Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Asheville and the Blue Ridge Parkway

Many, well maybe one or two, may be wondering if we are still traveling.  We ARE.  We are just doing it slower.

We went to the Asheville, NC area to see the leaves change.  We weren't going to drive straight there as it is a long drive from B'ham and we didn't leave until about 9:30.  An easy drive to Chattanooga rest area led me to call Miles RV Campground in the Asheville area to see if they had a sight.  They did and indicated that I was still over 5 hours away and probably would not get there before they closed.  Well, that was like a challenge and I put the pedal to the metal. I got there in about 4 hours like I thought and just missed the office by about 30 minutes. It is a decent park flat with paved roads and gravel and paved pads.  We got a pull through site and faced into the center of the park with a large football sized field in front of us.  For $25 a night, weekly rate, it was a very reasonable rate for the area.  There was a little noise, Interstate, highway, business next door and a train a couple times a night, but it was convenient to everything we wanted to do.  We could even walk to the Post Office and get something to eat.

I've been coming to this area for 30 years to see the leaves during this time of year.  We were a little earlier this time and arrived on the 14th for about the start of the change.  We were here for 12 days and each time out saw an unbelievable change in color. Here are a few pictures, but believe me, they do not begin to tell the story.




Several years ago we were driving on the Parkway and saw a Motor home sitting in a pull off early one morning.  We imagined they were there having breakfast and set our sites to one day do the same.  Here is the location of where the Motor home was parked.  Don't you think that would be a nice place to start the day?
 
Everybody likes to come to Asheville and see the Biltmore Estate and we have seen it to.  Once you have seen it there is an understanding of how the Vanderbilt's contributed heavily toward the establishment of the National Forest system and their contributions toward modern forestry methods.  We benefit from their involvement every time we go into a National Forest or Park.  I can only imagine what it would be like if there were no protections.  They lived here.
 

We had an electrical problem during our stay that when we called a technician and talked with Xantrex required a new Inverter.  We cut our stay short and headed toward Red  Bay to get this done.  We installed a Magnum MS2812 as recommended by several people.  We stayed over at the facility that night and had another occurrence of the problem.  A further check came out that a bad breaker in the panel wasn't making good connection and burnt the connection and required a new breaker.  Now things that were hit and miss about working have worked since that install. (knock on wood)  End result I have a good Xantrex RS3000 inverter, AGS, and panel.  If anyone needs one I have a good deal going on. :) 


We are currently in Gadsden, AL sitting on the river at River Country Campground.  We are 15' from the water facing it.  More next time.

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