This morning I got off to a slower start than usual, probably due to the heavy rain disturbing my sleep. We’ve seen every level of rain while driving from barely misting to heavy (thankfully no toad stranglers) so we’ve been able to keep going while using every setting on the wipers (MBH helpfully told me forward is faster on the intermittent settings). Today we even got some fog/cloud driving in.

We did manage to get going and headed to Linville Falls. Beautiful. Then it was off to Linville Falls winery for a late lunch. We bought one of their box lunches that contained a couple of mysteries in addition to the obvious goodies. We had to ask – is the flower edible or decorative, and what is in the sealed straw? Edible, and honey. The honey tasted as expected but the flower surprised me by being tasteless, the last thing I expected. Travel is such a learning experience.

Then we set off down the Blue Ridge Parkway for another hiking opportunity at the Chestoa view trail. AllTrails claims it heavily trafficked but we were the only ones on it and loop at the end was barely a trail. Not that I’m complaining.

One thing we’ve noticed is the profusion of churches, with names we are not used to. We’ve passed the Heaven Bound Baptist church adjacent to the Greater Remnant church several times. One wonders about the theology discussed through the separating chain link fence.

Tags: NC2021

Today was a nice fall day for Ireland – cool with varying levels of moist. The roads are also reminiscent of the most scenic parts of Ireland – narrow and twisty with aspirational speed limits even the locals can’t reach. The only thing missing are the stone walls at the edge of the road.

Undeterred we hiked the Appalachian Trail. A tiny portion of it anyway, from Carver’s Gap and it’s all important parking, along the Tennessee/North Carolina border, over Round Bald to Joan’s Bald and back. As is our wont we had our lunch at a scenic spot on the trail, today supplemented with a few wild blueberries growing nearby.

Then it was off to downtown Bakersville, both blocks of it. The art galleries were open and little else, and after just one we had reached our limit, although we had a nice chat with Jennifer who moved here from Tampa a couple of years ago. The longest she’s been snowed in is three or four days which she didn’t think was too bad since the whole area kind of shuts down in the winter anyway.

Apparently people around here don’t eat out on Sundays as most of the restaurants were closed (not that there are that many to begin with). We called one possibility that doesn’t have an internet presence of any sort and got no answer, which left a single restaurant in Bakersville – after yesterday’s long drive we were trying to minimize our time in the car. When we pulled up in front we could see the hand lettered signs telling us they were out of business. So we put plan B into effect and headed off to the larger town of Spruce Pine (well, which one is it?) where it was deja Vu all over again. Our primary target was closed, so we began wandering around between Oak and Locust streets trying to find a place to eat. We found El Ranchero open so no need to resort to cannibalism or our emergency almonds. Whew.

Tags: NC2021

The alarm went off at 5 AM and we were on the road again by 7. My how life has changed – I only wake up to an alarm on vacation post retirement.

We weren’t sure of the full route until we approached Mount Vernon as our various map apps swung between the route thru Nashville or thru Lexington for the past week. As we drove thru the corn fields Google said one and Apple the other, but I preferred to minimize my exposure to Tennessee where half the people drive 90 mph and half 60mph which makes life interesting times. I don’t like interesting times. Three things remain certain if you’re traveling to Charlotte: death, taxes, and Knoxville, so Tennessee was unavoidable.

The nice thing about driving in overcast is you don’t sweat so much, the bad thing is water can fall from the sky at almost any moment. MBH observed after the first extended rain at least the bugs were gone from the windshield. She looks at the bright side of life; I’m your man for a detailed risk assessment with an emphasis on worst case scenarios.

The sky looked scary as we left Johnson City with our hopes, fears, and groceries. MBH pulled up a weather map and thought we might be able to thread the needle thru the storms; I kept my thoughts to myself – I’m an old hand at the husband game. A road trip is a lot like Zeno’s paradox – the closer you get to your destination, the slower you go. Between the rain and the back roads over the mountains (every good road trip leaves the interstate as you close on a destination) we got very slow indeed.

And then we stopped in a line of cars with their flashers on. We could see the tree across the road, a pickup pointed towards us on our side of the tree, and the lead driver in the line of cars out and about under her umbrella. After consulting the driver of the pickup, she got back in her car and began maneuvering her car. Is she trying to turn around? Does she think she can back up past the whole line of cars? Misdirection! I was focused on the wrong car: the pickup makes a move and the tree whips off the road. More maneuvering and the pickup slowly drives by the line of cars dragging the tree behind it like Achilles dragging Hector around the walls of Troy. I gave the driver a thumbs up as he goes by. Sadly, no pictures or video of the event.

We made it to our Airbnb after coaxing our SUV like a mountain goat up the steep and windy driveway. That moment I did manage to capture while unloading the luggage.

Tags: NC2021