Statesville, NC to Raleigh-Durham, NC area 18-20 Jun 2014

                                    

This photo is for our RV friends so they can see Midway campground. It was very family oriented.  It had been a KOA, but is now independent.  We have never had a grill with propane provided. There is a lake for fishing, game building, covered picnic area, putt-putt golf, in ground jumping mat, and  

 a huge pool.  They charge $10/person for those wanting to swim, but not staying in the park.  The park is 7 miles from the nearest restaurants and twice that to a grocery.  There is a convenience store and gas station down the road. The weather was HOT and HUMID. 

 On the 18th of June we drove to Selma, NC, which is about 30 minutes from Raleigh and another 30 to Durham.  We are here to visit one of our nieces and to do more family history research.  North Carolina has done a wonderful job of planting flowers along their interstates.  This is one example at the ramp onto I-95.  Lady Byrd Johnson would be thrilled.

 Our niece, Lauren, took us to see a model of the house that she is having built.  It is 3 bedrooms and two baths.  That would be perfect for us when we come off the road, if we could get it built in Vancouver, WA.  We loved it.

 Lauren's lot is down this newly paved street beyond the grass patch on the right.  We are so excited for her.  After viewing this, she took us to the Geer Garden in Durham for a great dinner, made really fun by all the conversation.  We left her and returned to the coach.

The next day, Ted and I drove back to Raleigh to the NC State Library to do family research.  Ted found the death date for one of his 2nd grandfathers.  This was a big break through.  I found a reference that I wanted.  We then drove a couple of miles to NCSU where Lauren works.  These beautiful flowers lined a walkway on campus. 

 The entrance to her building had all kinds of science symbols embedded in the floor.  I wish that I had gotten a better shot of this helix.

 Here is Lauren in her office.  

We went down the hall to the ant lab.  She opened one of the drawers to her right to show us: 

 All of those drawers look similar to this one.  She identified every one of these ants, including two previously unidentified!  She also has many interests and is a delight to be with.  After we left her, we decided to eat in Raleigh. We hoped this would help us avoid rush hour.  I picked a place on my phone and this was it. 

Cafe Luna, at the corner of Blount and Hargett, had 5 stars and it deserved it.  Prices were amazing for a really upscale gustatory experience.  I had a seafood fettuccine in a tomato sauce.  Ted had seafood ravioli in a cream sauce.  Both were out of this world.  We shared a Caesar salad that was the best we have ever eaten.  The owner stopped by and we had a nice discussion about our Kindle Fires and living in our coach.  His wife is the painter of the oil paintings that grace the walls of the restaurant.  He sent over a "to-die-for" ice cream dessert made in the restaurant from vanilla and chocolate Haagen-Dazs ice cream partially melted, then blended with cherries, chopped walnuts, and chocolate shavings. The service was perfect and the atmosphere comfortable and relaxing.  We considered this place to be one of the two best Italian restaurants we've ever patronized.

Statesville, NC 11-18 Jun 2014

 Why would we spend a week in a little town in Western North Carolina?  We came in search of ancestors and found more than we expected.  We found a cute place rich in old buildings and wide avenues.  It is so pleasing to find towns with downtowns that are thriving.  There were MANY stately homes on huge lots, lovingly restored.  We were disappointed in the highly rated BBQ place, however.

 On one corner of the city center sits this building with a very quirky clock on top.  

 This is one of several similar buildings on the campus of the Mitchell Community College not far from the town center.  We loved the architecture that fit the setting. The town houses a beautiful county library with a wonderful section for genealogy.  That was another surprise.  Penny scanned about 150 pages of family information there.  Ted used the state county records to get a little closer to one of his branches.

 This plantation home was built in 1820 by Penny's 3rd Great Uncle Joseph Chambers - another surprise.  We came to Statesville to find the family of another branch and learned that the Chambers branch came from the same county.  This house was built on land that Penny's 4th great grandfather owned.  It was restored in the 1960s by the former secretary to Sen. Sam Ervin of NC, and is now rented for special events.   

Here are a bunch of Chambers ancestors. They were Scots-Irish Presbyterians. One of the daughters even married the daughter of John Knox.  However, my dad was Lutheran.  We learned that the branch I came to find was Lutheran.  Now, I know which 2nd great grandmother won out in the religion category.

Biltmore, Asheville, TN 8 June 2014

 If you're ever in Asheville, North Carolina, an absolute must-do is Biltmore, the George Vanderbilt Estate.  When you go through this gate, you're instantly transported to a very different place and time.  The Vanderbilt family still owns and runs this estate.  They are a big employer in Asheville.

 This approach road is lined with an artful combination of native and well adapted non-native trees and shrubs.  The grounds were designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead, the father of American landscape architecture, and designer of New York's Central Park, among many other famous urban parks.  For you Portlanders, Laurelhurst Park, the Oregon State University campus, and many more were designed by John Olmstead, Frederick's son. The acres and acres of forests that surround the estate were planned by none other than Gifford Pinchot, the revered father of American Forestry.  Ted's forestry friends and Pacific Northwesterners know who he is, for sure.

 Eventually, you get to this.  There is no way anyone's photograph could do justice to this magnificent, 250 room, French Renaissance Chateau.

 The details that Architect Richard Morris Hunt built into his plan are astounding.  Gargoyles such as these inhabited just about every corner. They are more daring in length than those we saw in Great Britain.

This knight, along with two lions, guarded the entrance. 

 This sculpture sat atop the atrium.  No photographs were allowed inside, so if you want to see it, you'll just have to go there.

 The Italian Garden is the view from the entrance.

The ponds featured several different varieties of lotus. 

From the Italian garden, you walk into the shrub garden,

Along the side is this shaded, trellised walkway featuring fountains, statues, and a beautiful rock wall.

Further down is a rose garden with trellises of many different shapes.  Single row English roses with small, rather plain blossoms climb on this one. You quickly realize that visits at different times of the year will yield varying floral displays.  

A bit further is this magnificent conservatory.

This was one of many gorgeous denizens of the orchid room.  Fyi - you do NOT need valet parking, but the valet parking did make us feel like Vanderbilts-for-the-day.  There are shuttles from the parking lots.  You DO need the self-guided tour handsets.  If you reserve your tickets seven days in advance, you save $15, which pays for the self-guided tour handsets. 

It is not cheap (about $60/person), but if you come here, plan to spend the entire day, including dinner at one of the many fine restaurants on the estate.  Well worth the time and money.



Asheville, N.C. 7 June, 2014

 One of the interesting and fun aspects of this lifestyle is that you often get to see people you might otherwise never get a chance to meet.  In this case, it was Penny's third cousin, Dean, and his wife Lynne.  Dean and Penny's great-grandmothers were sisters.  We had a great time with them.

 One evening we went to downtown Asheville.  It is really a neat town.  Just outside the parking garage was this climbing wall.  This was our first indication that Asheville did not fit our image of a typical southern town.

 These gingko trees, planted between cobblestones, set a very pleasant tone.

 We loved the whimsy of this gigantic flat iron sculpture.

 This triangle in downtown Asheville becomes a party place every Friday evening.  People gather there in a circle and play their drums until late in the evening.

 This wig shop sported a few wigs of standard colored hair, but we loved this display with everything from hair treatments that looked like they should belong to Cleopatra to all of these wild colors.

 We saw dreadlocked street entertainers on this corner all three times we were downtown.  A few days after we took this photograph, we saw a bumper sticker that said "Keep Asheville Weird".  Very Portlandian.

 There are several high profile eating places in downtown Asheville.  We chose the Tupelo Honey Café.

 Their reputation was well deserved.  Penny had a delicious open-faced vegetable sandwich and Ted had a wonderful Panko crusted cutlet with Havarti and cheddar cheese, green apples and caramelized onions with a sriracha aioli sauce.  Delicious!!  The grilled asparagus was the best either of us had ever tasted.

Not far off the downtown square was Thomas Wolfe's house.  Despite the famous author's exhortation, we did go home again afterward, to our magic carpet house on wheels.

The Smokies, 4 June 2014



Only a few miles down the Oconoluftee River from Cherokee is the Great Smoky Mountains Visitor Center.  We saw these kids sitting on the roots of this magnificent old oak eating sandwiches.  Life is good.  

Outside the visitor center is this recreation of the McCarter Farm.  When Penny was here before, there had been a lye and ash soap-making demonstration.  Ted had seen his Aunt Idella and Uncle Joe make soap from some of the excess lard they always had after the hog slaughter.

OK, lets see how many of you can identify this device that was exhibited inside the visitor's center.

The understory was full of  rhododendrons and azaleas.  Only a few were still in bloom, most of them at higher altitudes.

Maidenhair, New York, and Christmas ferns lined the road,

The smoky appearance, seen here, that gave these mountains their name is caused by water vapor and terpenes exuded by the trees.  By the way, there are several terpenes on the California Proposition 65 list of cancer causing chemicals, but they are also the substances that give essential oils their pleasant smells, and give the hops in your beer their flavor and aroma.  Hard to separate the good from the bad.

Southern Blue Ridge Parkway and Cherokee, North Carolina, 4 June 2014

We were a little delayed in our explorations near Asheville, North Carolina.  This relay, which sends power to the hydraulic pump that powers our slides and leveling jacks, failed.  Fortunately, we were able to get it repaired with minimal expense and time lost.  The right side of this device should look like the left. .  

A few years back, we had explored the northern Blue Ridge Parkway, and wanted to see the southern part,  The drive was dotted with several of these picturesque tunnels.  Fortunately, we only ran across one driver who felt the need to honk his horn in the tunnel.

This is the view from Big Witch Overlook.  We loved the interplay between the mountain contours and the shadows cast by the clouds.

At the south end of the parkway stands the town of Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ in Cherokee language).  It is the headquarters of the Eastern Band of Cherokees.  Note the greeting sign written in the Cherokee language.

All of the street signs were written in both English and Cherokee.  Of course, there was a large and prosperous looking casino. 

Along the way we had seen many motorcycles and many businesses that catered to them.  This Geritol generation group was outside a café in Cherokee.

Many towns now have painted animal figures.  In Cherokee, the theme was bears.  Many of them were true works of art.  We particularly liked this bear decked out in Eagle Dancer costume.

Our favorite, however, was this one clad in the very recognizable (at least to our Oklahoma friends) headdress and smoking the pipe shown in the famous lithograph of Sequoyah (ᏍᏏᏉᏯ).  Sequoyah, whose English name was George Gist, was a Cherokee silversmith and inventor of the Cherokee syllabary which made reading and writing in Cherokee possible.  The side of the bear is covered with characters from his syllabary.