Repairs to Duchess have begun

Tuesday:

The Duchess all by herself in the Rally Park

On Tuesday morning we prepared The Duchess for her move to the body shop to have the fiberglass tear repaired and repainted. Connie ended up going over to Black Mountain NC with Linda Cross who we had met at the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally to visit the town and do some shopping. We ended up moving the motor home to the body shop which is located 4 miles away from the campground/service center in the early afternoon. The body shop has done all of this type of work for the Tom Johnson RV Service Center for the last 10 years, but with the sale of Tom Johnson RV to Camping World there is some questions as to the future of this relationship.

The body shop began the repairs to the fiberglass on the motor home. I had a nice visit with one of the owners of the shop who was born in this area and had spent all of his life here except for 3 years

Where we spent several nights inside the body shop
with The Duchess

in the military in the early 1970's.

We had a strong thunderstorm move through the area in the late afternoon which Connie & Linda got caught in on their return trip from Black Mountain. Connie said the rain was coming down so hard she had trouble seeing the road and had to travel at at very slow speed.

We went to dinner at a local restaurant and took advantage of their Tuesday evening specials. We dropped by the campground and visited with a few of the remaining campers from the Reunion Rally before returning to the body shop to spend the night. The Duchess is in one of the service bays but we are able to put our slides out at night. We close everything up when we leave in the morning so that the workers will have plenty of work space and to give them more  area to work on the repairs. It is somewhat strange staying "in-side" of a building in the motor home with the doors all closed and the lights out in the building, but we can manage for a few nights this way. Since we are inside the building, we have no satellite service for our TV's so we rented a DVD at a local Redbox for our evening's entertainment. It was Interstellar and we both fell asleep during the movie.

Wednesday:

We got up early in the morning, put everything away inside The Duchess, and then put the slides back in. We waited around the body shop for a while until the first employee had arrived to make sure we gave them the color code numbers from a list inside the coach. We went over the Tom Johnson Camping Center and ate breakfast. They serve a nice breakfast there for $5 a person. We were joined for breakfast by Mike and Linda Cross and after breakfast we stayed around and visited for a couple of hours. We discussed several issues that us full-timers have to deal with: retirement income, health insurance and internet access were among a number of topics that came up in the conversation.

There was a light rain in Marion so we decided to go over to Asheville. Bob from the body shop had told me that if it is raining in Marion, then it is usually not in Asheville and vice versa. We traveled over to the North Carolina Arboretum to see the gardens and do some walking. We walked through the small gardens surrounding the Visitor/Information Center and then went hiking on several trails located on the property. We ended up walking for about 2 hours along a creek that runs through the park.

Connie in front of the Visitor/Info center at the NC Arboretum

Notice the plants growing the roof of this storage shed

The trees grow tall here in North Carolina

Entry gardens at the NC Arboretum

We returned back to the body shop to see that the fiberglass repairs had been finished and the first coat of paint had been applied. On to dinner at Nopales Mexican Grill here in Marion. The dinner was good but everything was very mild (Connie prefers her Mexican food to be spicy). After finishing our large portion dinner, we returned for another night in The Duchess inside the building.

Thursday:

We spent another night in the Duchess inside the body shop. We go up early and went again this morning to the Tom Johnson Camping Center to have breakfast and visit with Mike & Linda Cross. After breakfast and the visit, we decided to travel over to Asheville to visit a couple of breweries and have some lunch. There are about 30 breweries in the Ashville area although most of them are not open during the mid-hours on week-days. We were able to locate two that were open with-in a few blocks of each other: the Asheville Brewing Company and the Wicked Weed Brewery.

We visited the Asheville Brewing Company first and had their beer sampling along with a three hummus appetizer. The beer were an interest mix and the appetizer was excellent.

Tasting beer from the Asheville Brewery

We then walked a few blocks to the Wicked Weed Brewing Company. The Wicked Weed refers to a quote by King Henry VIII of England who did not like hops in his beer. He referred to hops as the wicked weed and issued a decree that all beer made in England during his reign was to be made without hops. There were a few beer masters who continued to make beer with the "wicked weed" using hops. The Wicked Weed Brewing Company specializes in making IPA beers in which you can usually taste the hops.

Entry to Wicked Weed Brewing Company

Mike at the bar inside the Wicked Weed

Tasting at the Wicked Weed Brewing Company

On the return trip back to Marion, we stopped in Black Mountain and visited the Swannanoa Valley Museum which give you a history of the region. The area was originally inhabited by the Cherokee tribe and settled in the early 18th century by the Europeans who had started out east of the area. The
area had mining and lumbering as industries in the 19th century. By the first half of the 20th century several fabric/clothing manufacturers had moved into the area. Most of these closed by the mid 1970's as production moved further south or overseas. The town of Black Mountain and the surrounding areas have become a magnet for tourists due to the nice summer weather and the beauty of the mountains in the region. The museum is located in what was the original fire house for the town.

We return back to Marion and went to dinner with Mike & Linda before retiring for another night inside the body shop. The area had strong thunderstorms with hard rain around sundown, so we were glad to be inside the building.

Friday:

This morning we went up once again to the Tom Johnson Camping Center to eat breakfast with Mike & Linda. They are leaving this morning for the trip to their hometown in upstate New York. So we finished breakfast and said our good-byes to them. We were told to be back at the body shop to pick up The Duchess at 1:00 PM, so we had several hours to wait. We ended up walking around the campground, visiting with a few of the campers remaining from the Reunion Rally and then going back to the Camping Center to eat lunch. The Camping Center has a large lunch plate for $6 which we split.

Frank on the right and his employee who worked
on The Duchess

At 1:00 PM we went back to the body shop to bring The Duchess back to the campground to await the arrival of the awning replacement (hopefully one day next week). It was a short drive back to the campground after which we got the motor home set up again for the next several days. It is good to have The Duchess back outside again and be able to stay inside the motor home during the day.

We did some grocery shopping, ate a pizza for dinner and then visited with other campers here at the park. We met a couple from Canada who are staying overnight on their way back to Windsor, Ontario after spending the winter and spring in Florida. Their 5th wheel had blown a tire earlier in the day and they were lucky that no damage was done to the RV. You never know what will happen to you as your travel along the road.

Linville Falls - Little Switzerland

Monday:

I got up early this morning and did some computer work for my previous employer. Once Connie had gotten up, we decided to go over to Linville Falls and do a hike today. Our friends, Fred & Bonnie, had done this walk last week and told the views of the fall were nice. Before we left, Connie received a phone call from one of her high school classmates that her husband (who had also gone to high school with Connie) had passed away recently of liver failure. It is always sad when someone you know dies, but when they are the same age as you it makes your realize our time is limited.

It took about 30 minutes for us to drive over to the parking area for the Linville Falls trail. From the parking lot we walked up the road 0.6 miles to the information center (which was closed) to use the restrooms and then walked back to the trailhead. We started down the trail and commented that it would be the uphill on our way back.

Connie being swallowed up by tree roots along the trail

There was three different areas to view the falls along the trail. The first was call the Upper Overlook where you saw a small falls up stream and then could look over the larger falls.

View of the smaller falls up stream

Here is a view overlooking the larger falls.

From there we walked further along the trail to the Chimney View Overlook. The steps down to this overlook were very steep and you have to be careful not to fall. We took our time going down and coming up since part of the steps were still wet from the rain last night.

View down the canyon below the falls

The trail continued down to the last stop, the Erwin Overlook. While we were there we talked to a couple of gentlemen from Georgia (their wives had decided not to walk the trail) who agreed to take our picture.

Erwin Overlook at the end of the trail

We then made the trek back to the parking area where we had parked the Jeep.

Connie taking a break on the uphill trail back to the parking lot

We calculated that the entire walk including the trek up to the information center was about 3 miles. It was slow walking with all of the tree roots along the trail and with certain parts of the route being wet from the rain.

Leaving the Linville Falls trail, we headed up the Blue Ridge Parkway towards Little Switzerland. There are a number of overlook pull off spots along the highway.

View of the Blue Ridge Mountains

Once we reached Little Switzerland we stopped Switzerland Cafe where Connie had the Pulled Pork BBQ lunch while I had a Spinach & Feta Cheese Quiche with a cup of soup. There is not much to Little Switzerland: some Inns and restaurants, some with a view and some without. It was not what we were expecting which was a quaint little town on the side of a mountain.

Switzerland Cafe

We came back to the campground along the Blue Ridge Parkway to US Hwy 80. We had thought the the parkway was a road with a lot of curves, but it was nothing compared to US Hwy 80. It is one road that does not have a straight section anywhere along this part of the highway.

I did some more work for the office and then we visited with a few campers from the Reunion Rally who had moved across the street to the regular campground (we are still camped at the Rally Section of the campground with two other RV's). It started to rain again and we retired to The Duchess.

Last Days at the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally

Saturday:

All of us campers were served a continental breakfast this morning at 9:00 AM. After the breakfast, Michael Witt, a Master Certified RV Technician, answersed questions from the group about RV maintenance and service issues. Most of the questions were about Norcold or Dometic RV refrigerators and toilets. Michael Witt offers a 4 hour RV Owners Maintenance Course in which he meets with the owner of the RV and spends the time going over all of the maintenance issues involved with an RV. Connie and I are thinking about taking this course sometime in the future. We have been having some issues with our Norcold RV refrigerator not keeping the freezer cold enough. One of the campers here is an RV tech himself and when he had looked at it earlier in the week he noticed that the cooling fans were not turning. So on Saturday, I removed the two cooling fans (neither of them was working and they are the same type that used to go into desktop computers) and called several places that sell computers to see if they have replacement fans in stock. No one had this size cooling fan, so I track it down on the Internet. No one had free delivery and it being Saturday, I figured I would wait until Monday to order. When I was explaining this to a group of campers, one of them, Craig, said he had a bunch of computer cooling fans in the basement storage of his 5th wheel RV (I have no idea why he carries around used computer equipment in his 5th wheel, but I was sure glad that he did). We looked at what he had and decided to try to daisy chain 4 smaller fans together to replace the 2 larger fans. It took Craig a while to complete the task, but he was able to get the fans going and air began to move across the cooling fins at the back of the refrigerator. The fans ran for a few minutes and then stopped. It was time for the evening "Final Day Dinner" to start and we decided to stop for the time being and look at it again tomorrow. After dinner, I came back to The Duchess and decided to look at the fans again. Craig noticed what I was doing and came on over to the RV to see if there was a solution to the problem. All the electrical connections seems to be working, no fuses where blown, yet the fans were not running. Craig disconnected the temperature sensor that sits on the cooling fins and should regulate when the fans turn on and off and as soon as he disconnected the fans started running. We decided to leave the thermistor (that is what the temperature sensor is called) off and see what happens overnight.

The Final Dinner had a Hawaii theme with a roasted pig, shrimp, chicken and all of the trimming. We enjoyed the meal and the games that we played afterwards. A collage of "thank yous" was given to Howard and Linda Payne, the force behind the RV-Dreams website and rallies and I think they were touched with all of the wonderful things people had to say about them. After visiting with the other Rally attendees for a while in the eating pavilion, we went over to our neighbors RV to continue visiting as the sun went down and the moon came up.

Sunday:

We had a full breakfast this morning with all of the other campers and then said our good-byes to the ones who were leaving (about 10 rigs are staying Sunday nights and a few are staying around to have some service work down). It was sad to say good-bye to all of the people we had met this week since we were just starting to get to know one another. We all hope that we will see them again "down the road".

We decided to give The Duchess a bath, so Connie and I got out the washing equipment and proceeded to get started. It took us a couple of hours to do all of the sides (we decided to wait on the roof), but The Duchess looks much nicer now. We also clean all of the mirrors and tried to get the dead bugs off of the front panel.

I have plugged the thermistor on the RV refrigerator back in early this morning to see if the fans would come on with it "on".  After leaving it on for several hours, the temperature in the RV freezer continued to rise. So, I went ahead and disconnected the thermistor and for now the cooling fans will run all of the time. We will have the refrigerator looked at once we have completed all of the other repairs from the awning accident.

It started to rain in the afternoon and as I write this around 7:30 PM the rain is continuing. Between rain storms, we visited with some of the campers who are remaining overnight here in the campground.

Note:

I added a page that will show where we have stopped along the way this year called 2015 Travels. It is at the top of the blog next to the HOME tab. 

Dealing with the Damage - Pub & Grub Crawl

Thursday:

This was a day that we stayed around the campground to deal with the damage to The Duchess. We found out that our insurance company, Nationwide, has agreed to pay the claim and that the work will be done here in Marion through the Tom Johnson Camping Service Center. The Service Center here is a "Blue Ribbon Repair Shop" for Nationwide Insurance, so if the damage had to happen we were lucky that it happened here. Connie and I spent the afternoon visiting with several other campers here at the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally. We had another rainstorm come through in the evening (no awning to worry about this time).

Friday:

On Friday afternoon, Connie and I along with 14 other campers from the Reunion Rally went over to Black Mountain NC for the Creative Mountain Pub & Grub Crawl. This was a 3 hour walking, drinking & eating tour of several places in Black Mountain that have pubs or bars in them.

We started the crawl at the Monte Vista Hotel Fitz Bar which was named after a gentlemen named Fitzpatrick. He was able to have a National Historic Site designation put on the hotel which somehow allowed him to serve alcohol by the drink despite the county being dry. Within a few months, the town of Black Mountain voted to have liquor by the drink and later allowed the sale of alcohol within the city. We met the current owners of hotel along with the chef who runs the hotel restaurant (called Palate). We were served a drink consisting of sweet tea, honeysuckle simple sugar (from a plant on the hotel grounds) and vodka. The chef prepared us a reversed grill cheese sandwich with country ham along with potato chips he had fried in his kitchen. The sandwich had cheese on both the inside and outside and was delicious.

Some of the artwork in the hotel

On the front porch of the hotel with Kim and Tim

The owner of the hotel and the Fitz Bar

Guy & Sue (the birthday girl), Greg & Cori

From there we walked over the Merry Wine Market which is a shop that sells a wide variety of wines and beer. They stock a number of local and North Carolina wines and beers. There are 27 breweries located either in Asheville or the surrounding area, so there are a lot of choices in local brews. We sampled a local beer from the Catawba Brewery called White Zombie Ale.

White Zombie Ale

Kim, Sharon and David, Bonnie

Then we moved to the Black Mountain Ale House which is more of a pub than anything else. They had recently updated their food menu and served us wings with four different types of rubs. The beer served was a Hi-Wire Lager from a local brewery.

Our host for the tour, Sandi, followed by Tim & Kim

 On to the Dark City Deli & Pub where we were served a Carolina Apple Cider. The food consisted of red cabbage, quesadea and a pork & cheese sandwich all of which they serve at the pub. We met the owner who told us that there were ghosts who inhabited the building: a woman with children who would appear at various times. The building that was first built on the site burned around 1900 and there are some stories that this was a family that died in the fire (but no one seems to know for sure).

The deli consists of three buildings with passages between them

It was a walk of several blocks to the Lookout Brewery which is a nano-brewery: a brewery that makes even less beer than a micro-brewery. We met the owner who started brewing beer for his friends several years ago and then turned the hobby into a brewery. He gave us a tour of the small brewery as explained the beer brewing process. We sampled an American Pilsner beer along with their Black Mountain IPA.

Today's selections at the Lookout Brewery. It changes with the owner's taste buds.
The Manufacturers Defect was a batch that was drinkable, but not up to the usual standards.

The owner explaining the beer brewing process. They have just
acquired the property next door so they will be expanding soon.
Someday they will be a Micro-Brewery.

We finished up at the FRESH Wood Fired Pizza & Pasta shop. They served us three different types of pizza, flat bread with cheese toppings and peppers/tomatoes. The beers served included Mother Earth Beer, Maibock Lager and Highland Lost Cove. One of the campers on the crawl had a birthday today and her husband surprised her with a German chocolate cake. We all sang Happy Birthday and then helped her eat the cake.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon with the group and the variety of drinks & food we were able to sample along the crawl. Black Mountain NC is a beautiful little town with a number of shops and restaurants located within the city limits. The town swells to several times its normal size during the summer since the temperatures are usually cooler at the higher elevation the town is located at.

Golf, Awning Issues and The Biltmore Estate

Tuesday:

On Tuesday morning Connie and I went up to the sales office here at the campground (it is part of a Camping World complex) and walked through a number of used motor homes that they had for sale. After looking at several of them, we both decided that we made the right decision in selecting The Duchess to full time in.

In the afternoon I went and played golf with three other campers at the Black Mountain Golf Course which is located about 15 miles from where we are staying. The course was founded in 1929 with only 9 holes which were designed by Donald Ross. Later a second nine was added to make it an 18 hole design. The course is very tight with small greens. There was a Par 6 (yes that is correct - a par 6) on the back nine that measured 747 yards. I ended up with a 5 on the hole which was a birdie. The first time in my life that I took 5 shots on a hole and ended up "under par". I managed to keep the ball in play and shot a 79 which is much better than I thought I would do since this is the first time I have played this year.

The longest golf hole I have ever played.

Trees on the right and creek along the left.

In the evening after Connie cooked us a great meal of salmon, rice and salad, we joined several other campers in a "happy hour". By the time we joined the group the drinks had been flowing for several hours and everyone was in a happy mood. The sun began to set and a thunderstorm moved through the area. Everyone headed to their rigs to get ready for the rain. We put everything that we had outside the rig up and went in for the evening. However, we had forgot to bring the big awning in and even though the awning is on an automatic sensor that is suppose to bring it in when there is any wind, it did not. A short time later a gust of wind from the thunderstorm caught the awning and lifted one side of The Duchess (we think it took all of the weight off of that side of the motor home, not actually picked it up from the ground). The awning broke in two and did some damage to the fiberglass where it was attached to the rig. There was not much we could do since it was dark and rainy, so we waited to inspect the damage.

Wednesday:

We got up early in the morning to survey the damage: the awning was a total loss and there was damage to the fiberglass that will have to be repaired. I went over to the Service Center here at the Camping Center and arranged to have one of their workers come and take the awning off of The Duchess so that no more damage was done. Later in the day we called our insurance company, Nationwide Insurance, to start a claim and get the damage repaired. It will delay our leaving the area because the awning will be a "special order" meaning it takes more time to get here to North Carolina from the factory. This is a beautiful part of our country and there is lots to do in the area so if we are going to stuck here for a while we will have lots of places to visit.

The roller on the awning cracked in two

We used a pole we had to keep the awning off of the slide until it was removed.

We had already scheduled a trip the Biltmore Estate in Asheville as part of our Rally activities for today. Around 8:30 AM we made the 30 minute drive over to the Biltmore. When it was finished in 1895, it was the largest private residence in the USA. It remained a private residence until 1930 when the Vanderbilt family turned it into a place that the public could visit. As with most places that are of grand scale, pictures do not do it justice. We spent around 3.5 hours touring the house and gardens. The tour through the great house involves a lot of steps/stairs and by the end of it Connie was quite wore out. We both rented the audio tour devices which gives you a lot of information about the house, its history and occupants over the years. After finishing this part of the visit, we drove over the Biltmore Winery. The winery was started in 1985 and now produces a number of white and red wines. The winery is located in one of the buildings that was the Biltmore Dairy & Creamery for many years before it closed.  Most of the grapes used in the wines are grown in North Carolina but some are imported from California. We tasted several whites along with all of their reds. Connie liked the Zinfandel and we ended up buying one bottle of this variety.

Connie entering the grounds in front of the "house"

When George Vanderbilt finished this house he was a bachelor.

One of the lions guarding the entrance to the house.

Views of the formal gardens located near the house.

We found a local pizza place in Asheville on Yelp and ordered a 12" pizza for our late lunch. Upon returning to the campground, I went up and finished the paperwork for the insurance claim with the Service Department. The RV-Dreams group had a burger/hot dog dinner after which we retired back to The Duchess.

Visits to Two Wineries & Fun Day at RV Dreams Rally

Sunday:

On Sunday morning we got up, ate breakfast and then did our morning exercise. This morning we walked for a awhile and then took a short bike ride around the campground. The campground was full for the Memorial Day week-end so we got to see a wide variety of RV rigs. They also have a large service center as well as a sales center with new and used RV rigs.

We had signed up for a noon time brunch at the Silver Fork Winery which is located about 30 minutes away from the campground. We hitched a ride with Bill & Kelly over to the winery and were seated for the brunch. We thought that all of the RV Dreams group (there were 14 of us) would be sitting together, but we ended up at a number of individual tables. The food at the brunch was excellent and we both had a couple of glasses of wine along with the food. Connie has the Nonsense Blend which is has Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petite Verdot grapes. I had the Four Dog Red Blend which has the three grapes contained in Connie's along with Cabernet Savignon. The views from the winery were spectacular and there was a 4 person group that played music for about 1.5 hours. The two ladies had wonderful voices: they played some well known songs along with some songs that members of the group had written.

Some of the newest grapes in the vineyard

Connie sitting at our table for 2

This was only the second time this winery had done a brunch.
We told them they needed to continue to put these on.

Some of the older grapes in the vineyard (planted around 20 years ago).
This was the view from our table.

JAM: this was the first time this group had played in public together

After leaving the Silver Fork Winery, we decided to go over to another winery in the area: South Creek Winery. Connie and I both did the full tasting of all of their wines (both whites and reds) after which Connie got a glass of their cab/merlot blend. Lee Lindsey, who the owner had met at another winery, was playing outside of the tasting room on the patio and we listened to her for a while before we headed back to the campground.

This is the owner of the winery. He bought the winery from the original
owners in 2010.

Lee Lindsey performing on the patio.

The grapes at this winery were planted in 2000.

Patio outside the Tasting Room

Back at the campground, I went over and had some ice cream with all of the toppings (Connie skipped the ice cream) before calling it a full day.

Monday:

This was a day for activities around the campground at the Rally. Since we were participants in the activities, we did not take any pictures. I maybe be able to add some photos from other campers at a later date to this blog post.

After our morning walk, we went over to the pavilion for a full breakfast for all of the campers. After everyone had finished eating, we took group photos. Howard and Linda Payne, who are the couple that founded and run RV-Dreams, started doing educational rallies in 2008 and have done 1 to 3 educational rallies every year since then. Connie and I attended the educational rally in Goshen, Indiana in September 2014 and there were 10 other participants from that rally here at the campground. All of us are now full timing: we were that last ones to start from the group that is here at the Reunion Rally. If anyone is interested in the RV life style (RVDreams.com), the Paynes have one of the most comprehensive websites out on the internet with a lots and lots of information. I stumbled across the website several years and started reading Howard's blog about their decision to full-time RV and what they went through on their journey down this road. It helped us make the decision to live this lifestyle ourselves.

The afternoon was spent playing games and having fun. There were relay games, bean bag toss, washers, frisbee golf along with a number of other games that were played for several hours. This evening there was a pot luck supper after which we watch a slide show of previous rallies, remembered and honored our military veterans, and also remembered the members of the RV Dreams group who have passed away in the last few years. It was another full day here at the Reunion Rally.