping on the creek without a campfire.  We’re enjoying everyone else’s. 

Fall is catching up with us.  It was 37 degrees at 10 am this morning, so we put off a walk until this afternoon, when the temperature was in the high 50’s.  We walked along the opposite side of the creek from where we are camped.   That’s our rig from across the creek.

We pull out tomorrow (Friday) and head for Rocky Top Campground, near Johnson City, so we can visit Molly and Nick and their family.  Sunday we head for home, taking two days and we’ll be home in time to vote.

Then it’s 3 weeks to prepare for our mega trip!

Deb

Saturday, October 25, 2014

We are currently at Rocky Knob campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway, about 10 miles from Floyd, VA.

Floyd has one stop light and a whole lot of energy.  For a small town, they are packed with restaurants and shops.  They take their tourism seriously.  A park worker at Peaks of Otter visitor center recommended we stop in Floyd and she knew what she was talking about.  Live music abounds Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the shops and restaurants.  We went in for lunch on Saturday and hit the farmer’s market, where I scored allergy friendly focaccia, bread and muffins!  Steve shopped at the century old hardware store and visited the local computer museum.

At the General Store, I had Brunswick stew and cornbread, both allergy friendly.  It was wonderful!  Steve had tomato soup, homemade bread and pumpkin pie.  He said they were good, too.

We did manage leave Baltimore on Thursday, October 16, and have been traveling the Blue Ridge Mountains ever since.  On our way to Winchester, VA, to have our hot water heater replaced at Camping World, we stopped at Harper’s Ferry.  I had never been and our one hour visit wasn’t enough, so we planned to go back the next day.

We found a campground in Winchester that could take us for three nights.  This is leaf peeping season and campgrounds over the weekends get booked.  There was also a civil war re-enactment going on nearby, but the campground managed to find us a spot for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Luckily, the campground manager is very good at directing you to back in, as the spots were tight.  But we had what we needed. 

Friday we drove back to Harper’s Ferry and spent the day.  I think Harper’s Ferry is best known for John Brown’s raid on the federal armory at Harper’s Ferry.  He was an abolitionist and wanted to arm the slaves.  He was captured, tried for treason and hung.  This was in 1859 and was one of many things that precipitated the Civil War.  I remembered something about John Brown’s raid and that it took place at Harper’s Ferry, but I could never remember if John Brown supported the North or South.  Now I know.

What I didn’t know (or at least remember) was that there was federal armory at Harper’s Ferry, proposed by George Washington.  Harper’s Ferry is located where the Shenandoah River joins the Potomac River, making transportation easier (although nothing was easy in those days).  Because of the gap in the Blue Ridge mountains created by the rivers, it was a passage way to what was then the west.

Robert Harper acquired land there in 1734.  He established the ferry in 1764.  Jefferson visited in 1783 and climbed part way up the mountains to view the scenery.  The rock he apparently stood on is now called Jefferson’s Rock and is on the Appalachian Trail.  You can’t stand where he stood, because some of the rock has fallen and is unstable.  But I climbed up to it, along with Steve and Obi.  (Steve carried Obi.)  So I’ve walked in Jefferson’s footsteps and on the Appalachian Trail.

Walk up to Jefferson’s Rock

Jefferson’s Rock

View from Jefferson’s Rock

Graffiti on Jefferson’s Rock

Washington visited Harper’s Ferry in 1784 and several members of his extended family settled in the area in later years.  After the armory was built, it produced most of the guns used by the army, along with an armory in Massachusetts.  In 1803, Meriwether Lewis outfitted most of his expedition here.  He met up with Clark near Louisville, KY.

In spite of many floods and the passing of time, there are still a number of 200 year old buildings in Harper’s Ferry and it is an active town as well.  I always spare a few sympathetic thoughts for the current day residents of historic areas, as they have to deal with all us tourists on a daily basis.

We found a nice place to eat in an old rail car across from the railroad station.  They had an outdoor seating area, so Obi sat under the table and the waitress brought him some water.  Steve went on a ranger led tour later while Obi and I enjoyed the scenery and chatted with some other guests.  One recommended that while we’re in Texas, we try to stay at the Lost Alaskan RV Park near Big Bend National Park.  It’s supposed to be really nice and we’ll get advice for our Alaskan trip.

On Saturday, we headed for Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park.  Being the middle of October, the colors were just beautiful.  The vistas were lovely, and all the restrooms crowded!  All of the campgrounds were full.  If I had thought about it, we would have done the drive on Friday, when most people would still be at work and done Harper’s Ferry on Saturday.  But after the first couple of overlooks, we could usually park and enjoy the view when we wanted.  The traffic wasn’t that bad, but all of the ranger stations, restaurants (and there are several), and restrooms were crowded.

I had packed a lunch, so we ate in the truck.  We were going to picnic, but it was quite breezy and chilly.  We weren’t pulling the trailer, as there is one tunnel too low for it and the road is pretty twisty.  That meant we had to drive back to our starting place, but we used I81 for that.  However, we ended up 9 hours on the road that day, which is way too much.  But the scenery was worth it.

Sunday was moving day and we packed up the rig and headed for Lexington, VA.  Actually, the campground’s address was Natural Bridge, VA.  We could have tried to stay in one of the campgrounds on the Blue Ridge Parkway (our next destination) but Steve needed to attend a meeting by phone on Monday and it was time to do laundry.  So we headed for a KOA.  Laundromat, cell phone service, dump the tanks, refill the propane and the satellite tv worked.  What more can you ask for?  And we had a decent view out the back window.

Chores complete, we checked out of the KOA (KOA stands for Kampgrounds of America and is a franchise operation; very family oriented).  I didn’t have a great impression of KOA’s when we started this journey, but they are clean and well kept and have almost everything you need.

We headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway, which starts where Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park ends and continues down the Blue Ridge until it reaches Smokey Mountain National Park.  By pure luck, we are here at peak leaf peeping season and it is spectacular.  The pictures don’t do it justice.

Our first campground is Peaks of Otter campground, $8 a night with senior discount (love it!).  We stay 2 nights, driving up to the James River visitor center and checking out the canal and locks there.  They are no longer in use.  At the visitor center in Peaks of Otter, a ranger takes us on a walk up the mountain to an old graveyard.  Some of the original settlers of the valley are buried here and the graves go back to the very early 1800’s.  It’s a very rough graveyard and needs to have some work done or it will slip under the forest floor and disappear.

View out our window at Peaks of Otter campground.

The valley our campground is in was a route through the mountains for early settlers and later a tourist destination both for the scenery and to escape the heat of the lowlands.  I’m glad Franklin Roosevelt established the parkway and provided funds and workers for it.  WPA (Works Progress Administration) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) provided much of the labor.  These were government entities used to employ people during the depression.  Without these two organizations, much of the National Park system would be totally undeveloped. 

Yesterday (Friday) we headed for the campground we are in now, Rocky Knob.  The campgrounds on the Blue Ridge Parkway have no hookups, but do have picnic tables, fire rings and most have restrooms and dump stations.  We are running off batteries and solar.  But tomorrow we head for another KOA, just off the Parkway.  We need propane and it will be nice to have electricity, even if only for one night.

View from our picnic table at Rocky Knob

Being on the Parkway, our cell and Internet service have been very spotty.  I don’t mind.  It’s a small price to pay to enjoy the beauty surrounding us.  We try to get satellite radio occasionally during the day to keep up with the news and when we do have cell service, email loads to Steve’s phone so we can keep up with our friends and families. 

My mom seems to be settling into the nursing home and has good days and bad days.  But she walks a lot in the mornings (with an attendant) and I think sleeps better at night for that.  And when she does have a bad day, the staff takes good care of her.  Dad, Joe, Lisa, and their daughters visit her regularly and she usually knows them or is asleep.  Dad still has his aches and pains, but is getting much better sleep.

Obi is coping with his blindness.  I think he may have a little vision left, but not much.  Here he is in his bed in the trailer.

And Maria is enjoying the fall season!

Deb

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

We were going to leave Baltimore today, but the forecast was for thunderstorms all day.  Since we don’t like either driving or setting up in the rain, we stayed put.

We did manage to get to both Ft. McHenry and the Aquarium yesterday.   We thoroughly enjoyed Ft. McHenry.  I didn’t remember much from history, except that the Star Spangled Banner was written about the battle fought here during the war of 1812.  I certainly didn’t remember that the war of 1812 was fought on several fronts, with the British attacking from Canada, as well as all along the eastern seaboard and even New Orleans.

By the time the British attacked Baltimore, they had already captured and burned Washington, DC, including the White House.  (I do remember a story about First Lady Dolly Madison ordering George Washington’s portrait cut from the frame in order to take it with her as they fled Washington.)  Baltimore heard about the fall of Washington and got ready for an attack.  The fort geared up for an attack and citizens (men, women, children, black and white) and soldiers built ramparts to protect the city from a ground attack.  The British needed to knock out the fort to proceed with a ground attack.  They bombarded the fort for 25 hours, before retreating and leaving Baltimore alone.  Four American soldiers were killed and 25 wounded.  This is the view from the fort over the river where the British ships were anchored.

The flag that inspired the song was raised when the shelling stopped.  It’s 30 x 42 feet.  A smaller flag had flown over the fort during the battle, but it was the large flag that Francis Scott Key saw when he looked for the flag at the dawn.

The original flag is at the Smithsonian in Washington.  They’ve gone to great lengths to preserve it.  It’s worth a visit.

It was a beautiful day to visit the fort and there were school groups there.  Several groups were actually performing.  The schools use historical music to teach both history and music and were singing.  There was also a student fife and drum group that played quite well.  They were playing out on one of the walls while I was in the quadrangle and the sound bounced around.  The music was fine, but I can’t imagine being there with bombs and canons going off.

We sometimes forget that the fort was where people lived.  This is the center of the fort.  The rooms were Spartan, but typical for the time.

The fort was used for many things during it’s active time, including a hospital during World War 1.  It's definitely worth a visit if you're in Baltimore.

We left the fort and headed for the aquarium, which is located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor.  They've done a great job of revitalizing this area and it has a number of attractions and lots of restaurants.  We found a parking garage that the truck would fit in (with 2" clearance, kind of scary) and walked a few blocks to the pier the aquarium is on.  We had lots of choices for lunch, but Steve chose the Hard Rock Cafe.  We tend to visit them when we are near one.  The food is usually good and it reminds us of London and our other travels.

This is a picture of the bridge that connects the two aquarium buildings.  If you look in the background you can see some yachts docked.  These were huge and drawled the ferry that went by.

We finally found the entrance of the aquarium and started our journey through it.  It was an ok aquarium, but fell short of my expectations.  They are dealing with odd space constrictions, having a small footprint on two different piers and rising to 5 stories.  But it just didn't flow naturally and there seemed to be a lot of wasted space.  They did have some great artwork.  I particularly liked the jelly fish installation above one of the cafes.

They had a nice dolphin exhibit area, but had no dolphin shows.  They don't do shows.  If you were lucky, you might see a training or feeding session.  They had a fairly normal set up of a big front pool and two back pools.  There were two dolphins swimming in the front pool and about 4 playing with a basketball in on of the back pools.  We watched for awhile and then left for the jelly fish.  On our way back to the bridge between the two buildings, the worker who had told us there were no shows told us they were starting a training session and we could go in and watch.  We went in and watched.  A trainer was explaining what went on and Steve was excited that she was hooked into a loop for hearing aids and he could actually hear!  Yeah for the aquarium!

On the way home, we picked Obi up from the kennel.  We kenneled him for two days so he wouldn't be alone in the trailer and we could take Steve's dad to dinner.  They had groomed him and he looked great.

Obi is having trouble seeing.  Blindness frequently happens when dogs have diabetes, so this doesn't come as a total surprise.  But it will require some adjustments for both Obi and us.

The storms have passed, so we'll leave in the morning.  We're headed for Winchester, Virginia, where we will drop off the trailer to have the water heater replaced, and then head for Harper's Ferry.  Another history lesson!

Deb