November 27 - South Carolina : We spent the past week in Greenville with Laurie’s sister Ginger and her husband Chuck. Greenville is situated about an hour south of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the mountains and it is very lovely country. On Monday, 11/19, we went to the North Carolina Arboretum in Asheville, NC taking a walk through the gardens and a nice hike in the woods. Dinner that night was at Mutts BBQ - great BBQ and good old southern cooking.

Blue Ridge Parkway

Mutts BBQ

 On Wednesday we visited the Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC. We learned all about Sandburg and his illustrious career. The home is full of book in every room! His wife raised over 200 goats and we got to visit the goat barns also and take a nice walk up Glassy Mountain.

Thanksgiving was very nice. Chuck baked a 15 pound turkey and everyone else contributed other items to the meal. Quite the feast! Ginger’s family, my mom, and sister from Michigan were all there. Later in the afternoon when our meal had settled, some of us went to Falls Park on the Reedy. - a lovely park in the middle of downtown Greenville.There are lots of paths, waterfalls and bridges along the Reedy River and ruins of old textile mills. They really revitalized the area.

Thanksgiving

Falls Park on the Reedy River

Falls Park on the Reedy

 We also visited the Greenville Zoo, Lake Conestee Nature Park and the Mountain Brook Winery in Tryon, NC. I had my first piece of tomato pie -yum! It was a great visit.

 Sunday we left Greenville and headed east and south to Congaree National Park. It is an old growth floodplain forest with some of the largest trees in the Eastern US. The park has a very nice boardwalk loop. There was minor flooding so much of the forest was flooded so it was very eerie and neat.

 Monday, we moved on to Charleston, SC. We spent several hours visiting Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. The gardens were beautiful with huge live oaks draped with Spanish moss, lovely lakes and camellias blooming everywhere. There is a very interesting Audubon Swamp Garden on the property that we also walked around on a boardwalk. We didn’t see too many birds, but lots of turtles!

 This morning, we walked along the waterfront in downtown Charleston and walked past many beautiful old homes. At noon, we took a boat tour out to Fort Sumpter National Monument where the opening shots of the Civil War were fired on April 12,1861. Afterwards we went to Fort Moultrie National Monument. It was another coastal defense fort that guarded Charleston harbor from 1776 through World War 2.

Charleston Water Front

Fort Sumpter

Cannon at Fort Sumpter

Fort Moultrie

That about brings us up to date!!

November 18 - North Carolina - Old Friends and Old Haunts and TOO MUCH Rain The big news for this post is the rain in North Carolina. After beautiful weather on the Outer Banks we ran into a weather pattern where the jet stream was pulling tons of water out of the Gulf of Mexico and dumping it on North Carolina. We had 5 days of heavy rain with most locations recording over 4 inches of rain for that period. We were camping at Jordan Lake near Raleigh with a camp site near the lake. On Tuesday evening the campground called us and said we had to move to higher ground because the lake was rising so fast they couldn’t guarantee we would stay dry. So we moved camp to the top of the hill and indeed, a lot of the camp sites were flooded - many with the picnic tables and trash cans submerged.

Flooded Campground

The best part of this stay was visiting with old friends and seeing old haunts. We lived in this area from 1985 to 1994. As with most places, it has grown and expanded to the point where it is hard to find the old places - we couldn’t find our three favorite restaurants (all long gone) - and many more high rises and new subdivisions are going up all over the Triangle area. And traffic is of course terrible! We had meals with many of the friends we haven’t seen in 25 years and it was great to catch up and hear about their kids who are now in their 30’s …. Where does the time go!

Laurie Overton, Chickens and Laurie

To stay out of the rain we visited the North Carolina Museum of Art with a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit and photographs by Candida Hofer - if you get a chance to Google her you will be amazed by her photos. This is a very modern museum with a fantastic collection and we particularly liked the sculpture garden with the metal screen piece below.

Sculpture Garden

We also revisited many outdoor sites - we walked around the Duke Forest and Duke Gardens; the Eno River State Park and West Point on there Eno State Park with a grist mill; the North Carolina Botanical Gardens with an “Art in the Gardens” sculpture display; and the UNC campus.

Grist Mill Eno River

Duke Chapel 

On November 15 we left Chapel Hill and headed to Greenville South Carolina to visit Laurie’s sister. Our major stop on the way was at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer, North Carolina. This museum preserves the 34 stall roundhouse, turntable and shop buildings that was the major shop for servicing and maintaining steams engines for The Southern Railroad. Mark enjoyed being in the roundhouse as there are only a few of these left standing in the country. It is the main exhibit space full of steam and diesel locomotives, railcars, and maintenance equipment. They have many exhibits about the equipment,, the servicing that was done here and the workers who manned the shop. One high point was a completely restored RPO (Railroad Post Office) . These cars were used to collect, sort, and deliver mail while the train was moving between cities. We also took a 25 minute train ride around the grounds.

RPO Car

Laurie with Atlantic Coast Line Engine 1031

Southern Railway 2601

Spencer Roundhouse

Interior of Roundhouse

We arrived in Taylor, South Carolina on November 16 and have the camper set up at Laurie's sister's house. We have been hiking in beautiful parks with waterfalls and visiting area wineries. With the exception of Steven having to work in Oregon, all of Laurie’s family are coming in to join us for Thanksgiving dinner.

Chuck and Ginger, Mark and Laurie, at Raven Cliff Falls

Ginger and Laurie at Twin Falls

Twin Falls

After the holiday we will visit the South Carolina and Georgia coasts and into Florida in early December.

We hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

November 9 From Capitals to Lighthouses

November 9 From Capitals to Lighthouses

On the morning of October 28 we finished touring our nation’s capital by visiting the National Museum of American Art  and Portrait Gallery with all the president’s official portraits; the Natural History Museum seeing bugs, bones and rocks - actually it has the 45 carat Hope Diamond, other huge gems and gold pieces and of course dinosaur bones; visited the new American Indian Museum which has exhibits about native peoples from all of the Americas as well as small displays from several tribes showing art and culture from each. We also ate lunch there where they served food from native American cultures. Finally we toured the East Building of the National Gallery of Art that holds art from 20th century artists. 

Silhouette Piece at Museum of American Art

Matisse Peice in Museum of American Art

Grain Painting at American Indian Museum made from dyed grains  

In the afternoon we saw the beautiful Union Station. We then caught a local bus to Georgetown, walked along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and then walked to Dupont Circle for drinks and dinner at Kramerbooks before riding the Metro back to the camper. Our feet were very tired but we feel we saw a lot of DC during our stay.

C and O Canal in Georgetown

On October 29 we arrived at Williamsburg Virginia and set up camp. Williamsburg is a recreation of the 1770’s Virginia Capital City around the American Revolution. There are original buildings dating to the 1750’s but most of the major building have been rebuilt including the Royal Governor’s Palace and the Virginia Colonial Capital Building along with many taverns where you can eat colonial food. 

We took full advantage of these - eating lunches and dinners in style. We also took a Ghost Tour at night where we went into several houses by candlelight and heard period ghost stories. One of the programs was Meeting the Nation builders that are conversations with Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. We were very impressed with the knowledge the actors had of their characters. The most impressive part was the Q and A portion where they has to respond to questions - when some asked a 21st century question they would look puzzled and respond with some event from their presidency. Even the trades people were required to know their craft as it was in the 18th century.

 While we were there we also visited historic Jamestown, first English Capital in the new world, and the Yorktown battlefield. 

Original Church in Jamestown

Even though we have visited this area  many times before, we really enjoyed seeing  it again. The best part was it was very relaxed and less walking compared to Washington.

On November 6 we added another state to our map going to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. We finally felt we had made it to the south, as it was finally warm and sunny. The cape is barrier islands made up of sand dunes separating Pamlico Sound from the Atlantic Ocean. 

This area of the ocean was know as the Graveyard of the Atlantic so three tall lighthouses were built to guide the ships off the sand bars. We visited Bodie Island Lighthouse near our campground. We took a 45 minute ferry ride to see Ocracoke light on another island but ran into road construction and ferry schedules so we spent a lot more time there than anticipated. We had to see Cape Hatteras Light in the twilight but it was neat to see the beams going out to sea.

Ocracoke light 

Bodie Island Light

Cape Haqtteras Light

North Carolina Ferry

The high point for Mark was visiting Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brother National Memorial. The newly remodeled visitors center opened three weeks ago and has a replica of the Wright flier and many tools and machines they invented to perfect the airplane. For the 100th anniversary in 2003 the installed a stainless steel sculpture recreating the event. 

First Flight Monument

New Visitors Center

Wright Brothers 1932 Montument

2003 Sculpture of fight flight

We woke up to cold, rain, and strong winds on November 8 as we headed west to Raleigh North Carolina to visit old friends in the area.