Clemmons and Greenboro NC then Home 10/31/2023 to 11/05/2023

 

Day 43 Tuesday 10/31/2023

Since we didn’t have to get up early this morning the plan was to sleep in but old habits are hard to break.

We didn’t need to leave until after 11am since we only had an 1.5 hour drive to Tanglewood Campground in Clemmons NC where we will be for three nights.

With all the leaves falling I decided to get the ladder out and climb up and blow the leaves off the slides before we brought them in. Then I blew them off the site again so there wouldn’t be so many when the November host comes in.

When we drove away there was a steady stream of leaves blowing off the roof all over the cars that was following us.

We got to Tanglewood about 12:30 and set up in site 1. As usual it was not level so we had to put our ramps under the rear tires.

We spent the rest of the day catching up on some things like laundry, posting the Blog, etc., catching stink bugs (yuk) and resting.

Day 44 Wednesday 11/01/2023

A very cool morning but that didn’t stop us from finding a Latte and donuts at Krispy Kreme in Clemmons. We got a couple of fresh original glazed ones right off the line as they came around.

Later we went to the Clemmons Kitchen for one of their Lunch Specials. We ate here a few years ago and they serve good home cooking style food. The serving are so big we only ate half so we had enough for another meal to take with us. We don’t see how anyone can eat that much in one setting.

We have a device called a Hughes Power Watchdog, that we plug into the campsite electrical pedestal that our motorhome power cord is then plugged into that monitors the incoming electricity. If it sees any electricity issues like voltage above 132 volts or below 104 volts it will shut down the power going into the motorhome. Yesterday our power went off a few times. Today it started doing it again and got frequent midafternoon. I finally was able to use the app on my iPhone that displays the data from the Watch Dog to catch the reading when it went above 132 volts and took a photo of the iPhone display. So I went to the campground host to tell them about the issue. And of course all the maintenance workers had gone home and said they would not come check the problem until tomorrow.

I had already told the hosts that if Maintenace could not come today we were leaving and probably would not ever stay at this campground again because we had power problems the last time we stayed here. They had one site open so they told us we come move to it. I took the Watch Dog to that site and plugged it in and watched it for several minutes and the power looked good so we moved to site 44 and to our amazement it was actually level.

In all the years we have been camping we have never moved from one site to another during a stay. It was well worth it to not risk electrical damage to our equipment. We have a generator but we can’t run it from 10PM to 7AM due to quiet hours and with the temperature dropping to below freezing tonight we needed heat and our 6 batteries will not run the heat for 9 hours.

Day 45 Thursday 11/02/2023

A nice crisp 25 degrees this morning so a nice hot Latte and brownie at Ketchie Creek Bakery & Cafe was in order.

We didn’t have any power issues since moving to site 44 yesterday so that proves to me that it was campground power issues and not our equipment.

Day 46 Friday 11/03/2023

Another crisp 25 degree morning. We prepared for departure and pulled out at 9:40 AM, stopped for fuel 10 miles down I40 and then headed to the Greensboro Coliseum so I could attend the 2023 North Carolina Woodturners Symposium. The first one I have been to since COVID.

We had reservations to park in the coliseum parking lot. There is also a Christmas Craft Show going on in another part of the building and the people were really coming into the parking lot but the parking staff was holding one section closed for cars until we got there so we could get in and park beside our electrical hookup. That sure was nice of them. They also brought over a water line for us even though I told the manager we didn’t need it. I was not expecting to have a water source so I had filled our fresh water tank to 50% which is about 50 gallons. We are only here 2 nights.

John and Nancy, friends of our that live in Greensboro, came over at 5:30 and we went to Olive Garden for dinner. It was good to see them. We haven’t visited with them in awhile.

Day 47 Saturday 11/04/2023

The Symposium ran from 8:30AM to 5PM with a 1.5 hour break for lunch which was included with the cost of the Symposium. Each session or as they are call rotation last 1.5 hours so I attended 4 rotations today, each on a different topic of Woodturning. There are about a dozen from my club (Wilmington Area Woodturners Association or WAWA)here.

I am glad the lunch didn’t cost me any extra because it was not up to par with the lunches at the other symposiums I have attended here. The baked beans were only about half baked and the hot dog buns were cold and hard. The hot dog chili and the pasta salad was good and so was the coffee and sugar cookies.

There was a buffet dinner at 6PM that was also included with the meal but I decided to not attend.

Day 48 Sunday 11/05/2023

I found out the Christmas craft show will run from 10AM to 5 PM today. The symposium ends at Noon so I decided to not attend the two rotations today because we will probably be blocked in the parking lot until the craft customers thin out and we don’t want to wait until 5PM to drive home. I attended the most important rotations that I wanted to attend. So we departed at 7:30AM before the parking lot started filling up.

We stopped at Hardee’s in Kenansville for a late breakfast. We were not aware that they have a good country ham and egg biscuit for breakfast. We got home just before Noon.

We were glad to be safely home after a 1400+ mile trip.

Stone Mountain State Park 10/24/2023 to 10/30/2023

Day 36 Tuesday 10/24/2023

It’s the weekend for us and we were ready for it. As we were leaving the park there is a church just outside the gate and there were two deer in the church yard. They must have got their days and time mixed up because they were early for Wednesday night service. We saw six more deer throughout the day.

Several years ago we stayed at a RV Park in the little old mill town of Fries VA and Tom, the owner gave us a paper with directions to a nice backroads drive that he said was really nice to see the Fall colors. We have driven the route twice but it was in the Summer. It was a pretty drive then but we wanted to drive it in the Fall so we drove to Galax VA and had our Latte and cinnamon bun fix from Briarpatch Cafe. Galax is near Fries and the beginning of the route we wanted to take is just outside of Fries.

The drive was gorgeous and since it was mostly backroads where there are a lot of farms we only had one vehicle to get behind us in 40 miles. I pulled over and let him pass since we only wanted to go about 20 mph. They are a lot of cows, a few sheep, pasture land and Christmas tree farms along the route. It is some of the prettiest areas we have seen in the mountains. So peaceful looking. Very large farms and great views up to the mountains and down in the valleys.

We ended up in Independence VA at the end of the route so we stopped for lunch at Mi Casa Azteca for a good Mexican meal. We have ate here several times and it is always good.

Then we backtracked over part of the same route back to Fries but the sun was much higher in the sky and the colors were not as pretty for photos so we returned to the campground about 3PM.

It was cold this morning with frost but by midafternoon it was almost 70 degrees. A beautiful day to be in the mountains.

Day 37 Wednesday 10/25/2023

We went to Dirty Joe’s Coffee Shop in Elkin for the last time this month as we will be leaving here on 10/31/23. We have been so many time when we walk in the Barista knows what we want. She makes a good Latte. We also got a piece of apple caramel cake to go with the coffee. It was really moist and tasty. As we left we told them we would see them in May of next year.

We stopped at Combs Meat Shop to get a pack of their county ham. We got some a couple of weeks ago and it is really good and not really salty. Then it was on to Walmart to restock the cupboards. We returned to the motorhome to unload our groceries and then road out the back gate of the park to do some more “leaf peeping”.

It seems the leaves in the lower elevations have already started to turn brown and fall off the trees but in the higher elevations they are at their peak and just beautiful. By the time we got to Sparta we were hungry so we went to The Pines for lunch. If you are ever in Sparta NC we recommend you try them. They serve really good food and large (almost too large) portions.

Then we did some more “leaf peeping “ on some back road before returning to the campground.

Day 38 Thursday 10/26/2023

We had a normal Thursday, cool morning but warmed up nicely for an another beautiful day in the mountains. Some of the campers that will be here until Sunday have begun to decorate their sites for Halloween. I think there may be a judging Saturday for the best decorations. Since we have never worked here in October this is new to us.

Gary and Amy, a couple that we know from home that lives about 2 miles from us comes here a couple times a year and they have really done a great job with their decorations. They arrived today. They made most of their decorations.

The leaves are still beautiful with all the colors but the trees are really beginning to shed their leaves. We used the leaf blower twice today to blow the leaves off our site.

Day 39 Friday 10/27/2023

Going to be a busy day today as we have 64 reservations today, so that means a lot of campers have to leave to make room for them which means we will have a lot of sites to clean.

Cool again in the morning when we went to put the reservation signs out, so we wore our hoodies. When we went back out after breakfast to start cleaning sites as they were vacated we had to take the hoodies off as they were too warm and then I soon was down to a short sleeve shirt.

Most dog owners are very responsible with their dogs but we have had three occasions this month where the owners groomed their dogs and left numerous globs of white dog hair on the campsite. Now I am sure they would not like to come to a site that was littered with globs of dog hair.

All the white globs are balls of dog hair

The campers that were leaving left earlier than normal so we had all the vacated sited clean by 12:30 except for 4. So I grilled a slice of Boston butt and we got to eat our lunch before 2PM for change.

The weather was just perfect today to set outside in the afternoon and take in all the glorious colors around us and watch the leaves float down from the trees and the squirrels running about chasing each other or looking for acorns.

Day 40 Saturday 10/29/2023

Another beautiful day in the mountains. We only have 10 reservations coming in today so we should have an easy day. But tomorrow will be really busy as almost everyone will be leaving. Our month here is quickly coming to and end. Other than the stink bugs we have really enjoyed our month here seeing the colors come to their peak.

Several of the campers had lots of Halloween decorations set out on their sites and the park sponsored Trick or Treat starting about 6 PM. Lots of kids and adults were dressed in a variety of costumes as they walked around the campground collecting candy and looking at the decorations.

Our neighbors Gary and Amy won the Halloween decorating contest.

Jackie and Lena

Day 41 Sunday 10/29/2023

First day in several days we didn’t wear our hoodies when we went out at 8 AM to start our morning routine. Yesterday was a three layer day, hoodies, then long sleeve shirts then short sleeve shirts. Today will be a two layer day I think.

The leaves are really falling now. The slightest breeze send hundreds of them down. I used the leaf blower to clear off our site this morning and 4 hours later you couldn’t tell I had just blown them off.

View in the campground

View in the campground

We had an overnight camper here tonight from Austria. We haven’t seen very many campers here from Europe since COVID. Before we saw at least one almost every year we worked.

Day 42 Monday 10/30/2023

It was another beautiful day, but we could tell by evening cooler weather was on the way. We got all the sites cleaned and got to rest awhile before we began to pack up all our outside stuff.

While we were resting a camper come up to our site and wanted to know if we could use my jump pack to jump start his truck in the Upper Parking Lot. We drove over with the golf cart and jumped his truck. I checked his battery cables and told him his problem was caused by a corroded battery cable.

We put out the Tuesday reservation signs before calling it a day and the end of our month at Campground Hosts.