Birthday Babes!

So kayak buddy, Pat, and I have birthdays in June. Pat had not explored Asheville. Always looking for an excuse to go back to Wilson's RV Park on the French Broad, I made us a reservation for late June, on her birthday and a few days before mine. After days of torrential rains, the French Broad looked a little high for happy boating so with more rain in the forecast, we decided to do the town.

Pat had never visited the magnificent Grove Park Inn with its twin walk in fireplaces inside the huge lobby, or the terrace restaurants overlooking the valley and surrounding mountains. Despite the fact that it was summer, one fireplace was roaring with flame. My last trip here was in the winter, and the terrace restaurants had heaters under the awnings. It's a pretty grand place that can defy the elements. Those who built the place defied gravity raising stones to this height and capping windows and doors with lintels of hewn stone almost as big as the windows they defined.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and wife Zelda haunted this place, often drunk for days on end. I recently read Lee Smith's book, Guests On Earth, about Zelda and her unfortunate death behind locked doors in the Asheville insane asylum, remembered today as part of Asheville's Halloween Ghost Walk. The books is not as grim as it sounds and gives a wonderful insight into Asheville in its early heyday. The Grove Park Inn heyday continues with wonderful gift shops, a high rise wing of modern rooms (if you are standing at the bottom--the rooms go down the mountain with the Blue Ridge restaurant on top) at one end, and a modern conference center and another open terrace restaurant, the Edison, on the other.

The back of the Grove Park Inn with the Terrace Restaurant and Edison Restaurant

We had a wonderful lunch at the Edison, totally unabashed in our camp clothes. The kids and I came to the Grove Park Inn for Thanksgiving dinner one year when Jessie was a student at UNCA and Ben was enrolling at Haywood Tech that January. The plan was to find them an apartment to share for a year and also spare me the job of cooking for the holiday. As a bonus, there is a wonderful Gingerbread House competition held here each year. The Inn was decked out for the holidays, full of fabulous gingerbread houses but also full of holiday guests decked out in their finery as well--men in silk suits and lots of  jewel-bedecked trophy brides and little children dressed like dolls. A fashion editor could have gotten an entire magazine issue out of what we saw. The kids, with their country upbringing and Quaker values, were a little put off. I think we were all glad for the experience but neither of them was anxious to return. I was relieved to discover that casual was OK in the summer. And that the menu at the Edison was way more affordable than the menu at the Terrace Restaurant. Being in the new conference center wing, the fireplaces (and there were several) had gas logs behind glass. Wonderful ambiance AND not miserable in the summer's heat. The food was pretty awesome as well.

The next stop was the wonderful Asheville Botanical Garden and a lovely walk through the woods among native wildflowers, and after that, shopping at the Grove Arcade, downtown.

The Grove Arcade (image courtesy of Flickr) was build by the same man who built the Grove Park Inn and is full of local crafts, fine jewelry and home furnishings. Pat fell in love with Mission Oak and had plenty to see.

Despite the elegance of the Grove architecture and wonderful cuisine, we ended our celebration at my truly favorite place in all of Asheville--the little shopping center near the apartment we found for Ben and Jessie that Thanksgiving. The Urban Burrito has absolutely the best burritos I have ever had and beneath it and to the right, The Hop offers vegan ice cream for a woman with dairy intolerance. Did I say, "Happy Birthday"? You bet.

Grayson Highlands

I cannot recall a more stunning view than this overlook at Grayson Highlands State Park near Mouth of Wilson, VA. My friend Cathy, from last year's Dan River trip, suggested we stay here and ride the Virginia Creeper Trail and explore the extraordinary terrain enclosed by the park. As with earlier trips, we are reliving spring in hillsides of mountain laurel now punctuated with flame azalea and some early rhododendron.

I had not heard of the native flame azaleas when I moved to North Carolina back in the late 70s. Being from Indiana, I wasn't familiar with azaleas period. When my friend, Caroline, was a soil conservation agent in the early 80s, she was selected by the Soil Conservation Service to be part of a team sent to the mountains to explore tree damage due to acid rain. She and others hiked deep into mountain woods with core samplers and brought back soil laid down many years back to track changes in pH. She was stuck up there over several weekends and invited me to join her for one of them and gave me a wonderful driving and hiking tour of the mountains around her childhood home. That is when I first encountered these native beauties and I have been enchanted by them ever since.

In addition to the wonderful flora in the park, Grayson Highlands is also home to several herds of wild ponies. There is a lovely dog trot log cabin that houses a camp store at the entrance to the park campground. Cathy popped in with a trail map to ask the ranger about the best places to hike. I was standing the in the cabin breezeway listening as the ranger said things like, "Take this trail to see the laurel, this trail to see the view", etc. Then she said, "And this trail overlooks the meadows with the wild ponies". At that point, I interrupted as the wild ponies were certainly NOT in the meadow, they were trotting through the parking lot towards the campground.

For the next couple of days we enjoyed peeking out of our camper at them and also enjoyed them

peeking in the camper at us. To the right, you can see this little fella's daddy, the infamous stallion (about the size of a Great Dane) Fabio, famous for his long white mane and tail, and apparently also famous for leading his crowd through the meadow fences.

Along with hiking, we had also come to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail. The kids, Mary Fletcher, and I had ridden it last year but it had been several years since Cathy had been. I'm not sure how she did it, but she ordered up a beautiful day for us, jacket weather cool and dry. Damascus, VA, our point of origin this year, is about 27 miles from the park but the roads are so winding, it took a full hour to arrive, and a good 30-40 minutes to go back up the mountain by van to begin the ride down. The Virginia Creeper Trail is named for the Virginia Creeper train that wandered these hills bringing people and supplies to remote mountain towns. It is a rails to trails project starting at a park at White Top Station and continuing downhill 17 miles back into Damascus, and for the truly hearty, another 17 miles beyond that.

So there are several outfitters in nearby towns. Last year, we were carried in from Abingdon. At White Top, van after van unloads riders and bikes so you think the trail would be as crowded as the parking lot the whole trip down. Not so. To me, the most amazing aspect of this ride is that despite the crowds at the start, everyone travels at their own speed and you may spend considerable time alone riding through deep, rich woods.  There are rest stops, a gift shop, bathrooms, and a great local restaurant about 2/3 down the trail. That day, a local church was having a hot dog sale. We enjoyed our lunch in the restaurant but when we biked past the church group we almost wished we'd waited.

But besides the well-placed conveniences, the woods, creeks, waterfalls and rocks are the real reason to come here.

The Creeper Trail also includes a short strip of the Appalachian Trail and we saw many folks with their backpacks headed to and from the outfitter in Damascus where we'd gotten our bikes. I had read Cheryl Strayed's book, Wild, and recalled reading about her dehydrated meals and how she craved candy and sweets when she got to a trail shop. When we ended our bike trip, we took some time to explore the outfitter and found a wall of candies, lots of lightweight camp clothing, gadgets and gizmos of every description, and two walls of dehydrated foods. Soups I was expecting. Dehydrated ice cream sandwiches I was not. Nor was I expecting a great sale on end-of-season athletic shoes and a great pair of turquoise trainers that fit me!

The rest of the weekend was spent walking in the park. It includes a preserved local homestead outfitted to accommodate weddings and family reunions, stunning rock formations, the aforementioned overlook, horse stables (bring your own horse) and miles of bridle trails. And miles and MILES of dry stacked rock fences. To think of the labor and the love. My late husband labored and loved to rescue a cabin like this and dry stack rocks for the foundation. It was good to feel him near.

15 million years ago...

Fifteen million years ago, a little north and east of the town of Aurora, NC, a piece of ancient ocean was blocked off from the sea and evaporated, leaving for humans to discover the world's largest phosphate mine. Digging through the accumulated silt and sand, the mine owners have discovered layers of fossil rich dirt filled with ancient sharks teeth, petrified crocodile skin, sea urchin spines, whalebone and many other delights including coprolite or petrified fish poop.

This picture, from the Aurora Fossil Museum website, shows one of the mounds of mine tailings provided by the phosphate mine for museum visitors to explore. There is another pile where school teachers and almost intrepid librarians can collect buckets of this stuff to share with their students. Usually, I'm providing early literacy programs to preschoolers, but during the summer, I'm often presenting to school age kids and a real live fossil hunt makes for a great presentation. The best part of the museum for me is that it is just a few miles up the road from my friends with the private campground on Blount's Creek.

Well, I needed some fossil dirt, and my Scamp-owning friend from Virginia, Mary, had not been to this part of our state. So I invited Mary to meet me the weekend after Memorial Day at Kathy Daniels' Middle Creek Landing where Jessie and I had stayed last year. Kathy runs Middle Creek Landing as a women-only private retreat and she was having a gathering of RVing women that weekend. It was to be an opportunity for women who might be traveling alone, like Mary and I, to meet others that might want to caravan or meet up as Mary and I sometimes do.

Mary and her 16' Scamp

It was only a very short trip. I drove down early Saturday and met the gang for lunch, hit the museum with Mary that afternoon and headed back the next day.

We met for lunch on the Middle Creek Landing grounds but gathered again for dinner in Little Washington at Blackwater Jack's Tiki Bar and Grill. Kathy grew up in the area and seemed to know everyone. Her mother joined us for an evening out. It was a great group of women, including the woman who owns the bar itself and generously provided us with discount coupons and great samples. A couple of women were retired military, several of us were widows, all of us love to RV and explore the back roads.

Membership in the private club is nominal and hookups are modestly priced. And the bathhouse is great. No reservations are required once you are a member but membership is strictly limited to women. If you have an interest, I can put you in touch with Kathy.

I have bought my membership and I look forward to coming back (and probably will have to at least every summer as long as I do summer programs). And I really look forward to crossing paths again with this great crew.

Jesus and the Fairy Tears

According to legend, when an elf told the fairies of Jesus' death, their tears became the cross shaped rocks of Fairy Stone, Virginia.

I had passed Fairy Stone State Park many times on my way up to Blacksburg where I was finishing my masters' research at Virginia Tech over a series of long weekends. And I had heard of the fairy stones, but I had never seen one.

Image from bestcystals.com

Geologists call this mineral staurolite. It occurs several places on earth, notably Patrick County, Virginia, North Georgia and Switzerland along with several other sites. These crystals formed as Earth's surface cooled and they took several shapes including the Roman cross, the St. Andrews cross and the Maltese cross. In Virginia they might also be embedded with tiny, pinpoint garnets. Regardless, they are fun to hunt though the best way to get a nice one is to buy one in the park gift shop after it has been tumbled and oiled.

Even without the draw of fairy stones, the state park is worth the trip. My friend Caroline, from the first Cheraw trip, joined me for a long weekend of paddling and rock hunting over Memorial Day weekend.

Caroline was a soil conservation agent and her first action upon our arrival was to sign us up for a rock hunting hike with the park ranger. She also had the foresight to identify the best places to launch our kayaks. In addition to having fairy stones, the park has a wonderful family beach on Fairy Stone Lake, a lovely impoundment restricted to paddlers and fishermen. And the incredibly beautiful Philpott Lake, a major flood control reservoir on the Smith River, is just around the corner.

So we started out on the smaller and closer Fairystone Lake which is fed by Goblintown Creek. According to local history, there never has been a Goblin Town per se but the area and the creek both bear this name. We paddled the creek as far up as we were able, through lovely deep woods and past the barred entrance to a former mine. There was a civil war iron furnace near here and I suspect it was a shaft for the iron ore. Fairystone Lake is not large by comparison to Philpott but it was big enough we did not have time or energy to explore it all. Kayaks and paddleboats were available for rent in the park at the swimming beach and we passed several fishing docks on park property around the lake's shore. As many recreation opportunities as were offered we were pleasantly surprised at how much of the lake we had to ourselves.

Philpott Lake, by comparison, is a monster, but a beautiful one. We were advised to put in at Bowen Creek Boat Ramp as it was on a quieter part of the lake. After devastating flooding of the Smith River in the 1930s, Philpott was constructed as a flood control project and completed in the early 1950s. As you can see, it fingers into many side valleys. These inlets offer quiet opportunities for fishermen while the main channel affords open space for skiers and jet boats. Bowen Creek is fed by a couple of creeks with waterfalls visible by boat. We paddled up to one and 30 yards before we even saw it, we were enveloped in a cloud of cool air from the evaporation of the tumbling water. There were a couple of ski boats and several fishermen with large motors but they were all very courteous, dropping speed when nearing us and sparing us their huge wakes. We saw young beavers swimming near shore and many kingfishers fighting overhead for territory and prospective mates. And everywhere, there was mountain laurel. If I remember anything about these trips this spring, it will be the profusion of laurel. It is as if we have gotten to repeat spring each weekend and rediscover the season's beauty.

The last event of the trip was an excursion into Floyd, Virginia, for supper. When I was a student at Virginia Tech, I came up on weekends to finish my research. I stayed outside Floyd in the Alum Ridge community with a girlfriend and fellow student. It was stunningly beautiful country, but the town of Floyd itself was barely hanging on. The primary employment for many was growing pot as the local economy was so depressed and the remote farmsteads offered privacy. In time, developers from Roanoke discovered the cheap land around Floyd and its incredible beauty and have turned it into a resort area for vacation homeowners and tourists. This picture is courtesy of the Floyd Country Store website. The town was pretty quiet the evening we were there but we had a great supper and heard a little local bluegrass along with it. A good end to our trip and an update to my memories.

There was a severe storm watch our last night. My phone woke me with a storm warning at 3a, but it was for Asheboro, not us. Out trip home was pleasantly uneventful. I am hoping the paddle club will agree to come here this fall for our annual campout. For those not wishing to camp, the park offers cabins, or you can rent a yurt...