Dad is 101 years old

October 20,  2016

Dad is 101 years old today.

He doesn't appear to have changed at all this past year.  In fact, there is very little change in his health or appearance in the past several years.

We celebrated with several of his friends with lunch out and then cake and ice cream back at the house.

A few days on the mountain

October 6 - 19

It's Fall and time to enjoy the mountain house.

Clara and 5 friends went up to the house on Thursday for a girls weekend.

I stayed at home to  see if Hurricane Matthew would provide some excitement. Saturday night we did get some wind (70 mph) and rain, but basically, and thankfully nothing more.

I drove up Sunday (after all the ladies left).

The weather was beautiful almost the whole time we were there, with fog in the valley in the morning and mostly clear evenings with quiet sunsets.

We always enjoy spending an afternoon listening to good music at The Orchard

Sunrise in October often includes a cloud layer in the valley.  This morning I got up early enough to see the shadow of the mountain on the top of the clouds.

We enjoyed visiting with friends and just enjoying the view.  In the afternoons it was warm enough to sit on the porch and read.  Temperatures were comfortably in the 40's in the evening and  low 70's by mid-afternoon.  Great sleeeping.

The leaves are changing rapidly.  When I arrived, everything was green.  By the time we left, it was becoming multi-colored and beautiful.

For exercise, I joined the Fitness Express just a few miles from the house. Getting my regular swimming and exercise has become one of the major detriments of staying up here.  But now, with the fitness club I can work out and only drive to the Marion YMCA a couple times a week to swim.

Jorge came up and spent an afternoon weed eating the lower property, which has grown up quite quickly since our major clearing a couple of years ago.  If we let it go to long, the trees quickly grow up into the view.  We had quite a pile of brush so we spent another day burning all of that down to nothing.  It looks great when cleaned up.  We're finding new laurel and rhododendron coming up and hopefully some day it will cover the whole cleared area.

We left the house on Tuesday and spent the night with the kids.  This is the first time we've seen Anna and Evan since saying goodbye in Salt Lake City.  They seem to change over night.  They're growing up entirely too fast.

America Yacht

September 21

We're still on sta-cation.

We really don't take advantage of all the opportunities that are right in our backyard, so we're going to start trying more.

The America Yacht, a beautiful replica of the original 1851 race boat by the same name, is on the Beaufort waterfront for a couple of days and they're offering (for a price) a 3+ hour cruise. 

So this afternoon, we took advantage and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon on this beautiful yacht.

There were 78 people who took advantage of the cruise, and it didn't feel crowded

When dropping the sails, the crew, which as best I could determine were all young ladies, would climb on the boom and direct the sails with their feet.

The Captain and owner

White Oak Shores Bluegrass Festival

September 16-18

We continue to pretend we're on vacation.  We saw in the paper that this weekend there is a Bluegrass Festival here in Carteret County.  This is an annual event and we've been wanting to go, but have always had something that interfered.

So, this weekend we packed up the motor home (actually, it wasn't completely unpacked from the last trip and was still here at the house), and drove the 45 minutes to White Oak Shores RV Resort.

The weather forecast was iffy, and sure enough it did rain some.  But we would sit out in the rain with umbrellas and wait for the shower to pass while the bands played on.

There were four bands on Friday, playing and afternoon set and an evening set of about 45-50 minutes each and four different bands Saturday with the same schedule.

Maddie and Jean drove over Saturday afternoon and stayed until late evening and enjoyed the music.

This was a terrific setting for outdoor music, with a stage located in a big bowl shaped field

Sunday, we packed up again and headed back to Beaufort.

A great weekend for a sta-cation.

We're considering going to the Merle Fest, an annual music festival next April in Wilkesboro, NC.

Heading East - Phase II

Tuesday, Aug 30

South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri.  Today we drove through each of this state or about 340 miles.  I believe it's our longest drive in one day on this trip. We're both getting a little anxious to get back to North Carolina.

Clara decided that we need to stop over at the Mountain House a few days before going to Beaufort, so that's the direction we're generally heading.

We've invited Jean and Maddie to join us this upcoming weekend in Spruce Pine. It's Labor Day, so no school and Jean has a day off.  Hoping it will work out.

We've stopped tonight at the nicest municipal campground (Blue Springs Lake Campground) we've ever been to just East of St. Louis.

Wednesday, August 31

Another "money day" traveling across Missouri to Illinois and one of the finest State Parks we've seen, Wayne Fitzgerald State Park.  Another over 300 mile day. Entirely too much driving.

We're learning a good lesson on this trip.  Normally when we're deadheading like we're nowvdoing, we've been staying at Walmart.  Though mostly okay, sometimes the traffic noise is really bad.  What we're finding is that with a little research and effort, we can find a nice municipal or state park within a few miles of most interstate highways, and so far, we've found that they are about the nicest parks around.  Of course it's mid-week and school is back in session, so these parks and underutilized.  And by being fairly close to the major highway, we usually still have a decent Internet signal

We're not making reservations and are not having any problems.  This Park has in excess of 200 sites, all with electric service - which is all we need.  As long as this continues, no more noisy Walmarts (although I do miss having a Red Box movie close by).

Today is our first day on our journey that it rained most of the day.  It has no impact on our plans (or lack of plans) now that we've gotten out of the scenic parts of the country.  Now everything pretty much looks the same, so we just press on.  I had thought about stopping at the St. Louis arch, but decided I didn't need the hassle of city driving and traffic.  Going through St. Louis reminded me why I like where we've been where population density is reasonable.

This is all the arch that we saw, and it's plenty.

Thurs, Sept 1

Tonight we find ourselves again at a rather unusual State Park, Edgar Evins State Park in Tennessee.  We have been here before on one of our return trips from the West.  All of the campsites are on wooden platforms built on rather steep terrain. It is the only way that this park could be developed as the land around the lake is steep.

We enjoyed another relatively long day of travel from Illinois, and is next to our last day before we will arrive in Spruce Pine tomorrow.

Friday, September 2 through Tuesday, September 7

Home (at least a home)

Friday we drove most of the day to get to the Mountain House.

I  had made arrangements with the local fire department (Parkway Fire Department in Grassy Creek) to leave the motor home in their large parking lot.  We took most of the refrigerated items out so we could shut the power off for the next few days.  And we're home!

Some of the reasons we love the mountain house

Saturday we cleaned house and I went swimming

Sunday we worked around the house and the afternoon we spent at The Orchard renewing acquaintances.  Saturday evening we had dinner with Bill, Judy, and Kit at the Golf Course.

Wednesday, September 7 we finally made the last leg of the journey and we're back in Beaufort.

It was a wonderful journey!

We left Beaufort on July 8 and returned September 7.  We spent 56 nights on the road in the motor home.  We drove the motor home 7050 miles and the car 2450 miles, driving through 17 states, visiting 14 National Parks and Monuments and visiting numerous State Parks and National Recreation Areas.

It was truly the trip of a lifetime.  Making it the most memorable journey was having Anna and Evan with us for 3 weeks, and having Slade and Candace with us for one exciting week. 

Both Anna and Evan are teenagers now, and with that comes more and more things for them to do in the summer.  I can only hope that we can have a repeat of this summer with them and their parents some day.

The colored-in states are the states that we've been to in our motor home.  Just a few left - and Alaska

Heading East Phase I

Friday, August 26

Today was purely a driving day.  We've covered about 2/3 of Wyoming today.  This is truly a sparsely populated place.  We would drive for miles and not see any sign of human habitation.  The towns are few and far between.

We ended in Lusk, Wyoming, a small ranching community of 1,500 people which offered up surprises.  There is a marvelous museum with relics and pieces from the past.  The two most interesting things that I observed in the hour or so I spent there is a two headed calf (yes, a real two headed calf born on a ranch nearby, and preserved as a stuffed calf in this museum) and a genuine, unrefurbished 1890's stagecoach. I have seen several refurbished, but this was the first I have seen that is original. It was really interesting to see the craftsmanship and technology of the day.

Lusk is in Niobrara County, which is the least populated county in the least populated state in the US.  But there are a lot of cattle and horses.

And, for a town of only 1,500 people, they have a really fine swimming pool/waterpark which I was able to take advantage of.  The County's population is 2,400.

A view from our campsite

This evening we went downtown to a street festival for a while.  However, the music wasn't really to our taste (hard rock), so we left early.

Tomorrow we'll head to Mount Rushmore National Park in South Dakota.

Saturday, August 27

South Dakota

After a relatively short drive, we're near Mount Rushmore National Monument. We spent a good part of the afternoon at the monument.

It's an interesting place with an interesting history.  Obviously it is nothing like the scenic National Parks we've seen, but from the perspective of being different, it is certainly that.  60 foot high faces carved into the side of a mountain certainly stands out.

It was started in the late 1920's as an idea to attract tourists to the region.  In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge dedicated the monument, commencing 14 years of work.  Throughout the depression in the 1930's, this project was used to provide jobs for the ranchers and miners in the area. The project was mostly paid for by the government, but a surprisingly large percentage came from private donations. Work was halted at the beginning of WWII and was never completed to the sculptors vision.

Tonight, we went back over to Monument for their nightly lighting ceremony. This is held each evening as it gets dark.  During a moving patriotic ceremony just after dark, the lights are turned on to the sculptures, providing a beautifully different perspective.

This project and many others like it such as Trail Ridge Road in the Rocky Mountain National Park, the roads and tunnels in Colorado National Monument, the roads of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, and even our own Blue Ridge Parkway and many others were done during the depression of the 1930's.  This was before all the onerous government environmental regulations of today.  NONE of these projects could possibly be permitted  today.  It was also before we became a nation of "what can the government do for me" mentality that has brought us generations of people who have learned that they can live off the government rather than working for living.  During the 1980's when we supposedly were on the verge of another great depression, the government spent billions of dollars, some supposedly on infrastructure.  But what do we see today as a result of this massive spending?  Nothing. It really can be depressing to think about.

Sunday, August 28

We put a few miles behind us today, but not to many.

We first stopped at Wall Drug Store in Wall, South Dakota.  I had heard about it from a friend who was passing through this area about a month ago.  He didn't describe it very well, and I was expecting a big building of some sorts with a drug store.  Wrong!

It started out back in the 1930's as a small drug store in a small town and the husband and wife who had bought it were struggling to make a living.  They came up with the idea of offering travelers (remember, this is the 30's) free ice cold water as they traveled to Yellowstone National Park, and other famous parks of that area.

They put up a few signs along the highway, and before long, they were serving lots of ice cold water.  Forward to today.  Now Wall Drug Store is an entire make believe old timey town, with dozens of store fronts that sell just about anything you could think of - and they still serve free ice cold water  Kinda makes a nice story, but in reality, it's more of a tourist trap than anything.  Although we did have a good hot roast beef sandwich - and headed on our way.

Wall Drug, Wall South Dakota

And our next stop is the Badlands National Park.  And it's another Wow!  As are all National Parks, the scenery is magnificent.  It's surrounded by nothing by grasslands, but then all of a sudden, these big, multi-layered, multi-colored eroding mountains just happen.

A quick look at the Badlands will reveal that they were deposited in layers. The layers are composed of tiny grains of sediments such as sand, silt, and clay that have been cemented together into sedimentary rocks. The sedimentary rock layers of Badlands National Park were deposited during the late Cretaceous Period (67 to 75 million years ago) throughout the Late Eocene (34 to 37 million years ago) and Oligocene Epochs (26 to 34 million years ago). Different environments—sea, tropical land, and open woodland with meandering rivers—caused different sediments to accumulate here at different times. The layers similar in character are grouped into units called formations. The oldest formations are at the bottom and the youngest are at the top, illustrating the principle of superposition

Erosion began in the Badlands about 500,000 years ago when the Cheyenne River captured streams and rivers flowing from the Black Hills into the Badlands region. Before 500,000 years ago, streams and rivers carried sediments from the Black Hills building the rock layers we see today. Once the Black Hills streams and rivers were captured, erosion dominated over deposition. Modern rivers cut down through the rock layers, carving fantastic shapes into what had once been a flat floodplain. The Badlands erode at the rapid rate of about one inch per year. Evidence suggests that they will erode completely away in another 500,000 years, giving them a life span of just one million years. Not a long period of time from a geologic perspective.

Incredible color 

Some of the formations are small 

A pretty incredible place!

Tonight after dark there was a ranger program on astronomy.  This is the perfect place for such a program because there are very few lights around, even in the campground, and you can drive a mile or two down the road and be surrounded by total darkness.

Anna and I had experimented a little with trying to take pictures of the stars.

And tonight I followed up on our experiments.  I still need to get the technique down a little better, but at least I got a couple of decent shots.

Monday, August 29

This was a deadheading day, driving for almost 8 hours across a very flat South Dakota.  We seldom drive that long, but there isn't much to stop for.  Tonight we are a few miles off the interstate highway in Southeast South Dakota in Union Grove State Park.  The park is very nice, but it's in the middle of farms on a hill.  Rather strange to  have a park in a location like this.  But it is quiet, shaded and comfortable.

The trip heading East so far.