Category: North Carolina
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Smoky Mountain Spring
You don’t know what you don’t know until you know. We thought 8 days in the Smokies would be plenty. We thought Smoky Mountain Spring would be snow-free. We learned. Three campgrounds are open year round – Smokemont in the southeast, Elkmont in the northmiddle and Cades Cove in the northwest. We thought we’d get…
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Life on the road with waterfalls
We’re a bit early to experience Spring in the Smokies. Snowrain showers instead of wildflowers, closed roads and campgrounds, cold nights and warm-ish days make off-the-grid living a challenge when the sun is not quite ready to cooperate. Solar Required Boondocking in cold weather gets you thinking hard about energy usage. Propane does the heavy…
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Clingmans Dome All Alone
There’s no higher vista in Great Smoky Mountain National Park than Clingmans Dome. 6,643 feet. Motorists make a 7 mile, 1,600 foot elevation climb on a paved and winding road to summit parking, then hike 330 feet higher for 360 above-the-treetop views. Appalachian Trailers hike any number of miles through the woods to pop out…
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Newton Bald-faced Lie
Newton’s First Law of Motion states that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion and bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. If we have to be honest with ourselves, we binged a few too many streaming series over the past few months, sacked out in our recliners, eating dessert. We were at…
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On the Road Again
Life at home had filled our lives such that waking up in the same place each day felt normal. Family, friends, holidays and special events had kept us wonderfully busy. With a long awaited, mid-February epic Birthday party in the rear-view mirror, the call of the road was strong. New adventure machines were ready to…
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Biking Biltmore
On our way out of the Biltmore yesterday, we stopped at Antler Village information center and asked for the trail map. “Are you renting bikes here or bringing yours on your car?” The attendant politely asked. “We’re riding them here,” we said. “I don’t know if you are allowed to ride them on. We’re not…
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Conga at the Biltmore (Day 1)
As usual, a downpour overnight and well into the morning foiled our plans to bike to the Biltmore. Declaring war on the rain, Eric read an informative review about RV parking there then packed up Betty for a 15 mile mini-excursion. The three days of rain meant that the site was largely packed or covered. …
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No Rain (for a minute)
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain I like watchin’ the puddles gather rain And all I can do is just pour some tea for two And speak my point of view but it’s not sane It’s not sane It’s been raining all week in Asheville and today looked like a…
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Downtown Asheville
Asheville, The Official 2018 Visitor Guide magazine says to “MIX IT UP” and go from the Streets to the Peaks like a Local. Every offering is marketed as a not-to-be-missed opportunity and we are totally buying what they’re selling. There is no shortage of cool things to experience. Yesterday we headed away from the city…
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Roller Coaster Roads
Nestled in the mountains with two rivers running through it, Asheville, NC is the gateway to the Appalachians and often named “one of the best places to live in America. The setting is so copasetic that it was chosen by George Vanderbilt as the home to his famous gilded-age mansion estate, Biltmore. We were eager…