11/8/15 The 4 M’s (Music, Mountains, Museums, and Maritime - Tennessee and North Carolina)

We completed our side car trip to visit our friends and family to continue on our touring adventure. We picked up our motor home from Kentucky and our first stop was “Music City”, Nashville, TN.  Nashville is always a fun place…good food and music in addition to more friends and family.  We boondocked in a beautiful lake-front State Park just outside of Nashville.   

Nashville Honky Tonk

Of course we spent some time at the usual stops in the music city: the County Music Hall of Fame and the historic Ryman Auditorium where Country music got its start (mostly because of the Grand Ole Opry radio and then TV shows). Broadway is full of honky-tonks, where “up and coming” country music wanabees perform 24/7.  It is a great way to have some bar food, while listening to great music.   We spent a wonderful evening at Tootsie’s on Broadway with our good friends Mike and Poly Fitz, a Navy friend from the 70s.   We also got a chance to have dinner with Linda’s niece, Victoria.  She is now in college at Vanderbuilt University, studying neurology (wants to be a doc).  It is so good to see her mature into the fine young woman she has become since she sailed with us on our sailboat 6 years ago.  

We really got a good history lesson from visiting The Hermitage in Nashville, home of President Andrew Jackson.  The historic home, outer buildings and grounds have been restored and are excellent, but the most interesting part was learning more about President Jackson himself.  He was probably one of the most important presidents between Washington and Lincoln.  His legacy:  trying to end corruption in government (amazingly extensive at that time),  passing political power from established elites to ordinary voters,   brought the country back to the founding fathers legacy advocating Republican values held by the Revolutionary War generation, and paid off the national debt (only President to do so).    



Jack Daniels Spring Water

When we left Nashville, we detoured south to visit the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg TN.  Bob has been a Tennessee Squire since the early 80s and as a squire he “owns” one square inch of land in Moore County. The tour was fun and informative. Like many of the distilleries in KY and TN, the site was selected because of a reliable source of excellent water from a mineral spring.   Many of the buildings were very old (founded 1875), but Jack “owns” the town.  They produce over 11 million cases of Jack a year, and have buildings throughout the area.   It was a short visit, and we declined to taste of the very familiar brew since we had a long drive ahead of us. 

Fall, Great Smokies National Park
 

We continued to head east to the Great Smoky Mountains.  We first camped on the south side of the National Park near Cherokee and then moved to the north side near Gatlinburg.  We dry camped the entire time, and it was cold at that elevation.  We had to use our generator to heat the coach and charge our batteries except at night. In this National Park, there is quiet time which means no generator use allowed between 8pm and 8am.  That meant only battery powered heat (not a lot to conserve power) and no coffee before 8am. No reason to get up early so we ended up staying in bed 

until 8 for heat and coffee   a difficult task for 2 people who usually get up at dawn.  We will be adding solar panels to the coach in December for an additional non-generator power source.   

 



Great Smokies Fall Hike
 

The fall colors were spectacular; much better than either of us remembered from our trips to the Shenandoah and Smoky mountains years ago.  One couple we met who have been coming to the Great Smoky Mountains for 30 years said it was the best they had ever seen.  You can never plan exactly when the color will peak, but we were fortunate to have the colors at their best right at the mid-elevation of the mountains when we arrived. We had the entire range to see, last color at the top, peak color in the middle, and early color in the lower elevations.  We had 2 fabulous bright, warm sunny days during the week with no traffic to drive throughout the park and even on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  

 

Elk Grazing, Great Smokies

 

 The next two days (weekend), the traffic was horrific, so we ended up staying put in the campground and just doing a couple of hikes (still crowded).  We avoided the miles long traffic jams – we heard that the Park Service closed the road between Gatlinburg and Cherokee due to a fatal motorcycle/car accident. The next few days brought winds, rain and cold, and the leaves quickly fell….we just made it in time to see the great fall colors. 

 

 



Brown Bear in Cades Cove, Great Smokies



 

 

We really enjoyed our visit, but we would not recommend Gatlinburg, which is a tacky tourist trap (in our humble opinion).  

 

Linda finally got to see some of the large mammals we had been searching for:  we got to see  about 10 elk grazing in the early morning near our campground and a bear in Cades Cove, in addition to lots of deer.  

 

Biltmore Estate, Ashville

We continued east to camp in Asheville.  We toured the Blue Ridge Parkway north for about 60 miles, but we only saw some late color on the trees.  However, our visit to the Biltmore Estate was fabulous.  Biltmore House, the main house on the 8000 acre estate, is a Châteauesque-styled mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895.  It is the largest privately owned house in the United States; 135,280 square feet of living area. Still owned by Vanderbilt's descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age. In 2007, it was ranked eighth in America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.  Biltmore has a total of 252 rooms in the house including 33 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as electric elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms and an intercom system. The principal rooms of the house are located on the ground floor.  Some significant items include lots of magnificent 16th century tapestries, a library with 10,000 volumes, banquet hall with a 70-foot ceiling, 65 fireplaces, an indoor pool, and a bowling alley. Almost all of the priceless objects throughout the house are from George and Edith Vanderbilt’s original collection.  We walked to the observatory through acres of formal and informal gardens designed by America’s foremost landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. From the beauty of the Italian Garden to the breathtaking trees in America’s first managed forest, Biltmore’s lush landscape is a living tribute to Olmsted’s genius.   As a century-old model for forest conservation (and, more recently, for sustainability, thanks to six acres of solar panels), Biltmore continues to honor Vanderbilt’s environmental legacy.  This is a must see if you have not yet been there.   

The underlying lesion of the Vanderbilt story is it a classic example of how wealth often generated by the first generation, preserved by the second, is most often squandered by the third generation.  George Vanderbilt was the third generation, and he spent a huge part of his inheritance building the estate.  During the depression it was almost lost to foreclosure; George’s wife was only able to keep the estate by opening the home to public tours.    

After a great evening listening to Mars Hill TN’s finest bluegrass with our cruising friends, Hunter and Devi Sharp, and a second evening sharing a great dinner at their Mars Hill home north of Asheville, we headed east along I-40 and Highway 64 to the coast of North Carolina.   

We started at the northern end of the Outer Banks and headed south over the week camping in Kill Devil Hills, Avon and Ocracoke.  Our northernmost stop was in Corolla including seeing the restored Currituck lighthouse. The lighthouse is identical to the lighthouse in St. Augustine…down to the tile on the floors!   Bob once hiked well over a mile thru the woods to camp near the deserted lighthouse in the 70s, long before the wonderful restoration was begun.  The recently built boardwalk in Duck was fun, with a lot of interesting restaurants and shops (mostly closed since the season was finished for the year). We found one restaurant still open with a great Wahoo taco.   

We revisited the Kitty Hawk National Park monument (it was one of our first destinations while we were dating).  The Wright brothers were very entrepreneurial…they were bicycle builders but became self taught engineers in order to learn what they needed to know to develop the first airplane to fly.  They accomplished this in 3 years with $1000 of their own money; The government made several grants of over $50,000 over many years and was not successful.  This is a classic example of private sector success versus government waste.    

Hatteras Seashore is beautiful, but too close to Kitty Hawk and Nags Head to avoid the touristy feeling of the middle island.  We enjoyed taking the ferries to Ocracoke from Hatteras, and then from Ocracoke on to Cedar Island.  We enjoyed visiting Ocracoke the best…a quaint town with cottages along a small section of beach;  most of the island is the National Park.  The Silver Lake Harbor, dredged by the Corps of Engineers for the Navy in WWII, is small, but interesting.    

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, moved inland

We have now visited all the North Carolina lighthouses, mostly different from each other:  Corolla, Currituck, Bodie Island, Cape Hatteras, Ocracoke (all on the Outer Banks), in addition to Cape Lookout (we have anchored for several days in Lookout Bight), Bald Head Island, and Oak Island.   We had missed the ocean since we left Maine in August;  it was great to smell the sea again.  Bob really enjoyed revisiting the Outer Banks - his old stomping grounds as a Corps of Engineers coastal engineer including seeing the relocated Cape Hatteras lighthouse and now abandoned Coast Guard Station on the south side of Oregon Inlet where he used to stay while studying Oregon Inlet in the 70s.   

This is our last email message/blog for the 2015 land cruising season.  From the Outer Banks we spent some time with Linda’s sister, Lorraine, in Beaufort.  From Beaufort we will camp in the Falls Lake State Park north of Raleigh and visit Rob, Fay, Skylar and Jaxon in Raleigh for Thanksgiving and attend the NC State vs Carolina football game on Saturday. We will head back south to Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine for Christmas to enjoy family and friends there (and install solar panels and a ham radio antenna).  Linda is taking her niece, Valerie, and her kids, Katlynn and Breanna, to New York City to enjoy 4 days of Christmas in NYC right before Christmas.  

Our next email blog will be after we return from our 2 ½- month winter stay in Panama.  When we return from Panama we plan to depart St Augustine for Arizona and spring desert flowers in early April and will begin our narratives again then.  

We wish you all a delicious Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a healthy, blessed New Year to enjoy with your friends and family.      

Linda and Bob

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

For those who may want to know more about our 2015 RV Rambling, here are some Travel Statistics: 

From our departure from St. Augustine on July 2 to our return on December 1 (the 2015 RV Adventure):

·       Miles driven on our motor home: 9500+

·       Miles driven on our Jeep Cherokee: 9700+ (not including miles towed behind RV)

·       We visited every state east of the Mississippi except:  Delaware, New Hampshire, and Vermont (24 in total)

·       We visited 7 national parks: Acadia, Congaree, Cuyahoga Valley, Great Smoky Mountains, Isle Royale, Shenandoah,  and Voyageurs  

·       We visited 2 National Seashores: Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras

·       We visited all 4 National Lakeshores:  Apostle Islands, Indiana Dunes, Pictured Rocks, and Sleeping Bear Dunes

·       We visited 5 Canadian provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia including Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Ontario

·       We visited 5 Canadian National Parks: Cape Breton Island, Bay of Fundy, Kejimkujik, Prince Edward Island, Thousand Islands,  and Niagara Falls

·       And a plethora of national historic monuments, state parks etc, …too many to count. 

 

 

 And loved it all!!!