Asheville, NC - May 1-8, 2019

May 1, 2019

Karen had a family commitment in Asheville for Friday, May 3, 2019 so we decided to create a full week of RV fun around her plans.

To ensure easy driving, we broke the travel into two days with about 300 miles per day or about 6 hours of driving, a very reasonable time to spend in the cab of the motorhome.  For even more fun on the trip, Karen's fraternal twin, Sharon, joined us for the first half of the trip in the RV, flying home after the family events to attend commitments at home.  Sharon had never done an RV trip with us, so we were looking forward to the adventure together.  Sharon's husband, Ron, dropped her off on Wednesday the 1st, and the three of us clambered into the motorhome and headed north towards Asheville.

We stopped for gas a few times and made sandwiches for lunch at a rest area, so we made good time.  When it was dinner time Karen found good reviews on Google for a small take-out Chinese restaurant in Bowman, SC so we made that our dinner stop.  One advantage of the motorhome is that we can enjoy a quiet sit-down meal anytime we stop to eat.  Our Chinese dinner was no exception as we found a nice parking spot in the quiet little burg, ordered our meals, carried them into the RV and sat down to dine.  Karen's find was a good one!

May 2, 2019

It was only a few more miles to a Walmart in Orangeburg, SC, where we parked in a quiet corner and climber into our bunks for a restful night and departure following a simple breakfast around our dining table.  Since we had covered almost a hundred miles more than planned the first day, we arrived in the mountains outside Asheville about lunch time on the 2nd.  This gave us time to make a short drive south of town along the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoy our lunch watching the sun and clouds play over the ridges and valleys of the Walnut Cove Overlook.

It was a brief few minutes to locate our campsite in the Lake Powhatan National Recreation Area just southwest of Asheville.  It's a beautiful, wooded campground with an abundance of trails which seemed to attract many folks with their hiking boots and mountain bikes.

The Cousins share an evening honoring Bill Lohr

Friday the RV and I followed orders to take the two ladies to Asheville's River Arts District.  It is currently a collection of several nice galleries, working studios and a couple cafes, but it seems there is a lot of construction and the expectation of significant growth in the very near future.

Friday evening was dedicated to a fine dinner presented by the TC Roberson High School Athletic Department.  This was their "Rams Club" annual fete inducting honorees into their "Ring of Gold".  As Karen's and Sharon's cousin, Bill Lohr, was a longtime and highly respected coach with TC Roberson, he was inducted posthumously into their special recognition "Heart of Gold".

Our lunch view on the Grove Park Inn's Sunset Terrace

Saturday was engaged with two more family events as members enjoyed a luncheon at the memorable Grove Park Inn, an historical and grand hotel overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville.  After lunch, even though the rain interjected, the family stuck to their plans and drove to observe the grave site for Bill and his mother in a quiet meadow just south of Asheville and not distant  from Bill's beloved TC Roberson High School.

Lake Powhatan campsite

As Sharon had to return home to fulfill other commitments, Karen and I dropped her off at the local airport.  Karen and I spent the balance of the day relaxing in our campsite at Lake Powhatan.  Many of the sites, including ours, had no services like water, electricity or sewage, so we were (sort of) "boondocking."  As our motorhome was our only transportation, it was a simple matter to take a few minutes every other day to empty the holding tanks and refill the fresh water tank.  Running the generator an hour or so each day provided the electricity we used and sips such little fuel that we hardly noticed.

A flower "quilt" at the NC Arboretum

Adjacent to the National Recreation Area was the North Carolina Arboretum, so on Sunday, Karen and I enjoyed walking through their displays and gardens.

Kaleidoscope of butterflies

The next morning we enjoyed a nice hike through the woods to see the Lake Powhatan our campground was named for.  It was a beautiful, sunny morning and the walk was fun as we stepped down the hillside path, encountering a sizable kaleidoscope of butterflies!  Karen and I had never seen this sight, so we took a video to share with you.

Karen lights up an arbor in the gardens of Biltmore

Our last afternoon in Asheville we dedicated to seeing the glamorous turn of the century Vanderbilt family mansion and grounds, the Biltmore Estate.  Even though Karen and I had each been to Asheville on many occasions, neither of us had played tourist at the Biltmore.  It proved to be as massive and glorious as promoted and was a worthwhile and impressive experience.  The flowering gardens were truly beautiful and the walking proved to be very enjoyable exercise.

May 7, 2019

Even though our plan was to keep the driving each day to a minimum, we seem to "keep on truckin'!" when our travel down the road is uneventful and reasonably smooth.  May 7th evolved into one of those days, especially as we noted that if we covered a lot of miles, then we could be home by noon the next day and possibly be unpacked and return to our TGO routine first thing the next day.  We found ourselves staying overnight at the Crackerbarrel Restaurant off I-95 near St. Augustine, which meant we only had a couple hours to drive in the morning.

So our trip ended on a happy and upbeat note.