Shenandoah National Park - Our Last Destination

We left Boone, NC, on our way to the Shenandoah National Park, with overnight stays planned for Skyland and Big Meadows Lodges up on the park off of the Skyline Drive. It was a long leg of the trip, on road for about 7 hrs, reaching Skyland about 2:30PM. Have had three beautiful days up in the park, hiking to many beautiful overlooks, hard to, again, capture on a photo but I'll include a few anyway. We would recommend trekking poles to anyone doing this kind of hiking, they come in handy and give your knees a rest, especially on the downside of these hikes. We visited Hawksbill Overlook, Blackrock Overlook, Stony Man Overlook, and Little Stony Man Overlook our first two days here, traveling about 6miles a day in the woods. Today, unfortunately, is totally foggy, cold, dreary so we're spending the day in the Great Hall of the Big Meadows Lodge, I've included a shot of folks sitting around reading, playing chess/checkers, and surfing the net (the only place for wireless). Home tomorrow or Saturday, depending on whether we stopover in Berkeley Springs, W. Va., or not, there's a quilt store there so Sheila has one more destination to find. Have logged over 2400 miles on the cruiser so far, probably will reach 2700 or so by the time we return to Happy Valley. It's been fun. Thanks for viewing, Jim and Sheila.

10-10-10 Memorable Ziplining In The NC Mts

We traveled south from Asheville and stopped in the smaller town of Waynesville, NC, using this spot as our homebase for a day-long visit to the Great Smoky Mt National Park. Beautiful day so we had the top down and climbed up to the top of the park to Clingman's Dome, then hiked up a .5 mile trail to the absolute top of the park resting on both NC and Tennessee. Left the Old Stone Inn in Waynesville ( a very interesting place we won't forget) and drove through Burnsville, NC, known for its painted quilts along the highway on various barns and other buildings. Continued to the area where Grandfather Mountain is located and spent much of the day exploring that private park. We had a 4pm zipline reservation at the Hawksnest Ski Resort located outside of Boone, NC, where we traveled on 10 different lines, totally 2.5 miles in length, with two runs both over 1800 ft, they were neat. I've attached some shots from these places, hopefully they'll be in the right order with this text but I can't be sure of that, that seems to be one of the quirks of blogging, to keep text and pictures in order, oh well.

Visiting Old Friends in Asheville

Did you ever have GPS withdrawal?? We were headed towards Asheville, about 30 miles out, and our GPS just stopped (no noise, nothing) and we panicked!!! Got into Asheville and drove around until we found a Walmart and got another one. In towns and cities they're so helpful with far more information than maps, that we replaced it right away. Checked into the Albemarle Inn, an old Victorian home with large columns outside, beautiful woodwork everywhere, and they really treated us nicely with wine/cheese at 5pm and three course breakfasts in the morning. Here's a shot from the main hall in the Inn, a nice place to visit. On Thursday we headed over to Jim's old buddy's place, he referred to him as GWV. I asked Sheila to sit out on the front yard and I took a photo of her beside the fountain. The Biltmore Estate was amazing, we spent seven hours there today visiting the home, gardens, winery and shops areas and didn't totally see everything, hard to believe this was designed for GW Vanderbilt when he was a bachelor!! I asked a visitor to take a picture of us on the back portico of the estate with the North Carolina mountains in the background.
(these photos are in reverse order from this text, sorry).

Quilt Shops and Southport

Sheila visited two quilt shops on Monday morning and then the four of us took a ride down to the harbor town of Southport, near the mouth of the Cape Fear River coming out of Wilmington. The day was beautiful with lots of large clouds and a blue, sunny sky, something we haven't seen much of for about a week!!! I've attached a few shots from Southport as well as Dave (Jim's friend) and Sheila standing out on the dunes at Wrightsville Beach outside of Wilmington. We left early this morning (Tuesday) and headed West towards Asheville, slightly altering our trip (and messing up my tour shirts some more) and skipped Monroe, NC, and headed further West to King's Mountain, NC, located right next to the South Carolina border. Tomorrow we'll get an early start to reach Asheville by mid-morning so we can do some tourist "stuff" and learn more about the area.

No Ferrys!!! Finally Made It To Leland, NC

Well, our part of the trip centering around the Outer Banks was somewhat of a bust!! Although Buxton (near Hatteras) where we were staying after leaving Kill Devil Hills escaped much of the Wed. and Thurs. rains the winds were about 40mph and you couldn't do much of anything. The Hatteras Lighthouse was even closed due to the high winds so we watched a movie about how they moved the lighthouse about 2700 feet in 1999 to be on a safer, more stable surface. Friday we had "planned" on taking the two ferries across the Pamlico Sound but after driving all the way down to Hatteras Village from Buxton we were told by the attendant as we drove up that the ferry system had been suspended and they were going to begin dredging the channel??? Not being happy campers, we had to turn all the way around and drive back up to Roanoke Island (about 50 miles) and then head west to the NC mainland, then eventually making our way all the way back down south to reach Leland below Wilmington, all in all about a 150 mile "detour" for our trip. Have been having a good time with Jim's friends in Leland and visited the downtown Wilmington Riverwalk, the battleship North Carolina, Wrightsville Beach, and other scenic spots in the area (see pics of the riverwalk, ship, and the beach).

Monsoons in North Carolina??

Spent the night in Kill Devil Hills at our B&B and rose to, what else, more rain!!! Packed the car and again headed south down Rt 158 on the Banks and took a sidetrip to Roanoke Island where we visited the Aquarium and the little coastal town of Manteo, both very nice. Here's a pic of Sheila doing a touchy-feely thing with a small manta ray. Also a shot of Manteo, supposedly the town where Virginia Dare lived for awhile. About mid-afternoon we decided to go to our destination that day which was Buxton, just north of Hatteras. We became a little apprehensive when we came upon large temporary electric signs indicating that there was water and sand on the roads and you had to proceed with extreme caution (they weren't kidding). In some spots we had to wait for oncoming cars to go by so we could travel down the middle of the road (the cruiser is not a great water vehicle). The road (Rt 12) below Nags Head to the bottom of the Banks at Hatteras is a very desolate flat road bordered by water on both sides and very prone to flooding. We couldn't get over how barren it is down there with very few little towns along the way, e.g. Avon and Buxton. Rode over to the Hatteras Light House and took a few pictures just in case it's raining all day tomorrow and we'd be stuck inside watching the rain. Friday we head down to Hatteras, then via ferry to Ocracoke Is., then another ferry over to Cedar Island and the mainland, then it's down to Wilmington and Leland where we're staying with old school friend's of ours.

Headed Towards the Outer Banks of N. Carolina

We left Frank&Anne's place on Monday morning, destination today was Cape Charles, VA, all the way down at the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay. Rainy when we arrived but the Cape Charles House was a really nice B&B; rain subsided for awhile and we walked around the town, would have been a good place to ride our bikes but too rainy to do that. I've attached a shot of the B&B. Tuesday morning we got an early start and headed down through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Wasn't raining while on that but the skies opened up when we got to Virginia Beach. Have never driven in such a hard downpour, hardly could see the road at times, was glad to get around that area and gradually made our way down into North Carolina headed towards the Outer Banks. Stopped at the Wright Brother's Monument at Kitty Hawk (see photo), then arrived at our B&B in Kill Devil Hills around 3PM. The rain had stopped so we walked out to the beach, I rode my bike for awhile and then we settled in for the evening. Tomorrow we head down the Banks to Buxton (near Hattaras) for our last two days in this area, hopefully the weather will break and we'll see some sun!!!