bobanddenisewanderlust

Bare with me folks, I may have my days mixed up, as I have had so many problems with getting pictures into the blog. I think I now have the problem fixed, at least I hope so!

Saturday- We went a little bit later to the Shambaughs, then went to an awesome lunch at the Moose Cafe. This restaurant was defininately our kind of place. Sort of like Cracker Barrell, but much better. Excellent food and excellent service.

From there we went to a garden store for Dave and to a Walmart Supercenter. We returned to the rig for the evening.

Sunday- We stayed later at the RV, working on tasks. We went to the Shambaugh’s just in time for lunch. We took the dogs with us. The Shambaugh’s have two kitty’s who had never been exposed to dogs. So we all watched, carefully, with interest, as to how the cats and dogs would react. There was some mutual curiosity, but all the pets seem to get along fine. We kept the dogs outside on their deck and the cats were inside. They stood at the door and looked at each other through the glass, then got bored and wandered away.

I did lots of loads of laundry, thank you Nancy for the use of your machine! Late in the afternoon, we took the dogs with us, and all went to Biltmore (the Vanderbilt Mansion). The Shambaugh’s have a season pass to the facility, and after 5 PM, they can bring in guests. We wandered through one of the commercial areas, where they have restaurants, their wine tasting room/ purchase area, and a food truck. We ate at the food truck, and we were very proud of our dogs, as they were both very well behaved while we were there. Koda had been a bit anxious on the ride to the Estate, but once she figured out we were not leaving her there, she was back to normal. Below is Bob with the dogs, at one of the statues. This one depicts a Vanderbilt daughter with her dog.

Below is a very interesting, temporay, art display. You could walk thru the art.

We went to view the Mansion. The cost to tour the house, was $70, per person. I had been there before, years ago, and it was not expensive at that time. We just drove by the gardens and the house.

We returned to the Shambaugh’s and had some ice cream. We put the clean clothes into the truck, and returned to the RV Park.

Monday- We went to Dave and Nancy’s house, then on to Hendersonville NC. I had discovered that they had a Genealogy Center there, and Bob has some ancestors who lived in NC. While driving from the RV to the Shambaugh’s, Bob had spotted a sign that said Trantham Farm Rd. He remembered that there were Trantham’s in his family tree. He sent a message to his cousin, Ronda, in Arizona, to double check on who they were. She sent lots of info. Nancy also has found that she has relatives that lived in NC, so we went to the Genealogy Center first. Nancy is new to Genealogy, so she just watched and talked with the gals there. Bob found that he needed to go to a different Genealogy Center, in another county. Both Dave and I left to wander around. Dave went looking at various stores. I also went shopping. Along the streets were some of the following bears. 

There was one bear on each corner of Main Street. I am only showing a few. We ate lunch at Abby’s Café. Dave and Nancy worked their way to the truck. Bob and I went into the Mast General Store, where I had found the hat Bob wanted, in his size. We went upstairs in the store and Bob tried the hat on. It fit, so he purchased a Tilly hat. It should last him 20 years and it is machine washable.

From Hendersonville, we went to the Sierra Nevada Brewery. Bob had a flight of beer the rest of us had a fancy dessert.

Nancy and Dave drove us back to the RV Park, and we said our good-bye’s for this trip. It had been 5 years since we had seen them. Wow, time does fly!

Tuesday- We left the RV Park at around 8:30. We stopped for diesel and propane, then returned to the Blue Ridge Parkway, north. Our first stop was off the parkway, we went to the Original Mast General Store. It was really fun! The first place we came to was the Annex. It had some candy and other stuff. We left there and went to the actual Mast General Store, about 2/10 a mile farther. There was plenty of parking!

Inside the store.

The drawers above are for small items like nails and screws. The store had a woking Post Office in it with the old time PO Boxies. That picture has seemed to have disapppeared!

We turned right out of the parking lot and traveled over a very zig-zagging road, back to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We stopped at the Folk Art Center. Below is the only picture I could take, as no pictures were allowed inside. That is a shame, because the are is beautiful artwork located and for sale there! I really enjoyed speaking with one of the artists.

After we toured the center, we ate lunch at a picnic table in the parking lot. Because it was a NP, I returned after lunch and stamped our NP Passport Book, in the Folk Art Center.

We continued traveling north. We stayed at the Julian Price NP campground for the night, $10 with our geezer pass. . NP’s have a dump station, potable water, and dumpsters. All located somewhere on the property. The sites have no services, so we were boondocking. The weather seemed cold, after the heat in Ashville.

Wednesday- We continued traveling north on the Parkway. We traveled thru a lot of tunnels and under bridges.

We stopped at another NP for the evening, Rocky Knob NP Campground. UGH, they had no sites that we could fit into. The new to us rig is so much smaller, but every site we could use, had our slide sticking out into the road. Most of the sites were for reservation only.

So we punted and found a commercial campground for $20 a night. It was old and very rundown. It had just been sold to a new owner, and he really had some work to do. It was called Father Rabbit Camp Ground. It only had 20 amp service. The previous owner must have just put in some cabins, because they were new, but we could not understand why anyone would want to stay at that location for a week! There was nothing around the area, except for the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Thursday- We continued traveling north. We stopped at the Mabry Mill, built in 1910. It is located in the Meadows of Dan, Virginia.  What a nice place and very interesting. We wandered around outside, with the dogs, looking at the facility. It was a NP attraction, but they had no stamps for the NP Passport Book.

That night we stayed at Peaks of Otter NP campground, which had decent sites.

Friday- We continued our drive north, we were in Virginia. We stopped at this little lake and found a waterfall.

We continued on towards Waynesboro. As soon as we had phone service, Bob called the local Elks Lodge. The gal said that they had one site available. So we went to the Lodge. The Lodge had 4 sites total, and all were occupied. The one that the gal thought was empty, the guy had gone out for propane or diesel. So I called the Moose Lodge. They have one site, which I was told had electric. I was also told we could only stay one night. So we moved to the Moose Lodge. The electric was 110, and it was pretty hot. But we made it work.

The Moose Lodge was having a big concert the next day, which was why we had to move. We went to the Lodge in the evening and had a wonderful dinner of meatloaf, mac n’ cheese or potatoes, gravy, green beans and a roll. It was all freshly cooked by their volunteer cooks. Yummy!

Fortunately, the temp went down into the low 70’s at night, and with our fan, we made it through. I checked out two BW’s. One turned us down for Sunday night. One accepted us for Saturday night, outside of Harrisburg. I made a TT reservation for Sunday evening in Pennsylvania.

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