Road Junkies: North Carolina

Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts

Blowing Rock, NC
With all the beautiful and challenging trails in the "High Country" area, there was no shortage of great places to hike.

And thanks to a few very active local letterboxers, most trails have letterboxes to search for, making the walk oh so much more interesting.

In addition to our traditional summer mountain week activities like boating on Lake Watauga and picnicking at Julian Price Park, we also visited the Ashe County Cheese Factory in West Jefferson, a tasty adventure. As an extra treat, there was even a letterbox planted at the factory!

It was a week filled with games and good food, family stories and a relief from the heat and humidity back home.

Some familiar traditions, some new adventures...

A bit of challenge...

...And one broken arm. A humerus story that wasn't the least bit funny. Away from the rocky and treacherous trails, Dianne fell in the neighborhood, fracturing the upper right arm.

But even that wasn't enough to detract from another fantastic family vacation.

Finally! Our annual summer week in Blowing Rock, a beautiful mountain village in the heart of North Carolina's High Country, arrived. 2010 marks the seventh summer we have spent a wonderful week in the Blue Ridge Mountains with Ken's family. As always, high on our agenda after we arrived on Sunday was a trip to the local Harris Teeter grocery store.

Ken's sister Marion is determined that we won't be visiting the grocery store every day this year as we usually do (of course, only time will tell). So this was a big shopping trip. Ryan, Heather and Emma arrived in Boone as we were leaving the store, not unhappy about missing the shopping experience.

Monday morning and no better way to start the week than our traditional stroll around the Bass Lake loop trail. In the dozen or more trips we've made to the Blowing Rock area together, never have we missed this Prager family ritual (and we have the photos to prove it).

After today's loop, during which we found a letterbox planted since our visit last October, Ryan, Emma and Grandma patiently posed for a photo op.

Then it was time to discuss that persistent question: What shall we do next?

Of course, the answer was easy... back to the townhouse for lunch. Later in the afternoon Ken and Dianne, Heather and Emma enjoyed a nice hike near the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way to find an outstanding letterbox. Back to home base for a delicious dinner and a ride on the Mexican Train. Ryan won, but we all had fun.

This weekend we made a quick visit to North Carolina to visit Ken's family. Our first stop was in Charlotte to visit his mother, who treated us to a wonderful lunch at her apartment. Then we were off to Greensboro to attend a performance of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by the Community Theater of Greensboro. The theater partnered with Guilford County Schools for this production, which included more than 100 cast members, all of whom were students, staff members, or parents from the schools.

Based on a children's book by Roald Dahl, the musical tells the tale of a poor boy who gets a golden ticket to tour a legendary candymaker's factory, where sinister sweets tempt the children. Emma, our great niece who turned seven in May, was an Oompa Loompa (candy factory worker) and a villager. (She is on the bottom left in this photo.) Her father, Bryan, who has lots of community theater experience, starred as Willie Wonka. After six weeks of rehearsals, the cast performed the production about a dozen times over two long weekends. We caught the show at the Saturday matinee, and they had two more performances to go.

We were quite impressed with the production, marveling at the flawless coordination of more than 60 children with costume changes. The five children who played the golden ticket winners amazed us with their poise and stage presence, and we loved the assistant principal as TV reporter. It was a fun event, and, along with the rest of the audience, we were quite entertained for two hours. Even the dozens of children in the audience were held spellbound (and quiet!) by this excellent performance.

Day 61: Asheville, NC to Peachtree City, GA
After replacing the logbook again for the Sister's Sixty letterbox we planted in Asheville in honor of Jeanne's 60th birthday, we set out for Charlotte and a lunchtime visit with Ken's mom. We began this odyssey with a visit to her on May 1, so it seemed fitting to slide toward trip's end with her today.

Along the way, Vincent (our van) reached a milestone birthday. As for his name, when he was younger, we once heard someone say, "Look at that van go!" (no doubt Dianne was driving). When we heard that remark, we figured his name must be Vincent....

Anyway, we crossed the 150,000-mile bridge today and hope to do a great deal more traveling together. None of us was thrilled when we reached the Atlanta area around rush hour this afternoon. The temp wasn't as bad as it could have been, but the traffic was certainly a wake-up call.

We're definitely back in the real world... for as long as we decide to stay. We found everything in the apartment just as we left it. Tomorrow we'll get to the post office to pick up two months' worth of mail. Then we'll start planning our next odyssey.

Daily Stats
Miles driven: 426 (most for any day of the trip)
Letterboxes: 1 F, 1 M
High temp: 88° F
Bumblebees: 3,612
Day lilies on NC highways: 451,708

Day 60: Princetown, WV to Asheville, NC
Headed on a definite path back toward the furnace we call Georgia, we left West Virginia this morning wanting to just log some miles and get to Asheville, where we needed to do some maintenance on a letterbox we planted there.

We found a few letterboxes along the way, none too special, and continued down the road. Our route today was back on the interstates: I-77 to I-81 to I-26. This would take us through the corners of Virginia and Tennessee and into North Carolina.

With a letterbox waiting there, we pulled in to the parking lot at the Tennessee Welcome Center on I-81 in the early afternoon. We had yet to eat lunch, so we decided to prepare some sandwiches before looking for the box. Finally we reviewed the letterbox clue and headed out. Walking toward the hiding spot at the opposite end of the parking lot, we saw a couple of women scaling the hill and approaching the multi-trunk tree that held the box.

"Those women have to be letterboxers," Ken said. "Let's go introduce ourselves and exchange stamp images with them." Before we reached the hill, we heard someone knocking on the window of a nearby vehicle. Turning to look, we were stunned to see our cousin Kyle from Gallatin, Tennessee.

We immediately realized that the women we saw climbing the hill were his mother and sister, our letterboxing cousins Alison and Kendyll (Songbird and Willow Sage). They were on their way home from a trip to Virginia. We couldn't wait to surprise them.

Once we all hugged profusely and recovered from the shock of crossing paths so unexpectedly, we stamped in and then found a couple of other nearby letterboxes before separating and driving off in opposite directions.

Needless to say, Kendyll's beautiful baby Anna (Willow Sapling) was the best little letterboxer of all, so she was rewarded with many hugs and kisses, which she accepted graciously.

Now we know how to turn a dull travel day into a delight...stumble upon your fabulous cousins!

Daily Stats
Miles driven: 259
Letterboxes: 6
New schoolbuses in transit: 28
Cows lying in the shade: 89
Surprised cousins: 6

Williamston, NC to Chesapeake, VA
Thanks to the rain system that blew through eastern North Carolina this morning, the weather was much more pleasant today-- lower humidity and temperature. After waiting for the rain to pass over, we left Williamston, NC, heading north toward Virginia.

Along the way we stopped in Edenton, NC, where the city has moved the 1887 Roanoke River Lighthouse to a park and is in the process of restoring it to its former glory. When the restoration is complete, the lighthouse will be operated as a historic site.

Later we visited Elizabeth City, NC, where we found the cleverest letterbox we have seen to date. We don't know how they did it, but the planters, a Coast Guard family, created a wooden box (see red star on photo) on the backside of the railing in this little riverside park. To access the letterbox, which was hidden in the wooden container, you had to locate a "key," which was hidden elsewhere on the railing. It was absolutely brilliant, leaving us pondering how we could improve our letterbox plants.

After watching the waterfront activity for a while, we meandered north to Virginia, settling into Chesapeake for the evening. We're expecting to spend a couple of days here exploring Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and the surrounding area before heading off to the Chesapeake Bridge and Tunnel and other points north.

Raleigh, NC to Williamston, NC via New Bern

Before leaving Raleigh this morning, we checked out Lake Crabtree County Park near our hotel. The Old Beech Native Trail was the perfect place for a morning walk. Not only did we learn a lot from the brochure and trail markers there, we found a letterbox also. One of the more interesting things we saw was this "sapsucker tree." Actually a loblolly pine, the tree is riddled with rings of tiny holes drilled into the trunk by the yellow-bellied sapsucker woodpecker. These holes allow the sap to drain, and the oozing sap attracts insects, like a delivery service for the sapsuckers' dinner.

Leaving Raleigh we headed for New Bern, NC, a town near the coast where our friends have their new sailboat moored.

Celebrating its tricentennial this year, New Bern is a city (pop. est. 28,000) steeped in history. New Bern was first settled in 1710 by a group of Swiss and German colonists led by Baron de Graffenreid, who named the settlement after his home town of Bern, Switzerland.

Located at the convergence of two wide and navigable rivers, New Bern was once a bustling center of trade when ships were the primary means of transporting goods up and down the coast. Today Union Point Park provides a beautiful recreation area where warehouses and docks once stood.

New Bern still maintains a close relationship with the city of Bern, even sharing the same city flag. And like Bern, New Bern has a love affair with bears. Bears are everywhere! In addition to the many businesses incorporating bears in their name and decor, local artists created hand-painted designs on life-size standing and walking fiberglass bears which are placed througout the city for the tricentennial celebration.

At one of the local marinas, we caught up with our friend Ric, who, with his wife Cathy, recently purchased a 42-foot sailboat. This impressive craft is currently residing in New Bern and will be sailed to its home port of Brunswick, Georgia, in mid-summer.

The boat is equipped with every kind of electronic gadgetry we could imagine and more. We didn't go out on the boat today but found this photo on the internet of what this beautiful craft looks like at full sail.

Charlotte, NC to Raleigh, NC via Greensboro
Knowing when to be quiet is a virtuous quality. Thanks to some assistance from the hotel security in calming the party down a few notches last night, letting our partying neighbors know that midnight was time to be quiet, we ended up getting a good night's sleep at the Hyatt Place.

We read about this hotel chain in the latest issue of Consumer Reports. It ranked just behind Hampton Inn for mid-price hotels with the amenities we require (clean, well-maintained rooms, free internet service, and free breakfast)-- well above Holiday Inn Express, which used to be one of our favorites.

Our first stop today was the Elmwood Pinewood Cemetery in downtown Charlotte. We hoped to find five letterboxes there but after walking all over the cemetery to track down clues for the first box, we had to postpone the others for the next trip. We left Charlotte and headed for Greensboro, where we had a lunch date with our great niece Emma and her dad Brian.

After a terrific lunch at a local Greensboro pizza restaurant, we all went letterboxing in Green Hill Cemetery, a memorial garden with many famous residents. We found five letterboxes there. Emma has become quite proficient at the entire stamping in process and now also writes her own trail name and notes. Since this was Brian's first letterboxing excursion, Emma was more than glad to help him get oriented.

When we spotted a headstone that incorporated a large brass bell, Emma wanted to get a closer look. Being her curious self, Dianne swung the clapper and made the bell ring, to which Emma replied, "We probably shouldn't do that. We don't want to wake anyone here." Hard to argue with that bit of wisdom.

Too soon our afternoon of letterboxing fun was over. We bid Emma and Brian farewell and headed off to Raleigh for the night. If our plans don't get rained out, we plan to visit our friend Ric in New Bern, NC, tomorrow so we can see his and Cathy's new sailboat.

Peachtree City, GA to Charlotte, NC
The great East Coast road trip has begun. We left a hot and humid Peachtree City and headed north, hoping to find cooler weather.

Gainesville, Georgia, was our first destination. We had a letterbox to plant at Poultry Park, where there is a monument commemorating Gainesville's self-proclaimed title of Poultry Capital of the World. The park has an obelisk with a rooster perched on top. Interestingly we had seen this photo on the internet and thought the monument was 50 or more feet tall. Turned out to be a good bit more humble-- maybe half that. Mr. Rooster seemed happy enough with his view, though.

Across the street were some old trains on display. While we were returning a letterbox we found hidden on one of them, we encountered this couple visiting from Mississippi. When Ken noticed the husband taking a photo of his wife by the trains, he took the opportunity to practice one of his favorite travel activities.

"Would you like to get in the picture, too?" he asked the gentleman. Obviously, the answer was affirmative, as it usually is. When Atlanta hosted the 1996 Olympics, we spent many days at Centennial Olympic Park where Ken took many photos of tourists in this same manner. What a great service!

Upon our arrival in Charlotte, we visited Ken's mom, who served us a delicious dinner and entertained us with stories about her childhood and the goings on in her apartment building. We retired to what may be our new favorite hotel, very spacious room and nice amenities...

...but as I type, a party seems to be developing on our floor. Time will tell....

Asheville, NC
February 19-March 1, 2010

Most people who hike or letterbox in North Carolina eventually make their way to the hip Asheville area. It is said that more visitors enter and exit the Blue Ridge Parkway at Asheville than any other location. With hundreds of miles of hiking trails and dozens of letterboxes waiting to be found, Asheville is one of our favorite places to visit. Since we have often considered Asheville a possible place for our residence, we finally carved out an almost two-week period for a visit. We wanted to experience the area in winter to determine whether we'd be put off by the colder climate.

After finding a few boxes in the city, we headed out to the trails of the Bent Creek Experimental Forest and North Carolina Arboretum area near the city. Searching for a letterbox, we made our way to a trail called Hard Times Road. As the trail climbed, the snow cover deepened. After a couple of miles, we realized we were no longer able to locate the landmarks cited in the clue-- a clearing filled with brambles, an old mossy stump...Nor were we sure where we were on the trail, so we turned back, planning to track this one down in warmer weather.

Our treks in the snowy and icy forests of the arboretum did give us a great opportunity to put our Neo overshoes to a good test. They worked perfectly, and our feet came out of the ice and snow perfectly dry. What a great purchase!

In addition to the beautiful snowy trails, Mother Nature served up an array of beautiful icicles and other ice sculptures to enchant us along the way.

Another day in the Bent Creek Experimental Forest we were hiking on a muddy, muddy mountain bike trail that occasionally crossed this forest service road. We had found the box and were on the way back to the car. It was late afternoon and with dusk looming, we became convinced that we might have missed a turn.

The map we had of the forest was rudimentary at best and signage was lacking. Reaching a fork that did not look familiar, even though we thought we were retracing our course back to the parking area, we studied the map and made a decision. With no confidence in our choice and the sun falling fast, we trudged along hoping we'd get very lucky. After hiking a mile or so in that direction, we saw a couple of mountain bikers coming toward us. "Are we on the right trail to get to parking area B?" we asked them. When they answered in the affirmative, we heaved a big sigh of relief. But it was still the best view of the day when the parking lot and our car came into sight.

Some of the best letterboxes we found were three in a series called Belle's Departure. The clue told the story of Memphis Belle, a fighter plane in World War II that was piloted by Asheville native Robert Morgan. After his discharge from the service, Morgan and a crew flew the plan around the U.S. on a tour trying to sell war bonds.

According to local legend, when the tour stopped in Asheville, Morgan flew the plane between the Buncombe County Courthouse and the City Hall of Asheville (pictured above). The story states that Morgan and his crew were leaving the Asheville Regional Airport and decided that, being a town hero, he should give the people of Asheville something to remember and have a little fun in the process. Morgan piloted the plane low over the east side of Beaucatcher Mountain, nearly cutting grass as he cleared the mountain top, he then flew the plane down the backside of the mountain toward Downtown Asheville and doing a partial roll, flew the plane between the courthouse and city hall, which are only about fifty feet apart. Morgan was admonished by his superiors but the act was so impressive that no charges were ever filled.

A longer stay gave us more time to explore the beautiful sights in and around Asheville-- and time to find more letterboxes, of course. We accomplished both at this old grist mill near Lake Louise in Weaverville.

Sometimes we found our way in spite of the local signage rather than because of it... like this intersection in Laurel Springs.

The extra long visit also ensured plenty of time to visit and re-visit some of our favorite Asheville restaurants, like the inimitable Tupelo Honey Cafe, now with two Ashveille locations.

And the peerless Flat Rock Grille, which serves up some very fine meals.

Near the end of our visit, Ken's sister Marion came up and spent a couple of days with us. Of course, we had to take her to the letterbox we planted locally in 2008 in honor of Jeanne's sixtieth birthday.

We enjoyed a few days of boxing and sightseeing with Marion, and we all attended "Short Order Durang," a collection of short plays and one-acts by Christopher Durang, produced by the Asheville Community Theatre.

On the way back to Georgia, we stopped for a quick lunch with Ken's mother in Charlotte. As happens very often when we go to Charlotte, we noticed many of the trees were banded again.

Cankerworms became a growing concern in Charlotte more than 20 years ago. The city started a tree banding program in 1990, encouraging businesses and homeowners to apply glue barriers to tree trunks to stop wingless moths on their journey upward to branches where they would lay eggs.

The city has sprayed several times for these pests including 1992 and 1998 with each treatment reducing the population. Another spraying in 2008 killed more cankerworms over a wider area, but these uninvited guests, which are native to the area, are expected to eventually return.

Ken's sister Marion was considerate enough to enter the world during peak leaf season in the southeastern U.S. Blowing Rock seemed the natural place to go for a celebration of birthday #65. Because our usual "mountain home away from home" was booked for the birthday weekend, we ended up in a Yonahlossee townhouse. What a view it had from the screen porches on two levels!

Heather and Marion helped Grandma get acquainted with Facebook.

Miss Butterfly Lady (aka Emma) didn't let the cool temperatures discourage her from going after Blowing Rock and Boone letterboxes.

The condo was on three levels, allowing us to spread out a bit more and making room for a billiard table. Uncle Ryan took on the task of teaching Emma to play.

Uncle Ken got his shots in, too.

At the Blowing Rock city park, we met Shoafsters, who lives in Blowing Rock, and her daughter Princess Mimi, to exchange stamps and tell them how much we enjoyed all the letterboxes they have planted in the area.

Before returning home, we visited Serenity Cottage, a one-bedroom retreat at the top of a mountain outside Boone. A beautiful and very remote little house with many windows, no curtains, and no need for them. Once we arrived at the address we drove up, up, up the half-mile driveway to reach this hideaway in the woods.