May 30, 2013 Chilling in Fancy Gap, North Carolina

It looks as though we may be staying here in Fancy Gap for longer than we had planned.   Just as we headed up the last hill in North Carolina, the motorhome suddenly quit.   On the freeway. Going uphill.   Fortunately we had enough momentum to make it over to the emergency parking strip.  As giant trucks and screaming cars whizzed by Peter began troubleshooting.  Fearing an oncoming truck was set to collide with the motorhome I took the pugs and withdrew to the trees-----behind the motorhome and out of danger.    Eventually, Peter came out and suggested that I take the car and go wait for him on the next exit.   He was planning to call a tow truck using his "Good Sam" sources.  The pugs and I headed for the Hampton Inn to await his call.   After nearly an hour, during which the pugs and I enjoyed a Dairy Queen vanilla cone, the phone rang.   Peter had located a tow company and he was ready for me to come back.   I arrived before the tow truck and emptied the motorhome of
all I could----everything I might need.   Throwing things out the door minimized my time in our potential death trap.   Just as I had thrown the last of  my items into the car, the tow truck showed up.  (See picture below).

This is what it takes to pull a motorhome.   The man, who was only slightly taller than me yet weighed at least twice as much as I do, jumped down from the driver's seat.   All fear of being killed in a rear-end collision faded as I marveled at this man (who spoke to me occasionally---but I couldn't understand him).   "Nimble" is the word I would use to describe him as he wriggled under the  motorhome to hook up chains for towing and disconnected the drive train to save the automatic transmission.  He was impervious to the scream of the trucks and cars as they whizzed by just inches from his feet.   He finally emerged grease-encrusted and sweating and announced a jumble of words which Peter told me meant we were to follow him to the garage, located in Low Gap, North Carolina.  I was starting to see a pattern in the naming of the towns.
     We are now spending our days hiking the area as a team of mechanics (one of whom looks younger than my grandsons!) work on the motorhome.   Actually, I've yet to see them work.   When we visit there are scatterings of tools underneath the motorhome and inside around the engine compartment, but sightings of people working appear to be rare.   This is causing Peter to make daily visits.   Oh! and I have this weird rash on my left shoulder.    After much urging by my loved ones I went to the walk-in clinic-----in Hicksville---no!  Peter says it's Hillsville!   The doctor (who's nameplate did not say Dr.) diagnosed me with shingles!     Also my stretch on the side of the freeway in the grass---which was blooming and going to seed has caused an allergic reaction causing my eyes to swell almost shut.    No pictures of me for a while!   Tomorrow it's off to Mt. Airy---the home of Andy Griffith---and the town on which Mayberry was based!

May 27, 2013 Boone, North Carolina: Grandfathers, Children and Hikes!

?

Blowing Rock Hike:  The name alone was intriguing!  A rock that blows?   A place to go on a date?  A rock that looked blowy?  As it turns out there is an old Indian legend about a young couple deeply in love.  Think Romeo and Juliet---parent issues.  Anyway, in despair the young man threw himself off the rock seen here only to be caught in the wind and carried back to his beloved.  I challenged Peter to give it a try, but he said he couldn't because he was worried about Walter.

Grandfather Mountain
This is a magnificent place.  We drove up to the parking area and then walked across the bridge in the background (Walter did NOT like that part of the hike!)  Once on top of Grandfather Mountain you have a 360 degree view of the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains.  From a distance Grandfather Mountain resembles the face of an elderly man---hence the name.

Here I am in North Carolina.   It is Memorial Day Weekend and the campground is flooded with a zillion kids.    I've been thinking the South has changed---riding Marta and the buses in Atlanta on Mothers' Day, people of all walks of life and ethnicities chatted with us. What stood out for me today was the playground.   On this merry-go-round are white children, Asian children, African-American children and a Hispanic child.  They all played together for three days!  And, yes!, I did ask if I could take the picture.   By the way, no parents to be seen. 
I'm liking the "New South."

Sunday, May 19, 2012 Flowers, Waterfalls, Poets and Goats

Asheville, North Carolina is beautiful.   Green, rolling hills, lush greenery.     However, the townspeople decided to add some kick to the commute by sprinkling wildflower seeds at the interstate exit ramps.     WOW!   It is a complete delight to come round a corner and catch this view against the dark green hills.   I love it here!






Peer and I were feeling sorry for the pugs so we drove up into the mountains for a hike.   We took an easy stroll through the trees, walked along a river and eventually came to an enormous granite slab where we sat and had lunch.   It was so worth it!  Walter and Jaxon were wiped out for he rest of the day and slept like logs--not dogs!







With the  dogs still tired, Peter and I headed out to visit the Carl Sandburg home.    This is the house he moved to from Michigan.  On a visit he and his wife fell in love with this area.   He had published his huge work on the biography of Abraham Lincoln.   This house is exactly as he left it when he died.   It is frozen in time----specifically 1967.   Wow! did this man read a lot.   Every room is lined with bookshelves.   Every table is buried under National Geographic, Life Magazines, and Time.   The books have little markers for pages he wanted to remember.  So very interesting to see how someone so talented lived.    Strangely, was my thought!   It was all I could do not to start tidying up.  Apparently, he worked all night and slept all day----he didn't want to be disturbed by his wife and daughters.   With so much time on her hands his wife started a small home business----goat farming.   I must admit they are very cute!  and almost as funny as the pugs.  Ms. Sandburg made quite the living with prize-winning goats and a dairy selling milk, cheese and ice cream.      No thanks!  Too tangy.

May 16, 2013 North Carolina

We've spent the last two days at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.  This house has the distinction of being the largest home in the world.   It was built by George Washington Vanderbilt, who was the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt.  George had vacationed with his mother in North Carolina and fell in love with the area.   Once he grew up he decided to create a grand estate in  the mountains of North Carolina.   Ostentatious? Yes.  Over-the-top? Definitely---entire ceilings imported from churches in Europe.  However, G.W. Vanderbilt provided a life and income for a whole village of people.  Houses were built to house workers who were hired from the surrounding area (although the master-builders in charge of the projects were well-known experts from around the world).   Once the estate was up and running locals were hired as gardeners, farmers, stock-men, housekeepers, dairy-workers, nannies, butlers, cooks and guides.  The estate provided a livelihood for many of the poor, uneducated North Carolinians who populated these hills prior to Vanderbilt's arrival.  It continues to provide for the entire area attracting tourists from all over the world.   There are hiking trails, biking trails, horseback riding trails, drives, canoeing, rafting, and fishing.  There is also a hotel, a spa, a winery and a small village just outside the gates with fantastic restaurants, and lots of little shops!  After two days of the good life----it's off to hike the hills tomorrow!

Atlanta, Georgia May 11-13

Our first stop in Atlanta was the Carter Presidential Library and Museum.   Feeling brave we took MARTA into the city center and then took a bus to the library---all this on Mothers' Day.  The setting for the library is beautiful and very befitting President Carter.  The thing that struck me the most was how his team turned a small, grass-roots effort into a nation-wide election.   They stayed in people's houses, they shook hands, they went door-to-door.   None of this had been done prior to Carter's campaign and he set the bar for all other campaigns to follow.  Not only has President Carter taken his grass-roots methods to the White House, he has taken them across the world.    He works tirelessly to cure very curable diseases in poverty-ridden countries.   He is very much a real person.   As is Roslyn, his wife, who admits that when he told her they were moving back to Plains, Georgia, she sulked for about a year.

 
 

Our second day was spent at Stone Mountain.   This monolith is the largest, exposed chunk of granite in the world.   It is an easy walk up the far side to the top with a terrific view of Atlanta.

In the early 1900s the Ladies Auxiliary commissioned Borglum of Mt. Rushmore fame to carve the Confederate heroes into the face of the mountain.   Many, many years later, after running through several sculptures and blowing Borglum's original work off the mountain, the carving was finished to its present state (which is nothing like the plans).


The carving depicts the three heroes of the South.  In the foreground Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.  Next to him, Robert E. Lee, a brilliant general for the Confederacy.  Bringing up the rear is Stonewall Jackson  another great general of the Confederacy. 

This is the largest bas-relief carving in the world.  The parks department has a laser show on the mountain at night.  (Something we will catch in the future!)


 

May 9, 2013 Savannah, Georgia

Peter had never been to Savannah, Georgia (one of my favorite places) so we arranged to make this our first stop.  We stayed on Tybee Island, two blocks from the beach.   This worked well for us, but not so well for the pugs as dogs were not allowed on the beach.  We prepped ourselves the first night by watching Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.  Next came a tour of the cities 18 squares and famous houses.   My favorite thing about this city is the committment the city has made to keeping the city center as it was originally designed.  No big, ugly skyscrapers  here!  This city is beautiful, graceful and charming.   It is one of a kind!

In an effort to include the pugs in our adventures, we planned a day of hiking and sightseeing at Fort Pulaski.  (I know, this went against all my vows of never visiting another fort----they are all the same!)   Fort Pulaski lay on an adjacent island close by AND they allowed dogs.

Fort Pulaski was built shortly after Oglethorpe laid out Savannah.   Recall from your history that Oglethorpe was sent to Georgia because England was concerned about the Spanish in Florida moving up and threatening the English settlers.   I actually liked this fort!  It had the actual holes where the cannonballs from the Union Army penetrated the walls during the Civil War.  This was the first time I had ever seen pockmarks in such great number at a fort!   This was also the first time I had ever seen a fort with a moat and drawbridges!   Pretty cool, although the sprial staircases went the wrong way!

Next stop Andersonville---grim, but necessary.

May 10, 2013 Andersonville, Georgia

     Leaving beautiful Savannah behind, we motored half-way across the state to visit Andersonville, the site of the most notorious prisoner-of-war camp of the Civil War.   I began to stiffen my resolve as we got closer and closer.  I knew this would be grim.   I'd seen the movie.   Rationalizing I told myself it couldn't be as bad as the movie portrayed, surely Hollywood exaggerated for effect.  As it turns out, the movie was exceptionally accurate.  Fortunately, what was a hell-hole is now a grassy field. 

 

This was the entrance gate to the stockade (prison yard).  The platforms at the top are guard towers.

 

 

This is the "deadline", so named because if you crossed it you were immediately shot.  It ran the interior perimeter of the stockade.

 

 





The stockade was a 20-acre grassy field with a polluted stream running through it.  There were no dormitories, no bathrooms, no shelter except what the prisoners could build.   Peter's smile belies his appalling condition.  Wet and mud-encased when it rained, freezing cold when it snowed, bug encrusted and blazing hot in the summer.  These makeshift tents were called "shebangs" as in, "it's the whole shebang."

 

Andersonville was open for 14 months.  During that time 45,000 Union soldiers were imprisoned there.  Because of over-crowding and the squalid conditions, 12,920 (29.9%) of the soldiers died there.   They were buried in trenches.  These markers give, in stark terms, a visual of the carnage.  This is one fourth of the markers erected to mark the passing of the dead at Andersonville.

 

 

On a final note, the prison and cemetary are not the only sites.   Andersonville is now home to the Prisoner of War museum.   It tells the story of what happens to people captured during wartime, from the Revolutionary War all the way to Iraq and Afghanistan.   It contains video of former prisoners of war talking about their experiences and the effect the internment had on their families and themselves. 

 

Mind you, none of this was uplifting, but . . . . insightful?   depressing?     angry?    resigned.

Peter and I are once again on the road.   We are traveling in the motorhome again after wintering again in Florida.  Mardean is sewing like a fiend during the winter while Peter manages the pugs and organizes horseshoe tournaments in addition to consulting part-time.

Last summer we traveled with my great niece and nephew across the United States.  We visited all the major sites--Atlanta at CNN and the Martin Luther King sites, Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry, St. Louis and the Arch, Colorado and all it has to offer--hiking in the Red Rocks, white water rafting on Clear Creek,  horseback riding in Glenwood also soaking in the springs, Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, Yellowstone Park and Mt. Rainier to see snow!

The great niece and nephew flew home to Florida.  We picked up the grandsons (now 16!) and they learned to drive a stick shift as they visited Glacier National Park (hiking, hiking, hiking!), Yellowstone (more hiking!), Cody, Wyoming (Gran, how come you know so much about guns?) took climbing lessons on the side of Devil's Tower, hiked Spearfish Canyon and swam in icy cold pools, visited Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, hiked through caves, went adventure caving on our back and bellies through narrow holes, rode a zipline and hiked through the badlands of South Dakota encountering a bighorn sheep and  thunderstorm.   Not tired yet, we booked a trip on the Green River through the Gates of Ladore for 5 days, visited Dinosaur National Monument and rafted down the river nearby (just the boys and I in a raft alone) at which  point I realized the boys' only knowledge of Mormonism was coming from The Book of Mormon musical they discovered in the glove compartment.   Feeling guilty I hauled them across the state to Salt Lake City and we toured the Mormon Visitor's Center.  Following this we had a horrific drive at dark back to the hotel in Vernal, Utah during which Bronson encountered cows on the road, deer on the road and finally bats flying at the windshield.  He actually uttered the "f" word!

Peter and I deposited the boys still alive, quite tired and somewhat better at driving and headed to San Francisco to see Matt, Shin-e and Isla for the first time in a looong time.   Then back to Florida, thinner, tireder and ready to take it easy!

Tune in to see what summer 2013 brings!