Today we reluctantly departed NC and drove to Williamsburg TT near Williamsburg, VA. The scenery from the road is wonderful which almost makes you ignore the absolutely horrible highway paving in Virginia, at least on I-95 and I-64, the two highways we took to get here. It would seem that their Department of Transportation has mandated that all lanes of their highways should be as lumpy as possible utilizing terrible patchwork, cavernous and yawning potholes the size of wheelbarrow tubs, uneven lane surfaces and bridge approaches that seemingly were mined but unrepaired after detonation of the explosive charges. At least it was not raining which would have partially concealed the myriad hazards under poorly directed drainage. Perhaps the state has a deal with technicians that engage in wheel alignment services.
Regardless of the crummy roads, the place is quite beautiful. The Williamsburg TT park is a bit crowded but the spaces are almost all pull-thru types and easily accessible by competent drivers, a classification which does not apply to me. We have nice neighbors and the facility has ample amenities for trailer trash like us.
It was a pretty harrowing drive for us to get here so we loafed for the rest of the day once we were set up in the camp spot.

Uh-oh. Laundry day. I drove Peg to the facility’s laundry and walked back to the Invader where I did some simple maintenance while Peg was sweet enough to carry out the miserable clothes washing duties. Very little other elective activities today other than some very pleasant napping.

Today was a trip of exploration but there was not too much to discover. We started by driving back down the road to Henderson, NC, to pick up another water pressure regulator to replace the unit that the world’s smartest living person, me, had left firmly attached to the spigot back in Advance. What a bozo.
Our drive took us on about a 90 mile loop through northern NC and a little bit of southern VA. Although there is nothing here to get excited about other than Lake Gaston, the drive was spectacular anyway. The foliage is putting on a show that people like me who have lived in the drought-plagued west would find exquisite. There are trees and shrubs that are flowering almost wherever you look interspersed with small farms with emerald green crops just coming out of the soil. The roads are a bit narrow but that probably just keeps the tourists at bay.

We departed Forest Lake campground and Advance and cruised east to another TT campground in Littleton, NC, called Lake Gaston. This campground is right on a very large lake with some neat lakefront private residences around it. The lake has some tiny little wooded islands that look great from the campground but since we are not equipped with a boat we are out of luck on island exploration. No Tom Sawyer stuff for us.
The camp spots are quite a bit more spread out than in the Forest Lake campground and we pulled into a nice spot within view of the lake. There is easy access to a beach, great camp spots in a mature pine forest, nice docks and piers, a store, a pretty good sized library in the lodge and a good laundry. Peg and I took a nice walk along the lake and found a good bench to sit on the shore and watch the sun go down. It is quite beautiful here.

Dianne, Gary, Peggy and I hopped in Charlotte and took a spin around Advance to take in the sights. Unfortunately, there are few man-made sights in this area other than some spectacular old houses (still with lousy foundations) but the foliage is beautiful.
We did find something called the “Bullhole” which formerly was the dam and waterworks for a textile mill that is still visible but quite closed. The Bullhole is the section of a river below a large masonry gravity dam which has water pouring over the top creating nifty little waterfalls. There were about 30 turtles sunning themselves on the rocks and a few visitors wading or fishing in the river. It is no Hoover Dam but it is a neat area nonetheless and if I lived in this rural part of NC, I would be lounging around the Bullhole quite frequently.
Gary and Dianne had to depart around dinner time to get back to work the next day so we gave them a farewell sniff and they split. They called about two and a half hours later indicating they were back home in Greenville which makes me think Gary might have exceeded the posted speed limit on the freeway. Very naughty.

5/2/15 We have some internet access here in Forest Lake so we were able to determine that there was both a Costco and a Trader Joe’s in Winston-Salem. We gathered up our wallets and drove into town for some shopping which only set us back about $260, plus fuel. The drive from Advance to Winston-Salem is gorgeous and almost worth the trip even without shopping. The hardwood / pine forests along the road and the neat old houses near the road are quite scenic and I was frequently not surprised to look in my rear-view mirror to find I was impeding traffic. We pulled over quite a bit to let normal drivers pass us gawkers.
Dianne and Gary, our newly renewed friends from Greenville, SC, had expressed an interest in seeing us again prior to our departure from the area and were gracious enough to drive the long way from their home to occupy a cabin at the campground for the night. They checked in about dinner time and we all probably drank too much having a wonderful time. Dianne had already prepped some chili for dinner and brought it with her so we dined on her tasty food and avoided the hassle of cooking. We may have stayed up past my bedtime but I’m not sure because Gary brought a bottle of Maker’s Mark which seemed quite a bit lighter in the morning.

Today we are scheduled to go back to Charlotte, NC, to get our replacement canopy. We reluctantly departed Stone Mountain and drove to Golden Gait Trailers near Charlotte, for the second time in two weeks. Ron Ulp, the guy who helped us when the awning was removed back in April was mysteriously absent from work on this day. Perhaps it was because he had ordered what appeared to be a shorter awning support system (the arms were shorter than the units removed) and the awning type was intended for an installation with a metal retracted awning cover, which our trailer does not have. There were some sheepish faces from the GGT staff when they told me that the stuff they had was the wrong stuff and it would be another week or two before they could get the correct stuff.
I quickly formulated another plan. I directed them to install what they had bollixed up and, surprisingly, it worked okay. The awning extends and retracts just like it is supposed to and I will have to be satisfied because we were unwilling to disappear for another week or two in NC before returning a third time. We don’t really have a fixed schedule but we have a very firmly flimsy plan about where we are going to go and when we want to be there so we felt obliged to accept what was ordered and vamoose.
After parting with the remainder of the $1501 they charged us to install the alternate awning we departed GGT’s spacious and very clean facility and continued our drive to a TT campground called Forest Lake near Advance, NC. Advance is near Lexington which is about 2/3 of the way from Charlotte to Winston-Salem. I only had to fiddle around for about a half an hour demonstrating my complete ineptitude at backing up a fifth-wheel trailer before we were safely ensconced in the space of our choice. The spaces are a bit close for our liking but certainly adequate. The campground also has a pond which I believe is the water feature that makes for the campground name. It is not very big for a lake but it did have some very healthy-looking geese swimming in it. However, after all our adventures for today we were pooped so we set up, climbed inside the trailer and had some drinks without scoping out the pond / lake before flaking out for the day.

We are extremely fortunate. We do not have to get up early so we didn’t, arising about 9:00 and starting to move away from the coffee pot by 10:00. By about noon, we jumped into Charlotte and took off for the town of Roaring Gap, which, according to the crummy maps we have, is only about 5 miles away. Some 15 miles later, we drove into Roaring Gap, which is a tiny little burg with a small market, a gift store for other people and two golf courses right in the pass through this part of the Blue Ridge.
In Roaring Gap, we spotted a sign showing another way into Stone Mountain SP and took it down a very scenic but quite narrow road with lots of curves and few straight sections. No traffic made it so we could descend from Roaring Gap at about 10 mph which was great because it is a gorgeous drive. However, I’m glad I did not bring the Invader in this way because it probably would have made some poo come out.
We re-entered the park and drove to the visitor center to scope out the exhibits. We met the neat lady who works there, Denise, who told us about the area & allowed us to access the center’s back deck where we finally were able to see a pretty big chunk of Stone Mountain albeit from the side and from a distance. She did reveal, however, that there was a great spot to see the mountain, right up close, and to visit a pioneer homestead and we could drive right into a parking lot at the spot. She was absolutely correct. If you ever come here, make sure you go see the Hutchison Homestead because the view of the mountain from here is truly impressive and the homestead is pretty neat, too.
From this vantage point, the entire width and the 600 foot height of this enormous dome-shaped monolith is plainly visible humbling us mere pipsqueaks. Great spot for photos and we took a few while hiking around the homestead area.
We departed the Homestead and took one more drive through the park road. There are flowers and buds popping out that were not here two days ago and it was sort of like driving on a road we had not traversed previously. This place is gorgeous and at this time of year remarkably uninhabited. If I lived around here I would probably visit all the time.

Another section of the Blue Ridge Parkway today. We drove north up I-77 to Virginia and got off at Exit 8, Fancy Gap, VA. We turned south back toward NC passing the closed and gated Blue Ridge Music Center, Cumberland Nob, Fox Hunters Paradise to Hwy 21 where the Parkway was closed and we were detoured north on Hwy 21 then west on Hwy 18 which we followed all the way back to County Road 1002 and Stone Mountain. Just like every day we have enjoyed on the Parkway, this one was another treat and we spotted 5 wild turkeys, to boot.
We still have not really seen Stone Mountain from here in the park but we did see it from about 50 miles away when we were on the Parkway three or four days ago. Sure would like to see it before I leave.

Today we departed Green Mountain Park Resort in Lenore/Lenoir and wandered off towards Elkin, NC using single-lane (in each direction) highways going mostly northeast. We started on Hwy 18 to Hwy 421 to Hwy 21 to County Road 1002 into Stone Mountain State Park which is bordering the Blue Ridge Parkway on one side and Hwy 21 to the north. The entire distance from Lenoir to this place near Roaring Gap is a wonderful drive through small rural farming operations, areas of hardwood forest, wandering up creek-side ledges and having straight, flat runs through emerald green pastures. This might be the first time since we started on this mission from God (The mission assigned to us was to wander about aimlessly without concerns regarding schedule) that the drive equaled the scenery at the destination.
After maybe the least informal check-in operation yet, we pulled into an enormous, paved, mostly level site in a small pasture. The 50 amp system was funny but the 30 amp electrical system worked fine. The water is good. We’ll find out about the dump station when we check out.
Despite driving way below the speed limit all the way here, the distance traveled was short and Peg & I had the Invader set up in record time. First we drove over to the closest picnic area and found a trail that was initially intended to take us to Stone Mountain which we have not seen yet. After walking .3 mile, we hit a trail intersection indicating there was a 4.5 mile trail to Stone Mountain and a .3 mile trail to Stone Waterfall. We opted for the waterfall and I’m glad we did.
The trail leads you to the top of the waterfall with a big viewing area and the trail continues down quite a few steps to an intermediate platform and finally to the bottom of the fall. It isn’t what you would normally consider a waterfall because the water never passes through air but instead runs down an increasingly steeper rock dome. It is still spectacular. It is an easy hike of about a mile and a bit, round trip.
From the picnic area, we drove the 600 yards back to the Invader where we gathered up some snacks and piled back into Charlotte for a spin on the only road going through the park. It is a great drive down a series of creeks with abundant sprouting and flowering vegetation everywhere. There was almost no traffic, so we were able to putt along at about 10 mph on the paved section and maybe even slower than that on the last short gravel section. We were still unable to actually see Stone Mountain except little glimpses from the road, through trees. We really didn’t care much since the drive through the park is wonderous.