Two Hams on the Road

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