Day 8 Monday August 12, 2024
We ate breakfast at TJ’s Cafe in the Service Center building while we waited for the service department office to open at 9AM. We wanted to get the NC State Vehicle Inspection done while we were here near the service center. If we wait until we are home we have to drive about 15 miles to a garage to get it done. Here we are just across the parking lot.
When they opened I got the paperwork done and we brought the motorhome up to the service center. They found the rear clearance lights not working due to a blown 1 amp fuse.
Lena’s sister (Jean) and her husband (Jack) arrived mid afternoon to stay with us a couple nights and visit the Biltmore Estate in Asheville NC. My sister gave us three tickets she has bought several years ago and never had a chance to use them. Jean bought another ticket so we had four tickets. We had been to the Biltmore Estate many years ago so this gave us a good chance to go back especially since we were so close while staying in Marion for several days.
Day 9 Tuesday August 13, 2024
We all ate breakfast at TJ’s Cafe and then headed to the Biltmore Estate. Our tour time was 11:30 and we arrived shortly after 10 so we had some time to walk around some of the grounds and visit the gift shops, etc.
Now the tour through the house is self guided with a handheld device. Each main area has a numbered sign and you enter that number into the handheld device and hold it to your ear and you hear about the history of that area of the house. We found that to be a major improvement over following a tour guide with a big gaggle of people. You can move through the house at your own pace and if desired replay the information on any area.
The house is an amazing facility, especially considering the time it was built. It took a huge staff to maintain the house and grounds and take care of the Vanderbilts and their many guests. It had 33 guest bedrooms and 27 servant bedrooms plus those in the upper level of the horse stable where the male staff stayed.
There still is a huge staff that work at the estate, helping with tickets, tours, all the places to eat, cleaning, maintenance, maintaining the grounds, the flower gardens, winery, hotel and lots of the open land is farmed with corn, soybeans, vegetables, etc.
It had a two lane bowling alley, fitness room inside swimming pool, game room, huge library, etc.
It took us almost two hours to tour the house and then we went to the horse stable cafe for some “hay” for lunch. I was getting weak in the knees after all that walking and climbing up and down stair during the tour. We had a good meal and it perked me right up.
Then we toured the flower garden. We picked a beautiful day, no rain and much cooler than it has been in several days. By the time we got back to the car we had walked almost 3 miles.
We returned to the motorhome about 4PM and had some ice cream and chilled for the remainder of the day and watch the Robins Williams movie RV. If you have never seen it and like a good family comedy movie you should. We have watched it 4-5 times and it is still funny.
Day 10 Wednesday August 14, 2024
Lena cooked breakfast and Jean and Jack departed for home mid-morning. We enjoyed their visit and our trip to the Biltmore Estate yesterday.
After lunch we walked over and picked up our wristbands for the Bluegrass Festival and then placed our seats in our assigned numbered location under the Pavilion.
Evans Media Source does a much better and MUCH simpler method of assigning seating location. Adams Productions was the promoter for this event for many years and they had the most convoluted method for assigning your seating location you could imagine. If you wanted to get anywhere near the stage and under the pavilion you had to arrive on Monday before the event started on Thursday, then Tuesday morning bright and early get in line and if you didn’t get in line by about 6AM forget getting a good location. You stood in line until the crew from the promoters came and handed out your wrist bands about 9AM. Only then could you place your seats in any open place that was not already chosen.
Now with Evans Media Source if you want to chose your numbered seat location you call them as soon as the tickets go on sale around April/May and you get to pick your seat location from the reserved section. Then on Wednesday before the Thursday event you go to their pickup location near the pavilion get your wristbands and go put your seats in your numbered location. No waiting in a line for over three hours to get a good location. So simple.
Day 11 Thursday August 15, 2024
We drove to Old Fort to get cinnamon buns and Lattes. Go Gos Handmade Cinnamon Buns had several varieties of buns but only served drip coffee. So we got our heated buns and went to Seekers Coffee around the corner for our Lattes and they actually used real ceramic cups which is unusual in most coffee shops.
Then we walked over to the pavilion for the NC Blue Grass Festival that started at 12 noon. Intermission was 4PM to 5:30PM so we returned to the motorhome to relax and get something to eat.
The entertainers today were The Farm Hands, Larry Stephenson Band, Kody Norris Show and Rhonda Vincent and The Rage.
Rhonda Vincent was the only group we had seen before. We have seen her group several times here and also at the Rudy Theater in Selma NC. The Kody Norris Show was a very colorful sparkly group. All the groups were good but we liked some better than others. And all had very talented musicians. Neither of us can play any musical instruments so we call ourselves Professional Listeners.
Day 12 Friday August 16, 2024
It was 68 degrees when we got up this morning. Nice to set outside with a cup of coffee.
TJ’s Cafe serves fried flounder for lunch on Fridays which we like so we had lunch there before going over to the pavilion for Fridays show. A nice couple came by as we began to walk over and gave us a ride on their golf cart. There is always dozens of golf carts here during the festival.
Today’s line up was Backline, Retro 78, Southern Legacy and JR Sisk. We have never heard these groups before. There were some individuals in Southern Legacy that were formerly members in other groups we have seen.
We returned to the motorhome after the 4 PM intermission and will not return after the intermission tonight. We are getting intermittent rain showers. The weather was bad for awhile and we were told the next day they stopped the show for about 10 minutes until the worst of the storm passed.
Day 13 Saturday August 17, 2024
Nice an cool this morning to start the day but it changed later and got to the upper 80’s. The show started today at 11AM with the group Remedy Tree, followed by Deeper Shade of Blue, East Nash Grass, Authentic Unlimited and The Malpass Brothers. The Malpass Brothers are a Country Band, not Bluegrass. We have heard them 3-4 times before and they are very good and quite funny. They are from Goldsboro NC and were part of Merle Haggards Band for several years until he retired and then passed away. They have their own festival in May in Denton NC and also have a show of RFD TV. They have really made big strides with their popularity in the last three or four years.
All the groups have some really good musicians and singers. But Authentic Unlimited and the Malpass Brothers were our favorites.
We enjoyed today’s groups the best of the three days. Chris Malpass had a bad night with his guitar. He must have got a bad batch of guitar strings because he broke 4 strings tonight. He said he put a complete new set on before the show but they kept breaking. The last one broke just before they finished their show so he just kept going. It was a good thing Taylor Malpass knew some good jokes to keep the crown entertained while Chris changed his strings.
Day 14 Sunday August 18, 2024
It is time to move on and make our way to the meeting location to meet our Fantasy Caravan group in Minnesota. We had breakfast and hooked up the Jeep and headed out at 9AM. We had a detour on I40 in Asheville. The blinking signs about the road being closed and the detour route was hard to read due to the sun shining on the signs and the messages changing too fast. Just as we got to the last exit before the actual closure a 18 wheeler was ahead of us and I said I will just follow him because anywhere he can get through we can. We followed him for several miles and came back to I40 and we were fine.
We stopped to fuel up West of Knoxville TN and then stopped for the night in Baxter TN at the Delmonaco Winery about 1:30PM. This is a Harvest Host so we can stay overnight for free.
They were severing a Sunday Brunch so we decided to eat there in the dining room. We stopped here in May 2022 on the way to Alaska and their food was good. The meal came with a free Sangria which was very good. Lena asked the waiter if they bottled it and sold it. He said no and he asked if we liked it and we told him we did. He smiled and said he made it today. He was told to just follow their recipe but he said he did his own formula and it was really good.
Since this is a Harvest Host location we don’t have any hookups so we ran the generator until about 5:30 when it cooled off after a shower of rain.
We are in Central Time but our bodies are still on Eastern Time so we were in the bed by 9 PM and had a very quiet restful night.
Day 15 Monday August 19, 2024
We had breakfast, prepped the motorhome and were on our way at 8:05 for our 350 mile trip to another Harvest Hosts in Harrisburg Arkansas named Parker Homestead.
The Tennessee portion of Interstate 40 is in good shape except in the towns of Knoxville, Nashville and Memphis. They need to work on it in those cities. We hit one pothole coming into Memphis that sounded like something broke but everything seemed to still work properly so I kept going. Not much place to stop and look under the motorhome along side the Interstate unless I really had to. I really hate concrete highways. When they get a few years on them big chucks start to break off and cause bad potholes and the road crews wait until the road is falling apart to fix them.
The traffic was fairly light until we got to Nashville then it was on like “Donkey Kong” until we got past the city. They have fallen behind with adding lanes to accommodate the traffic and several lanes was squeezed down to four and then those four split like a “ Y” and two lanes each way and the traffic came almost to a stop.
Several miles past Nashville there was some road construction but the West lanes that we were on no one was working so we breezed right along but on the East side lanes the workers were placing the Jersey Barriers on the road so they could work more safely and the traffic was backed up for several miles. We have never seen that many 18 wheelers setting on an interstate not even moving. We were sure glad we weren’t on the East side because I expect those people were looking at way over an hour before they got past where the crews were working.
Then in Memphis some idiot came down the on ramp and tried to force his way into traffic. I usually travel in the second lane from the right in cities due to such idiots. I was in the second lane and the guy in the first lane was forced partially into my lane to avoid this idiot and I swerved to the left to miss him. Sure glad no one was on my left. Lena said the car to our right was REALLY close to hitting us trying to avoid the idiot. Sure would have made for a bad day.
To get to our host location we had to get off the interstate and travel about 20 miles of local roads through some beautiful farm land. The land is flat and the farms are huge. They grow corn, soybeans, cotton and rice. We were surprised to see them harvesting soybeans. There was some ready to harvest and some that was still green and the corn was about ready to harvest. Mr Parker, the hosts told me that Arkansas was the largest producer of rice in the USA and this county, Poinsett was the largest producer in Arkansas.
The host location was down a narrow gravel driveway that opened up to a large open area that has hundreds of pieces of old farm equipment. Mr Parker said he had been collecting for 30 years and invited us to go into all the buildings except the two that are Air B& B houses. It looks like there is also an old log cabin that there are adding a second floor and other rooms. It probably will also be an Air B&B. There is also an old log country store, he said turn on the light and go in and look around if we see anything that we want to buy you lay the money on the counter. There is also an old log Church with stain glass windows, school house, blacksmith shop, sarsaparilla building, several other buildings, goat yard with three goats, lots and lots of farm tractors, grist mill, etc.
The rules for school teachers was posted in the school house. They are rather restrictive rules.
He said they hold a lot of events here. His son takes care of most everything now but he was in Florida right now.
When it cooled off we walked around the grounds and went inside several of the buildings. We bought a small child size broom in the country store to use on our front porch at home. We had one almost like it when we were camping many years ago and all the bristles have worn completely away.
After the sun went behind the trees it cooled off nicely and we opened the windows for the cooler fresh air rather than running the generator and air conditioning.
Day 16 Tuesday August 20, 2024
We had some really nice cool air coming in the windows when we got up. I washed the bugs off the windshield, we had breakfast and pulled out at 8:05 again for our 250 mile drive to Branson Missouri where we will be four nights.
We were only on an interstate a few miles today. We saw more farm land with mostly rice fields to start with, then we gained elevation and got into some really rocky areas going up and down hills and around curve after curve. I told Lena I believe they hired a black snake to lay out the road. We finally got on a four lane road which is easier driving.
About 100 miles from Branson we stopped to take a break, fuel up and get some chicken wings at a TA Truck Stop.
We got to Musicland Kampground about 2 PM and setup in site 62. Branson is very hilly and the sites in the campground are all at different levels. When we went to unhook, the Jeep would not crank. We haven’t unhooked it or cranked it since we hooked up Sunday morning when we departed Marion NC. I hooked our Jump Pack to the battery and it cranked right up.
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