Wild Flowers

Common Vetch

All kinds of flowers are blooming in the fields and along the roads. I have fun trying to remember the names of some while a few of them I had to look up. I've also been sneezing like crazy. Here’s a few pictures.

 

Chicory & Queen Anne's Lace

  

Golden Rod

Ironweed

Morning Glories

Black-eyed Susan & Thistles

Just for the fun of it!

Care for Small Cemeteries

I’ve been to a lot of cemeteries, but most of them were connected to a church or it was large enough where there appeared to be someone who kept the grass mowed. A few needed some work. Saturday morning I walked to a small local cemetery that needed a LOT of work. The weeds were five feet tall. I could only see a few stones from the edges, but that was all.

As I was walking around the edges in amazement, a car drove up. Turned out that several cousins get together a couple of times a year to take care of this cemetery and this was the day. Their great-grandmother and other relatives are buried here. The next morning I had to check it out. Well, it was better but it was like the hay field was mowed but nothing raked up. I could see more stones, but there was no trimming done.

Someone in the past had done some repairs and cemented broken stones back together. There were some stones that were basically field stones and unmarked. I’ve seen this type before. Plus, there were several cement markers used to mark graves without any stones.

I guess I never thought how much work was involved in a cemetery.

Hikes in North Carolina

Linn Cover Viaduct is a road that was constructed using techniques resulting in the least amount of damage to Grandfather Mountain upon which it was built. At least that's what they say about it. Underneath it is a short hike.

The Linville Falls hike is a wonderful short hike (1.6 mile total) to see several falls. It was a beautiful day and a perfect temperature that wasn’t too hot or too cool.

Blue Ridge Parkway

We stayed for several days at Mount Pisgah campground and then moved to Linville Falls campground. Both are on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway is very curvy but the roads to it can be much worse when you are in an RV and pulling a car. The elevation change either strains the motor or the brakes. The roads are small with a lot of overhanging tree branches. We’re only 11’ tall and we hit branches several times. The curves are scary since you can’t see what is coming and the lanes are narrow. There were times on the hairpin curves when we’re looking out the side windows slightly backward to see oncoming traffic. We survived, but it got the heart beating!

The campgrounds are very friendly. Just walking around the loop takes almost an hour because we kept stopping to talk to people. We heard the steep roads destroyed the transmission on one of the other RV’s in the campground.

Mount Pisgah

We decided to do a hike up Mount Pisgah. The trail is only 3.2 miles total, but part of the path is rocky and steep plus the final elevation is 5,721 feet above sea level. I figured that I didn’t need to carry water since I drank water at the base and the hike was so short. I almost died. Well, maybe not literally, but it felt that way.

They say that the hike is worth it because of the view. The weather has been cloudy and at this elevation mostly we saw clouds with occasional peaks of the mountain view. There is a large tower at the top with all kinds of antennae and dishes.

The other interesting part was that there were several busloads of kids also hiking the trail. It was not a quiet walk. But at least I can say I survived the hike up Mount Pisgah.

Smoky Mountains

We’re staying for several days along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Smoky Mountain. The campsite is nice enough, but it took us 45 minutes to level the RV since the site was unlevel. Also, there is no electricity or water. Not a problem since we bought a solar panel except for two things. It’s been very cloudy and our inverter failed. The inverter changes the DC power in the batteries to AC for things like the TV. So we bought a new inverter on day 2. Things work now, but we’re still working in a temporary mode until we can figure out a better installation.

The area has all kinds of stops along the road. A toad at one of the museums.

Trout in the hatchery raceway. This was interesting to hear about how trout are raised here and then released after they are around 10” long. Plus we could watch them go crazy by feeding them.

Looking Glass Falls. People were swimming in the 50-60 F water below (not us!).

Sliding Rock is a big deal around here. I’ve seen it in several lists on the internet. The actual slide was shorter than I expected plus the line was fairly long even on a Friday. But the parking lot was full and people were having fun. I’d say the kids were having fun but there were all ages here.

Rain

We were planning on staying at Vogel State Park in Georgia for a couple of days. But the forecast was rain, rain, and rain. Given that the hiking trails (now slippery) are the best part of the park and we could get absolutely no TV stations or cell phone service, we decided to move to an RV park with cable and internet. This was the view from the laundry room.

On the way was the World’s Largest Amish Chair. Cool, but not enough to find a place to park so this was a drive-by.

And just some flowers along the road so the post ends on a bright note.

Etowah Indian Mounds

We’ve been to many different Native American mounds. We always seem to learn something new plus repeating the ‘lesson’ helps us too. This 54-acre site is considered the most extensive Mississippian site in the southeast. The site was used from around 1000 – 1500 CE and up to 2,000 people lived here at a time. The three large mounds were used for ceremonies. Of course, archeologists always seem to say that everything was ceremonial. Didn’t people just relax and have fun without ceremonies? Will future archeologists think iPad’s were ceremonial? Now that I think of it, maybe it’s true. They seem to grab and hold our souls.

Back to being less philosophical….They say that only 9% of the site has been excavated, but some of the things found were pretty spectacular. This is one of two large (24") marble statues found in one of the smaller mounds. There were lots of copper pieces found, even though the copper had to be traded from the Great Lakes area.

The largest mound is tall with lots of steps. Once up there, the view is pretty nice with mountains in the background along with a view of the other mounds. In the past, the plaza and village were all within view from these mounds.

Surrounding all this is a defensive ditch / borrow pit. The dirt came from this ditch to make the mounds plus it was believed to be defensive.

My favorite part was the fish trap. Native Americans would build up stones into a V-shape within the river. This would funnel the fish to a small area so they could be captured in nets and baskets. Now, the reconstructed fish trap only seems to capture canoes and kayaks.

Lighting at Parks

My pet peeve has always been lighting at campgrounds. It’s bad enough when campers think they are being ‘cool’ by stringing up plastic lighted owls around the awning or that keeping their outdoor lights on will somehow keep them safe. But it’s the parks themselves that waste so much energy with lighting along with destroying the view of the skies.

RV Parks are ridiculous. Many of them put bright lights at each campsite near the hook-ups. That light then shines into the RV all night even with shades down. We have to put up extra foil pieces to keep the lights out at night.

State parks seem to be a bit better with no lights at the sites but they will keep bright white lights on all night at the bathrooms.

This time we are visiting a Gulf Power campground. No lights at the site. There are lights at the bathrooms, but they are all on motion sensors (except a few outside near the doors). Besides helping save energy and reduce light pollution, it made a MAJOR difference in the amount of bugs in the bathroom. These were probably the cleanest bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a campground. Unfortunately, the lights in the laundry didn’t turn off at night. The laundry had wasp nests and all kinds of bugs.

I know motion sensors and new lights like either T8 or LED’s cost money, but they really do save energy. I’ve done a lot of cost justifications for new lighting, but I’ve never considered the improvement in the amount of bugs.

Morning at Blanton Creek park.

Surf Condition Flags

When we checked it at the St. Andrews State Park, we were told to stay out of the water due to lots of jelly fish stinging people. There were purple flags (which mean dangerous marine life like jelly fish) and yellow flags (which means high surf and riptides) up. The second day I decided to walk the beach and saw no jelly fish at all (it is not at all strange to see several dead ones on the beach or live ones in the water). Some people mentioned seeing small jelly fish out at a jetty while fishing while others said they were swimming and had no problem at all. So, I stopped a ranger to ask how dangerous it really was. The ranger was completely surprised we had been told to stay out of the water. When asked about the flags, he told me a long story about how no local rangers actually looked at the water conditions. The yellow flag was up because someone 8 miles away thought the water looked a big rough (but had no idea if there were riptides in this area). The purple flag was up here because someone complained about seeing a jelly fish several days ago (jelly fish are always in the ocean). Interestingly, just down the beach there were no purple flags flying. Basically we were told the flags really meant nothing at all except that some lawyers felt they had to always err on the side of caution to prevent being sued. So, instead they warn us to stay out of the water when we could have been relaxing in the waves!

This is NOT a picture of a jellyfish (since we didn't see any).

We’re still recuperating from our bad luck day. Other than the flags, state parks are a nice way to relax. The deer at St. Andrews State Park are very friendly. I walked fairly close to several deer that didn’t appear skittish at all.

24-Hour Bug

I wish this post was about one of us catching a virus and feeling a bit ill for 24 hours. Instead, it’s about 24 hours of back luck starting about 2 pm on Sunday.

We’re back on the road after several weeks of downtime. After a few hours of driving, we were only 30 minutes from our stop when we suddenly heard a large explosion. The RV rocked back and forth until John was able to pull off the side of the road. Another tire blew! This time the belts blew off and even damaged our tow car a bit.

We’ve had Good Sam Roadside Assistance, but never used it. This time we were along a highway on a Sunday with nothing close by that was open. We called Good Sam’s. It took a while for us to access the situation. The call itself took a long time. Then we had to wait for the technician to show. Once he was there, it was quick. But, we ended up sitting around for 2-1/2 hours with no air conditioning in the hot Florida sun. While we were waiting, we had sat alongside a road with cars, buses, and trucks inches away. The best part was the wind as they blew past and cooled us a bit. We drank all the bottled water in the refrigerator to stay hydrated.

The good news is that the insurance costs ~$100 a year. The tire company would have charged us a minimum of $250 for the work. Plus, the technician told us about a pull-off just a mile up the road so the tire could be changed safely.

So, now we’re driving all hot and sweaty and eager to get to our stop when the air conditioner in the truck stopped working. Not sure about this one yet. Then, we finally get to the state park and the ranger tells us they don’t recommend swimming at the park’s beach right now because of the jelly fish!

We get to our site and set up. On the way to the showers, we found out that they had a water leak and there was no water in the two nearest shower rooms and at our campsite! Actually, the water came back on fairly soon, but I had to wait a bit while they unlocked the showers while they kept telling me there would be no hot water. NOT A PROBLEM!

Then, the air conditioner in the RV kept shutting off all night. There are two air conditioners in an RV. One cools you when you’re driving (which was the one that had already stopped). This second one cools the RV when you are parked. It works, but keeps shutting off at the breaker. Plus, the thermostat seems messed up. We have to set it at 50 F to keep it running.

To top it all off, the next day before the 24 hours were over John’s tooth broke. We really can’t see a dentist right now since we would need to be in one place for a week for him to get a crown. Maybe in a few weeks.

I’ve never heard of a 24-hour bug for bad luck, but we seemed to have it. We are getting all the tires replaced. I’m not sure why they are failing since we don’t have that many miles on them. But we are certainly tired of having them fail! The air conditioning is still being debugged. Maybe a new thermostat for the RV one but, weirdly, the truck one seems to be OK now.

It was 24-hours of bad luck, but will take days and weeks to fix everything. Got to have a sense of humor for all this!