Retirement Travel and a Weird Mix of Other Stuff
The fix required me to change some file permissions on my host server. When I did that, I did something wrong and broke my blog. Then things got pretty busy and I simply did not have the time or mental energy to figure out a computer problem.
Today, on a whim, I tried something else.
And it worked! At least I think it did.
My blog can be properly viewed once more. Sadly, I still can’t upload images the way I should be able to.
I will fix that issue next.
I didn’t take a bunch of pics of their house to share because there are still a lot of finishing touches needed. I’ll do that on our next visit.
For now, just a few pics. I hope to share more in future posts.
The trip was all about visiting with our friends and seeing the new house, so we didn’t do much touristy stuff. And it was actually a really fun visit. We explored the local area a bit, helped do little things around the house, got to meet some of their family, which was awesome, and basically just hung out.
On Saturday morning, I accompanied Annelies to the nearby town of Lokeren, where she had a two-hour band practice followed by a one-hour private music lesson (she plays bass guitar and sings). The music school is on the outskirts of town near a nature preserve called The Molsbroak (Het Moelsbroek on the map), so I roamed around there for a couple of hours and then drove around a bit until she was finished.
I was really surprised to discover a large community of expats from Canada living there.
I saw several Great Blue Herons, too.
There were other birds, too, but I have to figure out what they were before I can share more pics.
And here’s a picture captured near the center of their town, Dendermonde, on Friday afternoon.
I’ll share more pics from the trip in future posts. For now, it’s time to get to work.
The leaves are starting to change, mostly at higher elevations, but the last several days have been quite warm. Right now it’s about 86 F (30 C). We leave for vacation on Thursday. We’re heading to Belgium to visit our friends, Annelies and Yves, who JUST moved into a house they’ve been renovating for a couple/few years. It’s supposedly been unseasonably cool there, so I hope that trend continues.
I mapped out a route for us before leaving. A simple loop that would take us to a nice picnic spot. The place I chose was Camp Roosevelt. It’s along one of our favorite putt-putt roads through a piece of the George Washington National Forest near Luray, Virginia. We’d passed the place numerour times, but had never stopped. I had no idea there was a picnic area or that it was the location of the very first Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) site in the nation.
Here are a few images captured during our picnic stop.
Aren’t we fancy? Plates, drink goblets, a little cutting board… there’s also a cheese knife, cutlery, a blanket, salt & pepper shakers, and even cloth napkins.
After we’d eaten, I snagged a few pics of some Fall color to share. The colors are most noticeable at higher elevations and in cooler spots, like creek-side riding through Fort Valley, one of my favorite local geographic oddities.
All in all, it was a lovely day.
Seriously. I haven’t posted for an entire month. I knew it had been a little while, but a month!?! So much for trying to stay on track!
For the first three weeks of June, work was crazy-busy. This past week has allowed me to do a bit of catch-up at the office. I have thoroughly enjoyed logging off at a decent hour. Last night was the “latest” night of the week, I didn’t log off until 6:00 p.m. Now, I can do a little personal catch-up.
I haven’t been riding much. We had a bit of a heat wave for most of June, too. But that’s okay. I’ve been doing other stuff. And I have some exciting times on the horizon. Having fun stuff in the near future to look forward to is great medicine for me. Especially when that fun stuff enjoys fun with friends, a beautiful beach, a boat, and back-to-back long weekends. A bit further off is a very happy life event for one of our kids, more travel, multiple beaches, great food, and more new stuff to see. And, at the tail-end of the current plan, is a trip to Europe for which I FINALLY bought tickets (airfare had been insanely high for months).
I’m headed to North Carolina this afternoon. Hubby is staying home with the bitches. The next week or so is sort of a blank slate. Or, more accurately, a multiple choice list of options, most of which involve fun and relaxation. MAYBE I’ll even have time to craft a blog post or two.
So why is it that my first thought upon seeing dry pavement was, “I can ride today after all.” Maybe it’s a sickness.
Since I was close to Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP), and I had yet to make it to Clingman’s Dome — highest point in GSMNP — I figured that would be a good destination. Once it did start raining, I told myself, I’d be close to shelter.
It didn’t take long at all — 20 minutes? — for me to reach the park entrance, which is near the southern terminus of the BRP. Unfortunately, when I did, I was greeted by a sign proclaiming US-441 to be closed. The Oconaluftee Visitors Center is just inside the park entrance, so I went in to find out exactly where the closure began, hoping I could reach the summit. But it was not to be.
“Actually,” one of the rangers manning the desk told me, “the Tennessee side of the park is currently being evacuated.” What?!?
The weather on the Tennessee side of the park was much worse. There were reports of trees down all over the place, falling on people and cars.
So I headed back toward Maggie Valley. I couldn’t resist stopping for some pics along the way, figuring I might as well make the most of my outing while the weather held. Here are some snapshots I judged to be worthy of sharing. Many are grainy because it was so overcast.
It was interesting to see the difference in the foliage at lower and higher elevations. I hadn’t expected to see so many bare trees. You’ll see the change as I move from lower points near the end of the Parkway, up and into the mountains.
If nothing else, I got to see some pretty cool clouds moving in. It was getting colder, too.
Temps were in the upper 40s by the time I decided to head back to my motel. So that was my morning.
Final note… this post has been in the works for a week. I caught a stupid head cold/upper respiratory think that’s had me coughing/hacking/gagging and blowing my nose for a week. As an extra bonus, each day ended with a pounding headache, too. Last night’s was so bad, I thought maybe I was dying. Needless to say, we didn’t do any riding over the long, holiday weekend. Maybe this coming weekend I’ll feel better.
I have yet to mention long-range weather forecasts and the impact they sometimes had on each day’s planning. A little bit of bad weather can be tolerated. Major storms, on the other hand, must be given serious consideration. That morning, as a major storm was bearing down on the area, I decided to plan ahead more than usual to find a good spot where I could hunker down for a few days. I’d thought Bryson City, where I’d spent the previous evening, might be a good spot. It was close to eateries, shops, and stuff, but the hotel was a bit further from things than I would’ve liked, and on a pretty steep hill.
After a bit of research, Maggie Valley is the spot I chose. I even booked a motel room for two nights. The motel I selected was close to several restaurants, shops, and other attractions, inexpensive, had great reviews, and a Mexican restaurant within easy walking distance. Not only would I not have to worry at day’s end about where I’d be sleeping, I would have a margarita to look forward to as well.
Although storms were expected to move in that evening, the weather was absolutely perfect that morning as I set off for the Nantahala River Gorge.
All of the previous images were captured along the relatively flat US-74/US-19 south of Bryson City. The next several images were captured along the hillier Wayah Road.
All of those scenery pics MIGHT make you think the road wasn’t very good. It was actually excellent.
The road was so nice, I sort of lost myself in thought. Before I knew it, the lovely river, with all its cascades and waterfalls was replaced by a beautiful little lake.
I think I might be happy living in Western North Carolina. Until tourist season hit every year. Which reminds me…
According to the National Park service…
Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers 522,427 acres, divided almost evenly between the states of North Carolina and Tennessee. [There were] more than 11.3 million recreational visits in 2016. (This figure does not include the approximately 11 million travelers on the Gatlingburg-Pigeon Forge Spur.) Highest visitation of any of the 59 national parks. The second most heavily visited national park is Grand Canyon with 4.6 million visits, third is Yosemite with 3.8 million, fourth is Yellowstone with 3.2 million.
That doesn’t include all of the motorcyclists who flock to the region or people who go there to visit other area attractions, like the many rivers and lakes, Dollywood, etc.
In other words, it can get crazy-busy. I was there during the off-season, which is why it looks so empty. I’d be willing to bet that, were I there in mid-July, the roads would be clogged with traffic. Overlooks/pull-offs would probably be so full, I’d be lucky to find a spot on the bike, much less in a car. There would be LOTS of loud-ass cruisers (I will never understand the appeal of that noise). In short, it is probably a place to avoid. Unless you like that sort of thing.
I stopped in Franklin for lunch. While I ate, I was looking at several route options, but decided to stick with my original plan. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize Google maps had “lost” my original plan until I was rather far rom where I was supposed to be.
Instead of backtracking the way I’d already traveled, I quickly selected an alternate route. That’s how I happened upon this.
In retrospect, I should have gone in. But the weather was too perfect to waste even a few minutes of ride time.
Getting to see downtown Sylva, albeit briefly, was a happy accident.
I finally got back to the section of Moonshiner 28 I’d meant to hit, but riding in the opposite direction than originally planned.
Holy cow was I glad I had decided to backtrack. The next images were all captured there…
But wait, there’s more!
There was a LOT of water flowing over that waterfall. I could not imagine why it was called Dry Falls.
The road was actually so nice, I repeated a large section of it “for Hubby” and then decided to continue with the route I’d originally planned, which took me into and through a section of the Pisgah National Forest, up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and eventually to Maggie Valley.
As the road climbed toward the BRP, I started seeing flashes of pink. I HAD to stop for a closer look.
That last shot makes it east to understand where the “Great Smoky Mountains” and “Blue Ridge” labels came from, eh?
I was exhausted by the time I reach my motel in Maggie Valley. And delighted to reach the Mexican restaurant I’d read about and enjoy the margarita I’d been thinking about, off and on, the entire day.
