Dispatch from the Road 2023

  August 20 2023, Sunday The Bluegrass Festival finished up last night at 10pm; it was a surprisingly entertaining experience for both of us. We both really enjoyed it and hope to attend another one someday. We had prepped the RV for travel on Saturday afternoon and pulled off our site at Tom Johnson CG at 9am. I had studied potential routes and finally decided to take the I-40 part way to our next destination in Martinsville Virginia. You know we normally avoid interstates especially east of the Mississippi, but there just wasn’t any good alternative. I swear you could be a passenger traveling on any interstate in the eastern half of the country, fall asleep then wake up on an interstate in another state and you wouldn’t know the difference. Marion NC to Martinsville VA It was Sunday so at least the road wasn’t congested; we had smooth sailing all the way to our exit onto Hwy 421. This is still mostly limited access with on/off ramps but old school urban expressway. It kind of rem...

 The NC Bluegrass Festival August 16 2023 Wednesday, We departed Hickory Nut Falls Campground later than usual, as we only had 50 miles to travel to our next destination. For the next four days we will be in Marion North Carolina to attend the North Carolina State Bluegrass Festival.  A Short ride this morning. The Festival is held at the sprawling Tom Johnson Camping Center. The campground/Rally Park is now part of Camping World but they have kept the original name. That was a wise decision IMHO because The Tom Johnson Enterprise had an excellent reputation. It appears to me that CW is keeping the place in same pristine condition. Some of the RVs here at the festival The pavilion Our campsite is in the Rally section so the sites are less opulent than the regular campground. We are in site G15 which is at the end of the row so we only have neighbors on one side of us. It is a full hookup site, meaning it has fresh water, electric hookup and sewer. The site is thick green grass...

 We have departed on another road trip, just a short two week adventure this time. It will be, part discovering new places, part music venues and part for work in the family cemetery in Axton Virginia. Hope you enjoy the journey with us and thanks for reading the blog! August 13 2023  The first leg of the trip is from home to Chimney Rock NC. Besides a break from the summer heat, we want to hike to the top of Chimney Rock Mountain as well as explore some of the sounding area. Myrtle Beach to Lake Lure The route from the coast to the Appalachian Mountains can easily be made on interstate highways, but we’ve found a more civilized trail to follow. I won’t bore you with details, but we can drive all the way to Spartanburg South Carolina and then on up though North Carolina on good US highways.  our RV on the bank of the Broad River We traveled just under 300 miles today and are camped near Lake Lure in North Carolina. Our RV spot for the next three days is Hickory Nut Falls ...

 The road home We have been traveling in the truck and travel trailer since May 18 and while it has been a grand adventure we have started to feel the tug of home working on us. I don’t think our lack of planning for the return trip was the root cause of this, but it almost certainly exasperated it.  In the days prior to our leaving Los Alamos we had discussed some stops on the 2000+/- mile journey back to South Carolina. I felt it prudent to have an itinerary to suppress the Beeline syndrome (my title for it) from turning the trip into a race to the finish. The Beeline syndrome is the compulsion to run the shortest and fastest roads when you are on a course for home. Texas was in the midst of a heat wave, so that was out, I suggested Branson Missouri, but Millie said it was the height of the tourist season and it would be crowded. We talked about Florida, but not seriously as that would have put a big bow in our trajectory. We did have to get home in a reasonable time for obl...