Thursday, 20 July 2023
Strange saga continued from yesterday's post:
I know the power was out at midnight and again at 4:30 because I looked at the clock. And I overslept until 4:30 because I was so tired and sleep deprived, which set back my usual schedule, not to mention Dext's bathroom habits. The power went off again 6 more times after I got up, and by 7:10 I finally unplugged and turned on the generator because I was worried about messing up the RV's electrical system with such frequent on-offs. Running a generator in a campground is generally not allowed, but I figured I had a good excuse if I needed one.
I called the office once again at 9:20 this morning, which should have been during office hours, but I got the same recording - and this time my message was that I wanted a refund for at least one of these nights. By 10:00 the campground owner was testing the power box next door, and when I went out to talk to him he apologized up one side and down the other both for the power problem and for the phone call problem. He said they wouldn't charge me for either night and offered to move me to a nicer site. He said the security company was supposed to have notified them right away yesterday that I'd called but didn't, which he said he'd be checking into, and that's why they hadn't taken care of the problem yesterday.
He was really nice about it - including saying that my generator use was completely reasonable - but by then I'd gotten spooked and decided to head on down the road to Asheville, where I was expected Friday night anyway. I told him that I thought he and his family were trying hard to do a good job here and promised that I wouldn't ding him in online comments.
I'd checked online for availability in Asheville for tonight but decided not to call ahead. I wanted to see what the campground was like, in case I decided not to stay there for 2 nights but instead to go on to Murphy a night early. It was 10:25 when we got on the road, with Google promising me the drive to Asheville wouldn't take as long as 2 hours.
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| today's drive |
I saw a sign for the Hiddenite Center Museum, and my reaction was "Huh?" I hadn't realized I was in the town of Hiddenite - probably because it's not exactly a town but instead a "census-designated place," with fewer than 600 residents. This museum is in a mansion once owned by "Diamond Jim" Brady himself (he was a gem dealer) and is now a folk art museum that includes furniture and dolls and art, much of it from the 1800s. Probably interesting if I'm ever in the area with extra time.
I passed a sign for the Bunker Hill Covered Bridge, which I hadn't heard of and wish I'd known about. It's one of the 2 remaining covered bridges in the state and may be the last covered bridge in the US with Haupt truss construction (per Wikipedia). As far as I can tell, the Haupt truss is a lattice-like structure that sends compression forces (from something crossing the bridge) directly to the abutments and that, as I understand it, was a design that made the bridges both easier to build and stronger once they'd been built. Well, that's what I missed here - definitely something to see on the next trip.
I really needed gas but when I got to Hickory found that $3.49 was the best price I could get. I only got $50 worth and hoped for better in Asheville.
Everywhere I've gone in North Carolina I've seen green. Of course, this is summer, but having grown up in Texas I can assure you that summer doesn't guarantee green in all states. In the distance I saw low green mountains covered by rain clouds - very pretty.
And then we started getting steady rain - not so pretty but badly needed.
We crossed the Catawba River and I saw this sign: "Low Visibility Likely Next 6 Miles." Maybe that's an acknowledgement of clouds covering the mountains?
We entered the Pisgah National Forest. I knew it seemed green here.
A sign told me we were crossing the "Eastern Continental Divide" at 2,786'. To get there I drove a 6-mile-long steep hill, and because of the steady rain I was glad to be going up it, rather than down.
Next was the town of Black Mountain, which calls itself "The Little Town That Rocks," which is apparently a double pun. Meaning #1: the town was named for the train depot called Black Mountain because of being at the southern end of the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge Mountains which, in turn, are part of the Appalachian Mountains. So, lots of tall rocks. Meaning #2: they also call themselves "The Front Porch of Western North Carolina," and suggest visitors should pull up a rocking chair. So, the town "rocks."
The driver in the car ahead of me was so short I couldn't really see him/her. Weird sensation.
Thanks to water on the road (not my driving skill), I hydroplaned half off the road. Thank goodness for the many years I lived in a very wet climate which helped me develop the skills to stay alive.
Back in Asheville, we went again to the French Broad River dog park, where we've been several times before. Even though it was lunchtime on a Thursday, this time we were all alone here, presumably because it was still lightly raining. Dext still had lots of things to sniff but it wasn't as much fun for either of us without companions. We had lunch and left around 2:00.
Our next stop was the CVS to pick up my prescriptions. The parking lot of that location is seriously sloped. Maybe not so bad for cars but a real problem for my RV. A regular parking space would have the RV almost perched on its side from the slope, which would be really uncomfortable for the occupants and not so great for the RV's various mechanisms (like the frig). But I managed to find a not quite approved, vaguely level parking space and tried to get out of the store quickly.
I've noticed all along my travels in North Carolina that the DOT seriously needs to trim the trees and other growth that is covering signs all over the state. I'm sure it wasn't this bad when spring started, but we're half-way through July and it's way past time for them to get out here with clippers. I've found lots of signs all over that are mostly or almost entirely obscured by untrimmed growth - and some of those signs are important to road safety and navigation.
We stopped at a grocery store not far from the turn for tonight's campground and left there about 3:45.
The KOA said they did have a campsite available for tonight but I'd have to move to another one tomorrow because of the campground being almost full both nights. I didn't say I might spend only one night because I wanted to see what both campsites were like, i.e. whether they were badly sloped.
Tonight's site wasn't bad, which was lucky, but the rain was increasing so the site itself and the roads in that section were increasingly muddy. We'd been assigned to a section up quite a steep hill and there wasn't much of anywhere to walk, but with the rain, we weren't inclined to dawdle outdoors anyway.
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