Mebane NC - Triangle & Triad Areas of North Carolina

Monday (5/9) to Monday (5/16):

On Monday morning we got up very early to get the motorhome to Rowell's so that they could replace the valve on our leveling system before travelled north. While they worked on the motorhome we returned back to Johnny's K restaurant to eat breakfast. We finished our breakfast and waited until we heard from Rowell's that the work was done. I asked them about maintenance on the leveling system and they told me that the fluid in the hydraulic reservoir needs to be checked from time to time and that the jacks need to be kept clean. Other than that there is no recommended maintenance on the system.

From the shop we hooked up the Jeep and headed 125 miles north along I-85 to Mebane NC. Jones Station RV Park is a newer campground (opened about 2.5 years ago) with 36 sites. They are in the process of adding an additional 20 spaces. We have a pull through site with full hookups. Only complaint is that although where we park the RV is level the rest of the site is sloped. They have the nicest bathroom & shower facilities we have seen on our travels. We got set up and the leveling system worked getting us level and stable.

On Tuesday morning we restrung one of our day/night shades. If you ever live in an RV with the old style day/night shades, from time to time the strings will break. We had replaced one last year and this is our first one of this year. After completing this task we did some shopping at the Premium Outlet Mall that is located here in Mebane. We were going to walk at one of the local parks, but it was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so returned back to the campground and walked around it.

On Wednesday morning as we were cooking breakfast our power went out. We reset the all of the electrical connections but were not getting any power to our 120 volt electrical plugs inside the coach. We tried waiting a while and still no power at the plugs. We even tried running the generator to see if that made any difference: it did not. I called Newmar RV Customer Service Department to see if they could help with the problem and they quickly diagnosed it as an "inverter" issue. I ended up having to remove everything from two bays so that I could get to the inverter/converter (it is mounted between two of the chassis rails). Newmar walked me through resetting the fuse and then restarting the inverter/converter. Once we did this we had power again in all our electrical outlets.

That afternoon we went over to the Mystery Brewery in Hillsborough NC. This is a small brewery that does not brew any beer on a consistent basis: they are constantly trying new brews. Each Thursday they introduce a new batch of beers and whenever they run out they may or may not make another batch in the future. So it is a mystery as to which beers are available on tap. We tried a sample of their dark beers and liked all four that we tasted. I ended up ordering a glass of a dark IPA and Connie had a glass of one of the brews we tasted.

From there we drove past an historic house located in Hillsborough: the Nash-Hooper house. Hooper was a North Carolina representative who signed the Declaration of Independence in July 1776. The house was not open, but we stopped and took this picture.

On Thursday we went to Lake Michael Park (we had to go to this place since I'm sure it named after me) and walked one of the trails in the park. The trail goes along the lake and then ends: so you end up walking back on the same trail. We were lucky they have put bridges over the drainage areas along the path so it was not too muddy from the recent rains.

Mike hiding out in the forest.

Connie had to lift this tree so we could pass under it.

Friday we decided to visit the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park in Greensboro. This was the site of a battle that occurred during the Revolutionary War in March 1781. The battle was won by the British but at a great cost: They lost almost 25% of their men in the battle. Nathaniel Green was the American general who led the troops and came up with the battle plan. He also planned an orderly retreat to avoid capture by the British troops. This battle was one of the bloodiest in the entire Revolutionary War. We view a short film in Visitor Center and then took the 2.25 mile walking tour of the battlefield.

The Atlantic & Yadkin Greenway runs through the battleground park and it is a "rails to trails" pathway that runs for 7.5 miles in Greensboro. We rode our bikes along the pathway for about an hour before we decided to head back to the Jeep.

After we had dinner that evening, we had a nice visit with our neighbors, Bob & Jackie Hood. They are both from this area and are spending the winter here. They have been "full-timing" for 17 years in two different motorhomes. They gave us some tips and pointers about some things they have learned over the years along with stories of the places that they have "work-kamped" over the years. They are also planning on visiting Nova Scotia this summer in June & early July.

Bob & Jackie Hood - Full timers for 17 years

On Saturday we decided to visit Durham. We stopped by the Visitor Center and found out there was a history bike tour that was happening down town starting at 1:00 PM. We walked around the downtown area for about 45 minutes waiting for the bike tour to start before heading to the Museum of Durham History to start the tour. The tour lasted about 1.5 hours, covered 6 miles on our bikes and made a number of stops in downtown Durham. The tour was lead by Ernie Dollar who is a native of this area of North Carolina. There were over 100 people who went on the tour.

Ernie Dollar who lead the tour

One of our stops was at the baseball field where the movie Bull Durham was filmed. Another stop was at a church where the services were only celebrated in American Sign Language (ASL) for the deaf community in Durham. When it was built in 1930, it was one of only four churches in America that only held services in ASL. This church for the deaf lasted until the 1990's and it is now used by a different denomination. Brodie Duke, the son of Washington Duke the founder of the Duke & Sons Tobacco Company which later became the American Tobacco Company, owned a lot of land that eventually became Durham. The only non-Duke family member who owned an interest in Duke & Sons Tobacco was named George Watts. Brodie named the streets in a section of land he developed in the following order: Washington, Duke, Hated, Watts. So if you named the streets in order it was Washington Duke Hated Watts. Later the street known as Hated was renamed Gregson.

After we finished the ride we joined a group of tour riders for a beer with Ernie Dollar (who lead the tour) across the street at Bill McCabe's Irish Pub along with some of the riders from the tour. We spent some extra time visiting with Damien (originally from Florida) and Christine (originally from Michigan) who live in the area and helped with the tour.

From the pub, we walked a few blocks to the 21c Museum Hotel (which Damien & Christine told us about). It is located in the Hall Building which originally was built as a bank. The architectural firm that designed the building also did the Empire State Building in New York City. The hotel has modern art on display that you can see along with the old bank vault that is located in the basement.

From there we went and visited the Duke Homestead & Tobacco Museum. Washington Duke returned from the Civil War to his farm of 300 acres and started growing/selling tobacco. From this humble start he later founded the American Tobacco Company which during his lifetime was the largest tobacco company in the world. The Duke family trust money started Duke University and the Duke Medical School along with a number of other ventures over the years. We walked around the homestead for a few minutes before viewing a short film about Washington Duke and the tobacco business. We then took a quick tour (it was near closing time) of the Tobacco Museum. We learned a lot about tobacco, it's history and how it became a multi-billion dollar business.

Duke Homestead

Sunday we repaired another one of our day/night shades that was about to have the string break. Since we had just done one a couple of days ago, this repair went rather quickly. In the afternoon, we returned to Lake Michael Park and took a shorter trail for our walk. From there we went to a local Chinese restaurant, China King, and ate a late lunch. Both our meals were very good: Connie had Chicken-Garlic dish and I had the Peppersteak-Onion.

FYI:

The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area is known as the Triangle. It is the home of the Research Triangle Center which is one of the first collaborations between universities (Duke, Univ of North Carolina & North Carolina State Univ) and the business community for the high tech world starting in the 1950's.

The Triad is Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Highpoint. I think that they came up with this name because they were excluded from the Triangle.

Mebane is located half-way between the Triangle and the Triad.

Tomorrow morning we will continue our travels north to Appomattox Virginia. 

Charlotte NC

Monday (5/2) to Monday (5/9):

On Monday morning we made the 115 mile trip from Greenville SC to Charlotte NC. We are staying in a small RV park, Elmore RV Park, located "in town" behind a used car lot/auto maintenance shop. Almost all of the residents are long term but there are a few spaces available on a short term basis. We were assigned to Site 4 and backed the Duchess into the site. I glad that we have an extension to our 50 amp cord so that we could us this site instead of the one a next to it. We got set up and then ordered a pizza from Pure Pizza, a local chain here in Charlotte. It was not much of a pizza, but we didn't have to do any cooking.

Tuesday morning we were up bright and early since we had an 8 AM appointment to have our jacks/leveling system looked at. Our right rear jack is not working at all and we had some times where the jacks would not go up & down with out us having to turn them off & on several times. We dropped the Duchess off at Rowell's which is located in Indian Trail NC, a suburb of Charlotte. From there we went and ate breakfast at Johnny K's a local restaurant recommended to us by the shop. We both ate a large breakfast that was very good and enjoyed the coffee (several cups) which was brand called Java Jeff's. After breakfast we went to Costco where we bought: Lenovo MIIX 700 laptop, electric toothbrushes, COBRA dash cam and few other items. After finishing up at COSTCO we did a 4 mile walk (2 miles up and 2 miles back) along the 4 Mile Creek Greenbelt.

You can see how much rain this area has gotten lately.

We found a Trader Joe's across the street from the greenbelt parking area and bought something to drink to refresh ourselves after the walk. We returned to Rowell's where they were waiting on a phone call from HWH Leveling Systems. So we went to a restaurant next door and ate an early dinner. Upon our return to Rowell's they had talked to HWH and decided that a valve that was sticking open needed to be replaced. We will return on Monday morning to have the work done since the valve had to be shipped from HWH.

On Wednesday we went to Freedom Park here in Charlotte which is a 98 acre park located a few miles south of downtown. There are walking trails, a large pond stocked with fish along with numerous sports fields.

It started raining on Wednesday PM as we returned back to our park. We visited a local brewery in the late afternoon, the NoDa Brewery, which is located a couple of miles from the campground. We did a sampling and then each of us had a glass of one of their brews.

Thursday it rained all day and the temperature never got above 60 degrees so we did not get out except to go to the grocery store. We have great WiFi service here in the park and so we were able to stream Amazon Video on our TV. We started watching a series call Orphan Black that has been on Showtime and were able to watch a number of episodes.

Friday the weather was better so we headed to Reedy Creek Park and walked along the trails within the park. Some of the trails were wet but most had gravel on them so they were not muddy.

From there we took a trip out to Concord NC to visit the Hendricks Motorsports Racing Team Museum. They have a number of the winning cars from the racing team on display along with exhibits showing you how the cars are built.

From there we went to the Tom Johnson Camping World Center and took a look at the 2016 Newmar motor homes they have in stock. We didn't see anything we liked better than the one we are in. They are nice inside, but don't have as much storage as we have in the Duchess.

Saturday we went to visit downtown Charlotte. Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank both have several large buildings downtown along with a number of other banks. Charlotte is the second largest banking center in the USA only trailing New York City. There was a music group playing smooth jazz in one of the parks which we stopped and listened to them for a while. They were very good when they played an entire song, but they spent most of the time starting and stopping. From there we took the Liberty Walk along which there are 18 plaques dealing with the Revolutionary War in Charlotte. The buildings on the walk are all gone, but the plaques gave you a history of that location and what was there. Charlotte was occupied by the British for several years during the Revolutionary War and several battles were fought in Charlotte and the surrounding countryside.

Music in the park.

This was not part of the Liberty Walk.

We also visited the Wells Fargo Museum which is located in their bank (they took over Wachovia Bank several years ago). The museum gives a brief history of the Wells Fargo bank, shipping and other business through the years.

After we walking around downtown Charlotte for about 3 hours we decided to visit the Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, which is the oldest craft brewery in Charlotte. We tried a sampler of 6 of their beers and didn't particularly like any of them.

There was a place across the street called the Broken Spoke, so we had to see what it was. It ended up being a distillery, but the rules in North Carolina were so complicated we decided not to go in.

After a visit to one of the Whole Foods store in Charlotte, we returned back to the Duchess for the evening.

On Sunday afternoon we drove out to Belmont NC and visited the Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens. It was packed with people since they were letting any "mom" get in free today. These gardens were nice but not anything like the ones in Atlanta.

Monday morning we will get the motor home leveling system repairs completed and then head towards the Raleigh/Durham/Greensboro area.

FYI: This is our 100th post to the blog.

Greenville SC

Thursday (4/28) to Monday (5/2):

As we were trying to get out of our site at the McKinney Campground, we ended up running over a tree stump and damaging the fiberglass on the front driver side panel of the motorhome along with bending the exhaust pipe for the generator. Not enough damage to prevent travelling, but we will have to do some repair work down the road. Not the best way to start out the morning. After leaving the campground we made the 115 mile drive up I-85 to Piedmont SC which is about 10 miles south of Greenville. We pulled into the Ivy Acres RV Park, got assigned to Site 305 which is a pull through with FHU's and got set up for the night. The park is located on a old family farm that has been converted into a RV Park. Most of the sites are occupied with people who live there for extended periods with a few sites available for short term rent. We spent some time trying to fix the exhaust pipe and seeing what temporary fix we could do to the fiberglass.

Our site @ Ivy Acres.

Damage to The Duchess.

We did some grocery shopping before settling in for the evening. There is rain in the forecast for most of the time we will be here.

On Friday morning I took the Jeep into the Powdersville Tire and Wheel Center to have the front brakes pads replaced. They finished up the job in about 2 hours (had to grind down the rotors). Now we have had all of the brakes replaced on the Jeep so we should be good for a long time.

Friday afternoon we drove into Greenville. We stopped at the Thomas Creek Brewery and sampled several of their beers. We especially enjoyed the  Coffee Oatmeal Beer.

From the brewery we proceeded to downtown Greenville. The downtown area has been revitalized over the last 15 years and there were numerous shops and restaurants along with businesses in the area. We walked around the main street and along the river park that is in the center of town.

After touring the downtown area we stopped by a second brewery on the way home, the Brewery 85 . We sampled their beers but decided we liked the ones at Thomas Creek better.

Upon our return the RV park, I got the Coleman Gas Grill out and we cooked a whole chicken that we had quartered. It took up the entire grilling surface and took a while to cook, but we will get several meals out of the chicken (and it ended up being very flavorful and juicy).

On Saturday we decided to do some bike riding along the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville. This is a rails to trails project that extends over 30+ miles north and south out of the downtown area. We parked a few blocks away from the trails, rode down to the trail and then continued north along the asphalt path for several miles before turning around to head back. On the way back we stopped at the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery which is located along the trail to rest our buns and get some tea to drink.

We returned back to the campground for an early dinner before driving back to Greenville to visit the Quest Brewery. They were having live music for the afternoon & evening along with having their tap room open. We sampled several of their brews and then each ordered a glass to take into the "brewery" where they had move the music because of the rains that had started. We met a couple from Greenville who worked together at GE Energy, Jackie and Darren. Jackie had served in the military for several years where she learned to speak Russian. She was stationed for a while in San Angelo TX (a hotbed of Russian spies). Darren and his family immigrated from England when he was in high school and they are all still here in the USA. The band we listened to played music from the 70's and 80's, so we recognized all of the songs.

Sunday morning we slept in while it continued to rain. After lunch we decided to visit downtown Greenville one last to do some shopping. We bought a few items at the Mast General Store along with some kitchen items at a Cooking Store that was closing down and giving great discounts.

Connie and I were both impressed with Greenville and it will be on our "places" to retire to when we are finished with our full time journey. On Monday morning we will continue north to Charlotte NC.

North of Atlanta

Monday (4/25) to Thursday (4/28):

We made the trip from Montgomery AL to the McKinney Campground which is a COE park located on Allatoona Lake. This lake is located north of Atlanta a few miles from I-75. We had reserved a site along the lake which ended up being just big enough to get the Duchess in. We again were among the trees, so no DirecTV again. This is a large COE campground with 150 RV sites.

I had to cut down a large dead limb before we could get into the site.

View out the front of the Duchess.

We had a great view of the lake from our Site 45.

On Tuesday we decided to venture into Atlanta. Heidi Ivey had given us a BBQ place in Atlanta to try and we were also going to visit the botanical gardens. Traffic around Atlanta is terrible. We know that Austin TX traffic is bad, but this is the worse place I have ever seen. There were construction or accidents every place we went. It took us 1.5 hours to get from our campground to the BBQ place and almost 3 hours to get back after visiting the gardens. I have no idea how anyone could do this every day.

We ate lunch at Fat Matt's Rib Shack. Connie had the pork ribs while I had the chopped pork sandwich. As with this part of the south, they serve only pork & chicken BBQ, no beef or sausage. The ribs and sandwich were good, but we both thought we have had better BBQ in Texas.

Small seating area that was packed the entire time we were there.

After eating lunch, we visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden. We were impressed with the gardens and especially the glass artwork on display for this year through out the gardens. The artwork is from an artist, Dale Chihuly, who has done these types of exhibits all over the world. Here are a few photos from our visit:

On Wednesday we decided to recover from our "commute" into Atlanta. We walked around the entire campground and then enjoyed the afternoon by sitting outside the Duchess. We read and watched the boats on the lake along with resting our eyes from time to time. Thursday we will leave to head north to Greenville SC.