NC Mountains 2014 - Days 11 & 12

Day 11 - Monday 8/18/14   It rained during the night and was still raining when we got up but it stopped after breakfast and we walked around the campground. Then we got the camera and drove to Linville Falls and walked up the trail to view the falls. The trail is rated as moderate but the morning rain made the rocks slippery so we had to be careful. The falls were beautiful unlike any we had seen. At one point all the water rushed through a fairly narrow break in the massive rocks. The trail was about 2 miles round trip. Then we did some more exploring in the area and checked out two  privately owned campgrounds in the area plus the Linville Falls National Park campground. We didn’t like either of the private campground Linville Falls Trailer Lodge and Campground and Bear Den Campground. Linville Falls National Park Campground would be nice if the Parks service had the budget to improve it. But like all the National Parks campgrounds along the Blue Ridge Parkway they were build many years ago before people started using large travel trailers, 5th wheel campers and large motor homes. Therefore they are mostly vacant because the sites are so small. We could get our 40’ motor home in two of the sites at Linville Falls if we were careful.

We returned to our campground and relaxed for awhile before I grilled some pork chops for supper. The camper next to us has honey for sale so Lena purchased a pint from them. We like to purchase our honey directly from the beekeeper since it is not watered down like some of the commercial honey found in grocery stores.

Day 12 - Tuesday 8/19/14  Today was a relaxing day. We did our morning walk, then I cooked country ham and eggs on the griddle on our Weber grill for breakfast. We recently sold the Weber 200 grill we had and purchased the smaller Weber 1000 grill that had a split grate. We also bought the griddle that fits on one side of the grill after removing one half of the grate. This will allow us to cook more meals outside on the grill.

The remainder of the day was relaxing, reading and talked to some of the other campers in the campground and taking an afternoon walk. One of the other campers told us about the flood in 2004 that totally washed out the campground. The North Toe River flows down one side of the campground and it overflowed its banks and destroyed the campground but the owners rebuilt it.