RVing With a Purpose

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Today we all slept in a little. The morning temperature was 54 degrees so Nancy said she wanted to just stay in her tent in her sleeping bag. We can understand because we were in the motor home with the windows open and we wanted to stay in bed too. After we had a little lazy morning we decided to do some more waterfalls close by Standing Indian. Nancy had planned to leave today so we didn’t need to make it another long day.

We left the campground going in the opposite direction on Standing Indian Campground Road following the headwaters of the Nantahala River. The road changed to dirt and gravel. Shortly we stopped at Laurel Falls. Lots of things around here are named Laurel something because of all the mountain laurel in the woods. Along with the mountain laurel there was also lots of rhododendron in the woods around Laurel Falls.

 

 

Next stop was Mooney Falls. Here there is Upper and Lower Mooney Falls. All the water falls we have seen have been really nice. Some larger than others but each very pretty in their own way. And the hikes to the falls were also a real treat. We love the mountains. There is so much rhododendron in the forest here that we are going to have to come back when it is in full bloom. We have seen some random blooms but most are long gone. We understand that June is the month to really see the forest in full bloom. Must look at next year’s calendar.

 

 

After Mooney, we drove up some steep inclines to Albert Mountain. Here we hiked about two miles up Albert Mountain to the fire tower. The last portion, the steep part, is also the Appalachian Trail. The views from top of Albert were beautiful. The sky was so blue and mostly clear, you could see a very long distance.

 

 

It was getting late and Nancy hadn’t started packing so we headed back to the campground arriving about 2:30. Nancy started packing which took longer than she had thought. Anne cooked some dinner and we tried to help Nancy get ready. The tent was wet from last weeks rains so we had to lay it out in the sun to day. Later Nancy decided to cook us another cobbler since she had the ingredients and this was her last night. Apple, pineapple, carrot cake cobbler. Didn’t know about that combination before cooking but it was very tasty.

 

 

Finally about 7:00 Nancy agreed that it was really too late for her to head for Atlanta so after getting everything packed into her Flex, she agreed to spend the night in Fred and head home in the morning. It was another really nice day, but as Nancy says, “any day in the mountains is a good day.” We AGREE!

Tuesday, August 22, 2017 continued

Today began with our final breakfast and goodbyes to our wonderful friends at Hinton. Hinton was a great place to view the magnificent total solar eclipse and had we not been asked to help with hospitality there, we very well may have stayed at home or some other place outside of totality and missed this wonderful experience. We will definitely, if we are able, make an effort to view the total eclipse in 2024. After saying our goodbyes to Ken and Joyce, we drove over to Standing Indian to check the status there. We knew Standing Indian Campground was full yesterday due to the eclipse so we wanted to be sure we postponed our arrival until most of those leaving were out. The road is rather narrow and we preferred not to meet another rig our size. Everything was fine there so we returned to Hinton, packed up Fred and moved to the campground. As said previously, we will be without hookups and cell service. After getting set up it was time for a late lunch/early dinner. Nancy had the makings for shrimp and grits so together we prepared our little feast. This is actually our first day/night just enjoying ourselves with the new Fred, our first night without hookups. All our other travels have been project related.

 

After our nice little or not so little meal, we decided it was time for a hike. We decided since we have never stayed at Standing Indian we would start with one of the hikes with trail head in the campground. Nancy has been camping here since she was a child and she recommended the Kimsey Creek Trail. It was a very nice hike following a little creek. It connects with the Appalachian Trail but since we got a late start we hiked about 2 hours out and then turned around and returned to camp hiking between 7-8 miles. We really enjoyed the hike. We love the mountains. The trail was beside the stream a lot of the time. It had some pretty hard up hill sections that reminded us that we haven’t been hiking enough lately.

 

We returned to camp just before dark, had a snack, shower and went to bed, falling asleep to the sound of the creek flowing through our camp site. Nice day!

Monday, August 21, 2017

Wow! What a day! What a day to celebrate our 35 years together. We have been so blessed and thank God for each other.

Even though the forecast called for a beautiful day there was still some apprehension about the weather.

 

We started today with some stretching at the labyrinth with Hannah and then devotion in the chapel with Dawn. After breakfast Ken gave another great presentation on the eclipse which was, after all, what everyone was here to see. After that we had some free time to visit and walk around and decide where we wanted to set up for the eclipse. Then there was lunch and then time for the big, big event.

 

I’m sure those who only saw the partial eclipse may not understand this, but being under a total eclipse on a very clear gorgeous day was amazing. Much more exciting than we had anticipated. Without totality you miss seeing so much that goes on only under a total eclipse. We were able to experience the shadow coming over us. The weather changing with a drop in temperature and the cool wind picking up. As we approached totality there was almost a surreal look to everything. It seemed like you had your sunglasses on but you didn’t. Then right at totality you saw Bailey’s beads and the sudden burst of light with the diamond ring and then totality. The stars came out, you could easily see two planets, the Canadian geese loudly flew off, the crickets became quite loud, the people were very excited and then the look of an eyeball in the sky and it all happened so fast.

 

It was much better than we ever expected. An experience difficult to explain. So glad we were here and would definitely put forth the effort to do it again. Another unexpected joy of the last few days was the number of really wonderful people we met.  Maybe because of the shared interest in this somewhat unusual event that none of us had every experienced but there was an unexpected camaraderie that was a blessing.  What’s everyone doing in 2024?

PS. We ended this extraordinary day by getting rained on and helping wash dishes in the kitchen and it was all GOOD!