Thursday, October 1 through Thursday October 8:

On Thursday, I met Brenda Rogers and Krystal Elwing, for brunch at a local favorite, Peaches Café.  The purpose of our brunch was just to have adult conversation for an hour or so.  Brenda shared with us that she and her husband are headed to Maine at the end of this week.  Krystal told us that she and her husband, Pastor Jonathan of Palm View First Baptist Church, honeymooned in Maine.  I told them that Rick and I had enjoyed Bar Harbor and visiting with friends in Central Maine during our 6,000-mile road trip in the summer of 2014.

Naturally, we all talked about eating fresh lobster.  Pictured above is the hotel in Bar Harbor where Rick and I enjoyed lobster feasts a couple of times during our visit.  In the wee hours of the morning, Friday, 10/2, it was announced that President Trump and his wife have both tested positive for the Coronavirus.  All of the news reports say that this is a historic and very dangerous time for the United States.   Around 6 p.m., the president was flown to Walter Reed Hospital to a special unit that is reserved for the president of the United States and contains office space as well as all the things that a hospital room needs.  Also, by the end of the day at least a half dozen other government officials and advisors announced that they had also tested positive for Coronavirus.  All of them had attended a gathering at the White House last Saturday where the president announced his nomination for supreme court justice to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who died recently.  Over the weekend, the president remained in the hospital and Dad and I attended “in-person Sunday School and church.  Then the rest of the week was filled with routine activities.

Friday, 10/9 through Sunday, 10/18 – North Carolina

I swapped my timeshare for a week at the Willow Valley Resort in Vilas, NC (just outside of Boone)  www.willowvalley-resort.com 

We left early Friday morning driving north on I-75 exiting just north of Gainesville.  From there, the rest of the trip up was spent on state and US highways.  We loved the scenery and the lower speed – it was definitely the “less stress” way to travel.  On Saturday, we ran into rain which was associated with Hurricane Delta which made landfall overnight in Louisiana.  We checked into the resort mid-afternoon Saturday and noticed this striking tree just across the parking lot.  Welcome to the changing of the leaves.

Unfortunately, those who know more than me, advised that Sunday would not be a good day to be on the road due to continuing rain and flash floods, so Dad and I decided to stay in and relax.

Monday morning, 10/12 (Columbus Day) we left the condo about 10 a.m. going about 12 miles to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Blowing Rock and headed south.  Our first stop was at the Moses S. Cone Memorial Park – a 3,600-acre estate that was donated to become a park.  The home is currently being restored.

There was a very nice view from the front porch.

We stopped at many overlooks along the way to see the fall colors.

We were sorry to find that most of the welcome centers were not open.  We found one open at Linville Falls, but the parking lot was overflowing with cars, so we stopped at a nearby overlook on the Linville River.

The weather remained cloudy and misty throughout the day and we finally decided to depart from the parkway just before we got to Ashville.

We drove on the parkway for four and a half hours.  When I asked the GPS in the car to guide us home, we only had to go 75 miles!

On Tuesday, 10/13, we left the Boone area just after 9 a.m. heading north toward Sparta, NC, (about 55 miles away) taking State and US Highways.  The weather continued to clear and the views were very nice.  We decided that this area must be famous for raising Christmas trees, as there were thousands of them growing for miles along our route.  We entered the Blue Ridge Parkway at mile post 217 heading south to where we got on yesterday at mile post 291 near Blowing Rock.  While it was sunny and there seemed to be less traffic along this stretch of the Parkway, the road surface was not as smooth and the fall colors not as vibrant as yesterday.  We drove 12 miles to the Doughton Park picnic area for a rest break where I took the picture below.

We stopped for lunch at the Jeffers Park picnic area.  Picnicing along the Parkway was really popular as we had to pass many turnoffs with picnic tables that were already occupied.  We took a short break to eat our sandwiches and enjoy the view.

Today would have been my 48^th wedding anniversary which was the reason for this trip.  Dad said that he didn’t want to go out to dinner, so I went to the nearby Sagebrush Steakhouse and had a terrific meal and a glass of wine with which I made a silent toast to Rick.

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There was heavy fog and cooler temperatures Wednesday morning, so we decided to put off our exploring of the nearby areas until this afternoon.  Our 40-mile driving route is shown below:

First, we drove up to the Sugar Mountain Ski Resort where Rick and I went skiing several times with friends in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  The lodge is only open on the weekends at this time of year, so we could not get close enough to see how the facilities had changed.  Dad said it was a harrowing ride in the fall and he couldn’t imagine driving up and down that road in the winter with snow on the ground.  From there headed to Banner Elk where we picked up North Carolina Highway 194 which is one of the many scenic byways that we have taken this week.

Along this road, we came to the town of Valle Cruses where we stopped at the Mast General Store.  We took a stroll back in time as we looked through this 1913 building which is stocked with everything from cast-iron cookware and Amish rockers to shoes, boots and outdoor clothing.  There was an old-fashioned coke cooler stocked with Nehi’s.  They sold Moon Pies next to the hardware and homemade jelly on the next aisle. This store also serves as the local post office.  You are greeted with a whole wall of post office boxes as you come in the front door.

While we did not purchase anything, we enjoyed our trip down memory lane.  We continued north to the town of Vilas and then went into a portion of Boone that was new to us.  This looked to be the historic area but it was also the home of the Appalachian State University campus.  We returned to the condo just two hours after we left but with a lot more memories.

Thursday, 10/15 – I compromised on my vow not to take any interstate highways in order to make sure that we made it to Asheville in time to catch a Gray Line City Tour at 12:00.  We drove for a couple of hours on State and US highways which took us into Tennessee for a short time.

Downtown Asheville, Montford Historic District, The Grove Park Inn and Grove Park Historic District, Thomas Wolfe District, Pack Square and Asheville Art Museum, Grove Arcade, River Arts District, and the Biltmore Village We learned a lot about the history of Asheville and saw a lot of interesting architecture.  We did not go to the famous Biltmore House, but went by the gate.  I had checked on a tour of the Biltmore Estate earlier.  Tickets were $86 each, but they warned that there was a lot of walking involved, so I opted out.  On the tour we saw the century-old Grove Hotel that had a Vanderbilt Wing shown in the picture below.

We decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way home.  While on the road, I got a text from a friend asking if we had seen a waterfall yet?  So, we decided to take another try to see Linville Falls.  We arrived at the parking lot around 4 p.m. and started the more than half-mile trek up to the upper falls overlook.  The trail began by crossing over a bridge where I took the picture below:

When I finally reached the top – I had to leave Dad sitting on a bench along the way – I was at the top of the falls looking down, so the view was not as dramatic as I had hoped.

Rain was predicted for the area on Friday morning, 10/16, so we put off doing anything outside until mid-afternoon.  We had noticed a lot of traffic going west on the road that led up to the condo, so we decided to see where the road went.  We took a rather circuitous route on our short drive but did find the “end of the road.”  Below is a picture of the “one-lane bridge” we traversed.  If you click on the picture, you might see the man fishing in the creek on the left side of the bridge.

After we returned to the condo, I took a picture of our building.

Checkout was Saturday morning, 10/17.  When I went out to load the car, I found it covered with frost (as was the golf course).  It was 34 degrees.  You might be able to see the frost on the car if you click on the picture below.

We drove southeast on US 321 most of the day ending near Ft. Stewart in Hinesville, Georgia for the night.  When we checked in, the temperature was 40 degrees higher than when we left North Carolina.  On the final leg of the trip home, Sunday, 10/18, we drove on US 301 and State Road 121 prior to getting on I-75 just north of Gainesville to continue back to Parrish in Manatee County, Florida.  Dad and I both enjoyed this trip a lot, but we were very happy to lay our heads on our own pillows this night.

October 19 through 31, 2020

Upon returning from vacation, we returned to our normal schedule of going to the YMCA to work out three afternoons a week.  I volunteered at church and the North River Care Pregnancy Center on Tuesdays and went to choir practice on Wednesday evening and church on Sunday.  We were excited to have a visit from my brother, Bill and his wife, Mary, on Saturday, 10/24.  We sat on the back patio and watched college football while we visited.  They just returned to Florida after several months on the road in their fifth-wheeler and will be taking off again on Wednesday.  They told us that they might not be back in Florida for a year!  On Saturday, 10/31 (Halloween)  JP and Kellie took Emma over to friends’ house in a nearby neighborhood for an afternoon get-together followed by trick-or-treating.

I handed out candy at their front door in the evening.  I dressed as a pirate and used my spy glass as a candy chute to deliver the treats to the many children who stopped by.