Marion NC - 8-6-15 Thursday - 8-7-15 Friday

Brevard – Davidson River to Marion NC 8-6-15 Thursday After our morning walk and breakfast we packed up and drove about 60 miles to Tom Johnson's Camping Center in Marion NC to attend the 41^st Annual North Carolina Bluegrass and Gospel Festival. This will be our 5^th year to attend. We look forward to this event each year. Before we got to Marion we began to see and could smell lots of smoke. After I checked in to our site (35) one of the employees told me there were 2 forest fires in the area.

Later in the day a breeze picked up and blew the smoke away and then a rain shower came through to cleanse the air. I hope it helped put the fires out because I was told the fires were in an area the fire fighter could not get their heavy equipment to.

We rode our bicycles around the facility. There is over 400 campsites here and most will be full before the festival begins plus many people drive in each day to hear the music. There have a large covered pavilion where the stage is and also put up two large tents. Tom Johnson's Camping Center is a large RV sales business plus they have a large service center and cafe' inside the service center office building.

Marion NC 8-7-15 Friday We walked and had breakfast in the cafe' before driving to the Lake Lure area to do a little exploring of the area. We found a nice Motorcoach RV Resort in that area a few days ago and decided to go look at it again with the thought of staying there a couple of nights before going home since we are so close to it.

After we returned to Marion we had lunch in the cafe'. They have a good catfish dinner on Friday that we normally get.

Another good rain shower came through about mid afternoon to cool things off a bit. I rode my bicycle through the campground after it stopped raining. It seems there are less people here than last year by this time but it will probably get busy tomorrow.