Jumping back into home life

     We had a great trip and the RV is back in good shape.  Some of the best parts of the trip were visiting with Aunt Virgie and Barbara and taking a trip that has been on my "bucket list" for a long time.  The worst part, by far, was trying to drive in the heavy fog on the Parkway.  I don't think that I have ever been driving in such limited visibility.  I know that I have never been on a narrow, winding road in a large vehicle in such fog.  But, because we were flexible and could work together we got through it.
    We missed Carter's first day of school.  I wish that I had been around to talk to him.  But now we are back and can catch up.  We were in the Appalachians so much of the time that we didn't get to do much Skyping.  Now that the kids are a little older it is so fun to talk with them and I really missed the chance to chat during our time away.
     We have returned to cool weather and it is really fall in Minnesota.  I forgot that it was getting so cool at home as we enjoyed the really warm days in Williamsburg.  Rick is getting the RV ready for winter and I have to get all the food out of the cupboards and clothes out of the closets.  We will close it up tight until our adventures begin again in 2013.
    I am hoping that we will be able to take the trip to ride trains in Colorado next spring.  The drought, heat, and forest fires kept us from that area this year.  Our friend, Kim Werkmeister went to Durango this year and showed us some great pictures of his train ride into the mountains.  He said that it was unbelievably hot and that he could see smoke from several forest fires, however.  Hopefully we will have a winter of big snows in Colorado and we can enjoy fast rushing streams instead of fires.
    For now we have to close up the cabin and start thinking of the holidays.  Summer is over.  It has been too short.
 

Windy Wisconsin

    Our morning was crystal clear, cold, and very still.  We are back to Central time and both of us woke up pretty early today so we hit the road for our 300 mile trek to Wisconsin Dells.  The first thing we noticed as we drove through Indiana was how very flat it is.  After so many hills in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, we were back in flat farm country.  We also noticed that the leaves were still pretty green except for a few bright red maples.
    We had a long haul for the first segment of our day - no rest stop for 120 miles.  We could stop at a Truck stop and get a break, but it is sort of against our driving code which calls for only one Truck stop a day for gas.  The rest of the time we use Wayside rests where we can get out of the RV and walk around a little to keep our blood moving.
    Soon we were headed north on I39 (the route far west of Chicago that I wanted to take on the way down).  It was a good thing that we were driving nearly straight north, because there was a strong south wind that literally blew us down the freeway.  We stopped for lunch at the Wisconsin border Welcome Center and discovered that while we drove across farmland with no trees, we had moved from trees with green leaves to trees with no leaves.  Too much wind.
   After lunch we hit bad road and a cross wind.  Rick was thankful that he has gotten a lot of experience driving this camper because it was blowing all over the really rough road. The bad road made everything inside the camper rattle so much that we couldn't hear each other.
    Finally we got to the Wisconsin Dells area.  I wanted us to have a pretty place to camp on our last night of camping for the season.  Despite warnings in the RV Park Reviews that the KOA had lots of train noise, we decided to camp here since we were driving right past it.  For the first three hours, no trains.  Since dinner time, trains every 15 minutes.  At least they don't blow a warning whistle so loud it knocks us off our chairs which we had when we camped in Asheville.
    So here we are on our last night.   Watching the sun go down, listening to the falling leaves, having a last glass of wine, and blogging.  Tomorrow we head for home.

Tin Cup Campground, Illinois

     For some couples a perfect anniversary day would have flowers and a romantic dinner.   Not so much for Rick and I.  We had a great day traveling in our RV through Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and into Illinois.  We parked at a mostly empty, very grassy and shady campground called the Tin Cup, not sure why.  As we checked in a lady waiting in the office told me that her favorite place to camp was just down the road from our house in Apple Valley at the Lebanon Hills Campground.  It is such a small world.   After getting set up at our site, we really whooped it up and went OUT for pizza and a beer.  It was a great way for us to celebrate 40 years of traveling together.  

     Our drive today was easy.  Although we went around several big cities, it is Sunday and mostly we just had to avoid potholes in Indiana.  However, we have had a few issues lately with the routes chosen by our special Rand McNally RV GPS.  It is supposed to take the height, width, length and weight of our camper into consideration when planning our route so that we don’t get sent on roads with tight curves, low tunnels, weight-limited bridges.   When I looked at the route the GPS suggested yesterday, I was surprised to see that we were routed off the freeway and onto a Kentucky “Parkway.”  These parkways are usually four lane roads going through scenic areas.  I looked at the map and saw that the parkway was quite curvy which is slow going for us and the freeway was quite straight.  We ignored the GPS headed onto the freeway and watched the change on the GPS.  Our freeway route was 10 miles longer, but I knew that we would arrive about an hour earlier due to the easier driving.   But that is not the biggest deal for me.  As we drove the freeway we saw a sign for the Parkway that warned us of a long tunnel that would not accommodate a vehicle wider than 8’6”.  With our mirrors we are wider than that.  I am happy that we did not blindly follow the GPS and have to turn back when we got to the tunnel. 

     Earlier in the trip the GPS sent us on a route into Shenandoah National which was a dead end.  Although the road existed, it ended before it got to the park boundary.   Today we were again routed on a parkway and I have had to manually route us away from downtown Chicago.  Is there any RV owner who wants to be driving the Dan Ryan Expressway in and RV when you are just trying to get around Chicago?  So, my job as a navigator is to plot our trip, double check it on the maps, and then check it on the GPS.  If I do my job right and the road repairs don’t reroute us, we have a pretty smooth drive.

     So here we are having a quiet evening in an out-of-the-way campground with a few folks who have traveled here for football games in Urbana/Champaign which is just east of us.  It’s going to be cold tonight, but we have electricity and our nice little heater.  I’ve still got a couple good books and the sun is supposed to be out tomorrow.  I’ve had the maps out looking at places to go next year.  We are so lucky to have had these 40 wonderful years.  I’m looking forward to number 41.

Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, Kentucky

    We are heading home.  It was a chilly and foggy start, and then the sun came out and made the drive so much easier.  If we had been willing to really push it we could have made the trip home in three days of driving.  But we aren't spring chickens anymore and have divided it into 3 days of around 300 miles and a shorter fourth day.  This plan lets Rick sleep in a little in the morning, gives us time for a quiet breakfast, and gets us to our nightly campground early enough to have a glass of wine, a walk around the campground, a relaxed dinner and some quiet reading time.
    Our drive took us up over the mountains again and into some fog.  Now we are into Kentucky horse country with lots of rolling hills and grass.  At these lower elevations the leaves haven't turned as much, but it is pretty country.
   We stopped at the Kentucky Horse Park campground mostly because it was the only one around and had a good review.  It is huge with 260 spots that have cement pads, water and electricity.  They are all full on this weekend night. There is a huge overflow field that has no hookups, but you can park on the grass.  The Horse Park has a half mile track, a steeplechase course, a covered arena, a museum and lots of barns.
    The campground is full of families and tent campers.  Lots of folks have TV's outside their campers and are sitting around watching college football which seems to be a huge passion in the South.  We are parked next to the playground which is just full of kids.  The streets are full of kids on bikes.  Such a nice, friendly place with plenty of grass and shade.  Too bad we are here for only one night.  We could go to the Four Roses Distillery for a tour and a taste.  Speaking of liquor - I tried a small box wine (2 liters) that I got at Target in Virginia.  It fits into our little refrigerator, stays fresh, doesn't spill, and has provided us with a glass of wine many nights when we want to enjoy our outdoor living room and a pre-dinner drink.  It was a very nice Malbec.  I'm going to look for it at home for our next trip since it has worked out so well.  I have been a snob about box wine, but now I am sold on this for traveling.
   It is fun to see so much activity in this campground and watch the kids enjoying the campfires on this chilly night.  Soon camping season will be over and it will all be memories.  I spent time last night looking at pictures from our camping outings with Carter and Kellen.  Next year it is Bennett's turn too.  I can hardly wait.

Chimney Rock and a Folk Art Center

    Our day started well with a timely UPS delivery of the part to replace our broken side mirror.  We drove the camper next door to the truck repair shop and they promised to get the job done in a few hours.  Yeah!  With those encouraging words we decided to go back to a stop that we missed on the Blue Ridge Parkway - the Folk Art Center which is home to the Southern Highland Craft Guild.  This guild is one of the strongest in the country and represents craftspeople from 9 southern states.  During the Depression the guild  helped craftspeople in the Appalachian region market their remarkable creations.
   The center is housed in a beautiful building that showcases the best of artists in many materials including  fabric, glass, wood, metals, clay, stone, and fibers.  There were hundreds of items for sale, demonstrations on some of the traditional Appalachian crafts, and a museum display of some of the best of the items.  I was really impressed by the quilted and woven fabric art, the beautiful baskets and many of the pottery pieces.  However, I think we spent our mad money this trip on our new mirror.  Shucks.
   We left the center with more time to burn.  Rick heard from one of our neighbors at the campground that a state park nearby had a great view.  We found it on the map and headed for Chimney Rock State Park.  As so often happens in this area, the road looked straight on the map but was full of steep hills and sharp turns.  We had the little car today, again, so we were soon in the small town at the bottom of the hill leading to the park.  It was time for lunch so we stopped at the busiest restaurant on the street - Genny's Cafe.  It didn't look like much from the front, but had a porch on the back which overlooked a rushing mountain river.  Good Southern food and a great view - what a nice "last" lunch before we hit the road for home.
    The drive into the park was again narrow, winding and steep.  At the top we parked the car, walked through a 180' tunnel to an elevator, and took the elevator to the top of the mountain.  A wooden walkway took us out to the "chimney" rock which was a tall pillar of stone standing high above the valley.  What an amazing view!
    We figured our camper must be done so we headed back down the steep roads and picked up our baby from the truck hospital.  Now we have our course plotted for returning back to our family.  The weather is supposed to turn very cool in the next few days so it is definitely time to head home and put the camper into storage.  It has been wonderful to capture an extra month of summer here in the South.

Smoky Mountain National Park

     Now, live on Channel 13, Rick Nesbitt from Minnesota comments on the colorful trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway.

     We took our sporty little Honda and drove another portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway into Smoky Mountain National Park.  The day was nearly perfect - clear blue skies, 75 degrees, and a riot of color in the hills.  The drive up to the parkway was a steep climb - the higher parts of the Parkway are near Asheville.  The views out over the mountains were spectacular - lots of bright yellows and oranges.  Not as many maples in this high area so  the reds are not so dominant.  All along the roadside there are bunches of purple asters adding some contrast color to the golden hues.  As we drove higher there are more pines, but the beetles and the air pollution have been hard on them and have killed off a large portion of the spruce.
    We got to a very high point with a great lookout and the Waterrock Knob Visitor Center and pulled off to take a bunch of pictures.  I noticed a camera crew doing some filming and then we saw that they were focusing on our Minnesota license plate.  They interviewed Rick asking him about the leaf colors.  He was very loyal to Minnesota and commented that there are beautiful changing leaves in Minnesota too, but no mountains such as these in North Carolina.  When we got back from our rambles today we turned on Channel 13 and there we both were, taking pictures and enjoying the leaves on local TV.
    After 30 miles on the Parkway we descended into Smoky Mountain National Park and the Oconaluftee Visitor Center. There were a lot of other folks who decided that today was a perfect day for driving through the park to see the leaves.  We had a picnic lunch on the deck of the Visitor Center as we looked out onto the Smoky Mountains - a beautiful view.  After lunch we walked around the Mountain Farm Museum which is a collection of historic log buildings gathered from throughout the Smoky Mountains and preserved on the Visitor Center site. The buildings include a house, barn, applehouse, springhouse, and smokehouse and give us an idea of the way the original settlers to the area lived.  They grew corn for corn meal and feed for the chickens and hogs.  They had apple orchards to make cider and canned applesauce for winter baking. They had big kitchen gardens to raise vegetables to can for food in the winter and a barn for their livestock.  I looked into the small log cabin that was the main house and noticed that the quilt rack could be raised up to the rafters during the day to get it out of the way and then lowered in the evening so that the women in the family could work on making more warm covers for the family.  Such a simple and yet convenient way to manage a frame that can easily be 4' x 8'.
     There is no admission to the park as a U.S Highway runs through the middle of it.  We drove in about 25 miles and then up to the highest part of the park - Klingman's Dome - which is a rocky knob on top of one of the mountains.  We could remember doing the same drive about 10 years ago in our rented camper, but it was a breeze driving the little car today.  By the time we got to the top the afternoon haze was thick and our view was not as clear as it had been earlier.  The pollution gets to be pretty thick and ruins some of the view.
    We drove back through what amounts to Asheville's rush hour - only slightly busier than midday.  Rick checked hopefully with the campground office to see if our part had arrived from Winnebago, but no such luck.  UPS comes at 10 am, FedEx later in the day.  We are hoping for the 10 am delivery, installation at the truck repair shop and back in business by noon, but we will see.  For the moment, we are watching the water flow in the Swannanoa River and the sun set behind the hills.  I always forget that in the mountains it goes from sunset to dark in such a short time.  No dusk.

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina

    Long ago when we were in Asheville we missed a couple important of important visits: first to the largest home in America built by George Vanderbilt and second to Rick's oldest relative, Aunt Virgie Burg.  We don't agree on how long ago it was that we were here, probably about 10 years ago.  We had rented an RV in Atlanta, Georgia and driven it to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.  Along the way the muffler fell off and one of the tires was bad so we were sent to Asheville to get the problems fixed.  It took so long to get the problems resolved that we needed to leave without these two visits.
   We started the day at the Biltmore Estates.  The estate covers 8000 acres and includes the original house and gardens, the farm, and various barns and outbuildings.  We stopped to buy tickets and got a reality check on the price of being a tourist - $59 each with a $10 discount for being seniors.  Yikes!  For another $10 we could rent an audio tour of the mansion or for $17 a piece we could schedule various tours.  Wow, are we at Disney World?  We parked and shuttled to the mansion.  I must say that the grounds are beautiful and the house is awesome.  The size is just hard to take in.  Most of the rooms have ceilings that are two stories high, even in the basement.  Some are seven stories high.  The interior doors are about 6 times the size of a normal door - tall and wide.  The walls are three feet thick.  The family has had millions of dollars of extensive preservation and restoration done on the house to preserve the silk wall coverings, draperies and upholstery, as well as many original light fixtures and other furnishings.  The tour includes rooms on many levels of the house and, even without the audio commentary, takes about an hour and a half.  From many rooms the view of mountains can be seen across acres of woods.
    The gardens are immense and beautiful, even in the fall when most of the flowers are gone.  Guests at the Biltmore could take long walks in the gardens, ride and hunt in the woods, or spend hours inside the house using the swimming pool, gym, and one of the games rooms.  We drove to the old farm which is now a winery and  a "shopping village" for lunch.  Vanderbilt took over a small town when he bought the property - this rebuilt town now provides visitors to the Estate a place to eat at restaurants and browse shops.  Pretty shops and a great lunch.
    In the late afternoon we went to visit Rick's 95 year old aunt, Virginia.  She was married to one of Rick's mom's brothers, Robert.  They lived in Bloomington for a while after I met Rick and then left Minnesota for Florida.  When Bob's health deteriorated they moved to Asheville to be near her daughter, Barbara.  We had a great visit with Virgie who is doing great and just got a golf cart to help her move around the Senior community.  She has her own bungalow on the property and drives to the main building for lunch and socializing.  Later, we were joined by Rick's cousin, Barbara and her husband, Bern.  It has been a really long time since we saw Barbara, but there was a lot to talk about  from their childhood days and catching up on the current events of the family.  We went out for a yummy dinner at an Italian/Greek restaurant.  As we returned to our campground we enjoyed a gorgeous sunset over the Blue Ridge.

Out of the Clouds into Asheville, North Carolina

    It rained all night - sometimes hard, sometimes just a drizzle.  I was pretty discouraged when I looked out the window this morning and could only see about 50 feet.  We turned on the weather station and heard that the rain would continue all day, perhaps for several days.  Although we were snug and safe in Raccoon Holler we need to get the mirror replaced on the camper before we drive home and to do that we need to get to a bigger city.
      I proposed a new idea  - drive directly down off the Blue Ridge using the state highways and get low enough to get away from the thick fog.  We put a plan together that gave us a couple places to stop again if the fog continued even after we got somewhat lower.  We geared up into our rain coats and pants and hit the road.  We drove out of the campground and very very slowly headed to a gas station that was described to us by the campground host.  We were probably 10 feet from the entrance before we were sure that we had found the gas station.  I was not optimistic that we would get much farther, but we took off down the mountain.
     It was encouraging to see several big trucks head down the same road that we had chosen to take us into the valley.  It was a 7 mile long, winding road with speed limits of 35 mph in many spots, sometimes 20.  The grade was often 8% and sometimes 9%.  If you don't drive an RV you may not pay much attention to the steepness of a road, but this one was STEEP and for a long ways.  The encouraging note was that the fog began to clear very quickly.  By the time we got down 8 miles it was still raining, but we could see several blocks ahead - a great improvement.
     We wandered about rural North Carolina as we worked our way to this campground just outside Asheville. We have a pretty stream that is full from the rain running just behind our camper - it drowns out some of the noise from the train across the highway.  We aren't in wilderness heaven up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but as we sat in the sunshine we were very grateful to be safely down out of the fog.
     The part for our mirror replacement will be shipped tomorrow.  It is supposed to get here on Friday with expedited shipping.  We are looking for a place that can do the work for us - a truck repair place next door to the campground may be just the spot - we will find out tomorrow.  I just checked the weather where we were this morning - still misty and foggy.  I am glad that we took the chance and left.

Misty Moisty Morning on the Blue Ridge Parkway

     Here we are in beautiful Raccoon Holler.  It is pouring rain and visibility through the fog is only 100 feet.  Yup.  Not yards, feet.    It has been a loooooonnnnng day.  The rain started in the middle of the night and we felt sorry for the folks who were in the dripping tents in the campground.  We packed up and drove 10 miles to the site of the old Mabry Mill.  Ed Mabry built this mill to grind corn for his neighbors.  Eventually, he also built a saw mill, a blacksmith shop and a wheelwright shop.  The area became a focal point in the area. The damp old buildings, wagons and mill were stark and rough against the colors of the shrubs and trees.  It was a great stop for photos.  And the ONLY stop where pictures were possible.

     We left the mill and drove another 25 miles to the Blue Ridge Music Center.  This center is managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and the National Council for the Traditional Arts.  Every day at midday live mountain music is performed.  The center collects, performs and presents the history of traditional Blue Ridge music.  Much of the music is that of the banjo and the fiddle, two common instruments on the American frontier.  The evolution of the music is described in short videos and played via dozens of recordings.  It was a toe tapping stop for me.

      We had another 25 miles to go to our lunch stop, but the weather had deteriorated significantly.  In the higher elevations the clouds were literally sitting on the road.  We could see about 2 car lengths ahead – which is terrifying when the road can make a sharp turn in that space.  We crept along slowly and stopped at a pull off for lunch and a re-evaluation of our goal which was still 75 miles away.  I used a combination of maps and brochures to find a place where the Parkway was crossed by a road and where there was a campground nearby.  With almost no phone service I was able to get Google Maps and determine where we were.  Slowly we drove another 20 miles, missed the first turnoff to the campground and made the second. What a terrifying last 20 miles.  We couldn't see anything and kept worrying that someone was going to drive up our tailpipe.  I was so grateful to have found a place to get off the road.  By 2:30 we were parked in a pleasant campground that has electricity and cable.  We spent the afternoon sipping tea and enjoying the fact that we can run the little electric heater that keeps the chill off.  We are really stuck at the moment.  We can’t get on the freeway because of our missing mirror.  We can’t drive the Parkway because of the fog.  More rain is predicted for tomorrow.   We will just have to wait and see.  

Oh it is so beautiful.....Ooops

It was very foggy when we woke up this morning – we could hardly see our fellow campers.  So we took our time getting ready to go until the sun was peeping out.  Our drive up to the Parkway from our campground in Buena Vista was short and really steep.  The camper performed perfectly on the steep drive and we stopped at the top to take a photo of the clouds in the valley beneath us.  With all the glorious fall foliage peeping out between the clouds it was like being in October heaven.

    The Parkway runs on a narrow strip of land that goes on for over 400 miles.  It is closed to commercial vehicles and is just two skinny lanes wide with a bit of mowed grass for shoulders, although most of the time it appears that one could not actually pull off onto the mowed area without getting stuck.  We were rolling along just thrilled at the beautiful colors and the blue sky when BANG there was a loud thump.  Rick yelled something (probably not a curse because he never does) and I looked out my window to see the side mirror hanging by a thread.  I gathered my wits about me and realized that I needed to grab that mirror.  But as I started to power the window down the mirror dropped off onto the shoulder.  I was not so polite in my response to that problem.  We drove ahead about a mile and found a pull off.  Left the camper and took the car back to see if we could find the mirror and perhaps duct tape it on.  No such luck.  That part of the road followed a steep drop to a small creek, where I am sure some minnows are looking at the mirror and wondering what it is.  Well @%@%@%.

    We now have only the small bottom part of our side mirror.  It is okay while we are driving the parkway as there is no way anyone can come up along our right side, but when we get to the freeway we are in trouble.  So our plan is to stay on the Parkway for two days until we get to Asheville, NC where we planned to stay for a couple days anyway.  During that time we will have to find a Ford truck dealer who can get us a new mirror, because there is no way we can drive on the freeways without it.  So good news / bad news.  We lost our mirror, but at least we are not in big trouble without it for the moment.

Our campground tonight is at Rocky Knob high on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  If you like to camp – especially in the fall when it is cool and everything smells of falling leaves – you will understand when I say that this place is spectacular.  A beautiful campground, a warm campfire, turning leaves and a clear, starry night.  May you all have the chance to get to the kind of vacation you love the most.  I am here.