The June Counter Clockwise tour

 This is the original text written in 2019 and some notes (In blue italics) I jotted down sometime later. I probably planned on using the notes to re-write the article, but never got around to it.

Occasionally someone will tell me that they haven’t seen the Dispatch in a while. I usually say something to the effect that we haven’t been traveling much, but I plan to write when we venture out again. When I said those things I was being partially honest. It’s true we’ve lost some of the wanderlust since becoming homeowners again and haven’t been traveling. But besides that, I was getting the feeling the writing just wasn’t any good. It seemed to me that I was saying the same things over and over. I also hadn’t come up with any good humorous stories in a while.

So here we are, out on the road for a short two week trip and I’m trying to think of something to say.  I decided to check the last posting and see where I left off, and was surprised to find I have been silent for seven and a half months.

Actually it may have been longer than that, the last post was about getting Maggie home to our Veterinarian and I may not have ever sent that out, I’ll have to check on that.

June 18 2019

This trip is a familiar one, a counter clockwise loop, the apex skimming along the North Carolina/Virginia border. Our journey will include stops to visit Millie’s kin folk before circling around to Pigeon Forge Tennessee. 

We did change the first leg of the annual trip; instead of going straight up to Martinsville Virginia we followed the coast to the Crystal Coast. This is the marketing name given to the barrier islands where the Outer Banks rejoin the mainland near Beaufort North Carolina. 

Our Winnebago at Emerald Isle North Carolina

We stayed in an ocean front campground (Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort) on Emerald Isle and enjoyed it very much. We’ve said we would like to return again and stay longer, maybe in the fall. 

view from the ocean side berm

Here’s some humor for you, yes, we did leave our beautiful home which is about ½ mile from the ocean, drove 170+/- miles to the same ocean where we stayed in the comfort of a small box on wheels. Well, we were parked closer to the ocean. Our campsite was on the crest of a small hill with a view of the ocean about 100 yards away!

Hmmmm it looks just like our ocean at home!

We started the journey skipping the Myrtle Beaches traffic by using the 31 bypass and the Little River congestion by using local road 57.  The trip north was a leisurely 55 mph up route 17. I-140 is finished around Wilmington North Carolina which also eliminates a lot of congested traffic.

The trip didn’t start out as pleasant as the first day’s journey. Because the motorhome has been sitting for months, I had planned on driving it to the house a few weeks ago to check things out. That didn’t happen, but I said ok I’ll bring it over several days before. The community scheduled the resealing of our asphalt streets during this same time so it never made it to our driveway until the day before departure. 

The first thing I noticed when I got to the storage lot is we have another cracked windshield. We just had the passenger side windshield replaced about 8 months ago. I don’t know what caused the drivers side to crack, but it is not in the line of sight so I will have it replaced later. I noticed on the drive to the house the dash AC was not producing cold air. After first misdiagnosing low Freon, I discovered a defective thermostat. It is a fixed temperature unit that keeps the coil in the dash unit from freezing up. I jumped it out, the compressor will run continuously and we will hope there is enough warm southern air entering the unit to keep the coils from freezing. 

Also, on the way home I tested our onboard generator. It started right up but shut down immediately upon releasing the start button. This is an electronically controlled unit and the manufacturer in their questionable wisdom have a multitude of things that will cause the controller to shut the unit down in this manner. I haven’t fixed the problem yet, but I did discover if I remove the wiring harness to the remote switches, I can use the generator.

Let’s see…..what else has gone bad? In last nights rain we found a water leak above the broken windshield. One of our clocks was ruined by a leaking battery. Sitting here I can see a foggy film developing under the vinyl appliqué on our entrance door and a screw popping up from a floor vent in the kitchen. The joy of owning a 19 year old RV! 

Enough of that, let’s get back to the trip. Departing Emerald Isle, we picked a route as straight as we could to Martinsville. It was about equal distances on local roads and limited access highways. It was a total driving distance of 240 miles, many of them on roads neither of us have traveled, so it was an interesting ride.

Indian Heritage RV Park sits on the bank of the Dan River.

We stayed at Indian Heritage RV Park in Martinsville, we’ve been there many times, so much so that the office clerk knows me and the owner also remembered me and stopped his truck to say hello. That’s country living for you!

We saw the kin folk, both living and dead. No trip to Millie’s home place is complete without a trip to the family cemetery. We capped off our visit to Martinsville with a seafood dinner at Captain Tom’s and a stroll around the Rural King farm store. That’s about the most excitement you will find in Martinsville unless there is a race at the NASCAR track!

Thursday June 20 2019

 I sent a text to a few people this morning saying we would be headed to banjo country today and wouldn’t have internet or cell service for a few days. The reference to “Deliverance” was of course my attempt at humor. These are good people out here in the far western corner of Virginia. The no cell or internet is a fact!

On a map follow route 58 from Martinsville, look for Mount Rogers. It’s the highest point in Virginia and is usually marked, that’s about where we are at.

Grindstone shut down shortly after our visit and has never reopened.

We are camped at Grindstone Campground in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area. Other than the camp host across the street, we are the only RV in sight. We will probably get some neighbors over the weekend. We are here to visit Millie’s sister and hopefully ride the Virginia Creeper Trail. The weather here has been very wet and we hope we can get a break long enough to ride the 17 mile trail down off the mountain. 

More on our lifestyle change from gallivanting travelers who kept in contact via a rag called the “Dispatch from the Road” to lawn moving backyard tomato growing suburbanites. 

As you know for about 5 years Millie and I lived the dream in our condo just a short stroll up the street from the ocean. Whenever we wanted to jump in the motorhome and go, all we had to do was lock the door. One morning in 2017 while reading the Sunday paper I saw a house for sale that looked like the perfect beach house, located just a couple blocks from the ocean and at a price that was too good to be true. 

I must have been right because before we could drive across town, the realtor called to tell me it was sold. That’s how it started, we then started studying the real estate market and about two weeks later we signed a contract for our home. That’s the truth; there was no preplanning, no dissatisfaction with the condo. We just decided to do something new and we did it. 

Having purpose in life is a very good thing and starting every day knowing you have something to do suits us just fine and we’ve been having fun doing all sorts of projects around the house.  Some of them are the same sort of things we were tired of doing when we moved to the condo, go figure?

Friday June 21 2019. 

Today we visited with Millie’s sister Betty and her husband Paul on their Blueberry farm in Konnorock Virginia. We got to go online here (phone line DSL, still no cell service) and check the weather for our bike ride tomorrow and it doesn’t look good.

Betty and Paul

Saturday June 22 2019. We decided to skip the bike ride on the Virginia Creeper Trail today. Our first concern was the condition of the trail after all the recent rain they’ve had here. We think there will be some areas of washed-out trail and didn’t want to risk a spill. And then there was the predicted rain, which came down fairly steady and at times heavy most of the mid day period. We opted to ride into Abingdon, the closest real town to the campground. We stopped at a local growers farmers market in town, what can I say about that….well we’d probably starve to death or go broke if we had to purchase all our groceries at an organically grown local farmers market. Next stop was an old train station which now housed artist studios. I must say several of the resident artists are very talented.  

We enjoyed lunch in an old turn of the century house converted into a restaurant. “The Peppermill” is one of those trendy places with the wait staff all dressed in black. They are self billed as, “innovative cuisine in a casual atmosphere” I’m not a food critic so I’ll let that stand and just say our meals were good and we’d go back.

On our way back to the motorhome we passed thru Damascus and saw several groups of riders that had just come down the mountain and there was not a dry rider among them. They had clearly been caught in several rain showers. We feel we made the right decision today and besides; we’ve already ridden the creeper four times. We’ll be back to ride it again some day.

 Here in the shadow of Mount Rogers in the southwestern corner of Virginia we’ve been relying on over the air radio to break the silence in the motorhome. Not that silence isn’t golden, but after a while it’s nice to have a little music playing in the background. The only clear station we receive here in the campground has programs throughout the day that feature Classic Country, Bluegrass and strangely enough, Beach Music from Myrtle Beach. It’s like the radio you remember from the good old days with real disk jockeys reading advertisements about the biscuits and gravy down at Jimmie’s diner and dedicating song requests from young lovers. One thing about country music of old is you can understand the words and you will soon learn that most of them are about lost love,, cheating hearts, lovers leaving, yearning for lost love, broken hearts, falling in love, or falling out of love. Contrary to popular belief, there is only sporadic mention of Trains, pickup trucks or old dogs.

June 23 2019 Sunday. 

We visited with Paul and Betty again today and then we all drove over to Chilhowie for dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. The chicken burrito with a light cheese sauce was one of the best I’ve ever eaten. 

Millie and I watched a movie in the motorhome in the afternoon. It was called Das Boot and was the story of a German submarine crew during a patrol near the end of World War Two. Travel day tomorrow.

June 24 2019 Monday. 

Departed Grindstone Campground at 8:30, which is a little earlier than our usual 9am, but we needed to stop for fuel before heading south on I-81. It is only about 150 miles from Grindstone to Pigeon Forge and we were arrived in Pigeon Forge about midday. On the way thru town, we stopped at the ticket agency and picketed up the tickets for the four shows we will see while here. It was an uneventful trip right up until just before we turned into Rivers Edge Campground. 

One of the local pigeons flew up from the edge of the road and crashed smack dab into the middle of the windshield. Lucky for us, not so much for him, he but an additional crack in the already broken driver’s glass and not the recently replaced passenger’s half. (Our windshield is two large pieces of glass, a drivers and passenger’s glass.) 

On our first night in town, we went to see a play called “Grand Daddy’s Watch”. It is a new show in town since the last time we were here. Based on actual events, it tells the tale of a diehard unionist and his Confederate sister as they struggle to understand each others view of the struggle to save their precious Tennessee. 

Millie with the cast of the Civil War Show.

The play is performed in one act, with one stage scene, and two actors. It runs for 1 hour and 45 minutes and is really a history lesson about the root causes of the war, told during the bantering between the union officer and his confederate sister. 

It was actually very interesting and enlightening, lots of what you were taught in school about the war is not historically accurate, according the author of this stage presentation.

June 25 2019 Tuesday

 Today’s show was a favorite of ours, we seen the “Soul of Motown” in several separate productions in states from here to Nevada. We love the polished soul music from our youth, back when black entertainers still sang and took pride in their theatrical performance.

This afternoon’s show was a special treat in a couple ways. First, I have been extremely lucky this year in selecting excellent seats, more often than not, front row center. We actually had our names on the seats for this performance; it was just like the Oscars without the red carpet! The reason for our names reserving our front row center seats was the whole area around us was group seating for two tourist buses of black folk. 

The largely black audience raised our enjoyment of the show by ten-fold. You see, live performances by black entertainers for black audiences is a participation sport. They are loud, cheerful, and happy. You can tell the performers feed off of the attention and the whole show is better for it. The entertainers add subtle interactions that you won’t see in a mixed crowd audience. It may just be making eye contact with a lady in the audience and rocking in a sexual manner, but the crowd loves it and shows its appreciation with whistles, cat calls and applause! 

We had a great time with our audience neighbors. Believe me; it was much better than watching the show with a room full of old white people. Most of whom were taught as children to sit quietly in a theater!

June 26 2019 Wednesday

We drove 14 miles into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee. The sprawling ½ million-acre park encompasses lush forests, Streams, rivers and waterfalls. There are many scenic overlooks. Our trip today went up to a little over 5000 feet elevation to Newfound Gap where it crosses the Appalachian Trail. 

At Cumberland Gap in Great Smoky Mountains

Before tonight’s show at the Smoky Mountain Opry we went to an early dinner at a Pigeon Forge favorite called “The Old Mill.” Thinking it would be another tourist trap experience, I was very surprised at the good service, good food and reasonable cost. The restaurant is surrounded by specialty gift shops, all owned by the Mill, so I guess they get lots of money from the tourists anyhow.

I really do hate to be negative in these reviews but the Smoky Mountain Opry started out bad and I was never was able to get past the disturbing first few minutes. The show started with an amplified bass drum during what I guess was supposed to be a circus scene. I’m sure you’ve all felt this irritating resonance when some idiot with more speakers than brains pulls up behind your car.

I’m surmising that the opening act was some sort of strange circus tableau vivant (living picture) because of the Master of Ceremony. Before this gig she was the first and only female ringmaster for the Barnum and Bailey Circus. She was so much into that character throughout the whole evening that I started picturing her in a long tailed red coat, high black boots and a top hat! She became rather annoying. 

The pounding continued thru the next several sets and then they gradually turned it down. After trying for several minutes to think of some reasoning for the introductory noise bombardment, I tried to put it out of my mind and give the rest of the show my unbiased attention. 

Unfortunately, the rest of the show never met up to my expectations. One of the disappointments was the sound system. It was very difficult to understand the words. Maybe my hearing was still in shock from all the drum beating! Another thing about the production that I thought distracting was; during every solo singing act they always had something distracting going on in the back ground. I thought the comedian was ok, Millie didn’t think he was that good. 

They had a duo aerialist act and they were very talented, unfortunately they were one of the distracting things the Opry used during the singing. The aerialists did have two headlining performances, one as aerialists and the other, one of illusion. The illusionary act was all changing elaborate costumes on stage, with just a hint of concealment while doing it. On the final change, the male released some silver glittered confetti over his brightly clothed partner. As you can imagine it only took a second for the glitter to fall to the floor, revealing the girl now dressed in beautiful white gown. It was amazing!

June 27 2019 Thursday

 Originally, we had planned a breakfast on our last day at the Applewood Farmhouse restaurant. However, we enjoyed our meal at “The Old Mill” yesterday so much that we decided to go back for breakfast this morning. They didn’t disappoint, breakfast today was every bit as enjoyable as yesterday’s meal. 

The Old Mill Restaurant

Before going back to the motorhome did a little shopping. Millie browsed at a row of clothing stores and me at the tool store across the street. We both bought stuff, not that either of us need anything, but who can resist a bargain! As a bonus to the shopping spree we stopped at a yard sale, and yes I bought the kitchen sink! Not really, just a compact stainless-steel sink I plan on using in the garage at home.

Tonight, we will attend our last show for this trip, it is called “America’s Hit Parade” the genre is early rock and roll. It’s a new production here in Pigeon Forge, one we haven’t seen before. 

Show Review; It was a great show, with music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. It had all the cast members from the Soul of Motown, plus an equal number added cast and the same band that played for the Motown show. They all did a fantastic job!

Rock and Roll Show

June 28 2019 Friday. We got up at 5:00 am and were on the road by 6:30. We planned on driving all the way home in one day and wanted to get there early enough to unpack the motorhome. 

We topped off the fuel tank in Pigeon Forge, made one more stop for fuel in Columbia South Carolina and drove the rest of the way home without stopping. It took us 7 hours to drive the 380 miles. 

Little did we know, this would be our last roadtrip in the Winnebago. She served us well!

The Bus