A Breath of Cool Air

I said in the last post we are headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have been averaging 20 mpg and driving 5 to 7 hours a day. As we leave the flat lands of the south, I am now averaging about 16.4 mpg. Now we can slow this dog and van show down. Too tired to make it to the parkway, I call a ranch that is on my list of nearby Harvest Host possibilities. Harvest Hosts is a directory of winerys, farms ranches and museusms RVers can overnight at and experience what the location has to offer. Walnut Hollow Ranch is located in the mountains of Western North Carolina in Hayesville. For me it is an oasis, because moving on to the first campground on the Parkway would have been too much of a drive for me after an already long day of driving from middle Georgia. Charlie Kissling, originally from New Jersey, operates Walnut Hollow Ranch. This place is pristine, his nearly 3/4 mile concrete driveway up the mountain side was to be marveled at. I meet with Charlie after I set up and he takes me into his farm store.

Walnut Hollow Ranch offers Agri-tourism through farm tours, farm store, RV sites, camping and lodging. Walnut Hollow Ranch sells the most incredible Black Angus Beef, produced without hormones or anti-biotics with the highest welfare standards. The farm store offers local farmers food products and crafts. I wish I had a bigger freezer to take more steaks home. Come to find out, I can order online! I am telling you it is the best beef I have ever eaten!!!

My night at Walnut Hollow is the quietest and most star filled night I have experienced. Not long after sunrise we pack it up and move on to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The speed limit is 45 miles per hour. Sorry, I can't do it. My top speed has been 40mph and I am hugging those curves at 30mph. The best way to experience the Parkway is to pull off often at the lookouts all along the road. I pull off sometimes to let other Speedy Gonzales drivers by me. Most of the time I can drive an hour and not see anyone. Now is an incredible time to be out here on the road. Campgrounds are empty with kids back to school and vacations over.

We head to Mt. Pisgah Campground where we spend two nights. I have big plans to run over to Chimney Rock and down into Asheville, but you can only get so much done in a day. I do enjoy the Arts District in Asheville. To get there, I drive down a local road off the Parkway and find myself on the steepest downgrade with switchback turns that I can only drive at 5 to 10mph! This road makes the parkway look straight!!! We find a coffee house and when the hour finally gets to 10am we head to the art galleries. Temps rise quickly and the pavement is too hot for Sitka by noon, so back up the mountain we head.

Somewhere in here I lost a day. Gerard tells me it's not Tuesday... it's Wednesday. Oops, I need to scramble to find campsites for the Labor Day weekend. I think this will be the only time I will have to have reservations. So I am set through the weekend and I can get back to hiking and viewing the mountains. I can only imagine what this place is like during peak colors, because it is breath-taking now. As soon as day breaks on Thursday, September 1st I head to a lookout to have coffee and watch the sunrise.

There are a few stops to hike today. Craggy Gardens is our first. It is a delightful hike through Catawba rhododendron forest. The Great Craggy Mountains is an area of exposed rock surfaces and high peaks with breath-taking view of southern Appalachian ridges. In mid-June, pink and purple blooms peak but now it looks like a mystical place out of a Tolkein book.

Sitka, in the heat of Florida has not been walking more than a mile a day. Coming up here was an exercise in finding out if it is old age, something wrong with him, or just the heat. Well... he is a happy camper (pun intended). After a strenuous hike down to Crabtree Falls and back up, we have put in six and a half miles! He is a tuckered out puppy dog tonight and so am I. Our one mile Florida walks are definitely not cutting it for staying in shape for this trip.

We leave the Parkway to head to Laurel Springs, North Carolina and find a full hook-up campground. I need to empty the tanks, do some laundry and have WiFi connection. After the holiday weekend I am not sure where I am headed. I want to get to the Outer Banks, but hurricanes and heat still are the order of the day out there. I think I will head onto the Shenandoah Skyline Drive and enjoy the cool while I can.

Grateful I was able to get all set up before a torrential down pour hit us.

See you up the road.... ~Catherine

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta