Fun Times!

Cedar Point CG (site #36)
Cedar Point, NC

I find it hard to blog when I’m in a less than inspiring location (driveway), but I also find it difficult to tickle the keyboard when I’m in a lovely place.  I’d much rather be out there enjoying each day to it’s fullest.  Here at Cedar Point, our days have been pretty full.  To make it even harder to post a blog, we’ve got great neighbors right beside us.

 

That’s right.  It’s Nancy and Bill!  They have heard us make good comments about this cg so they wanted to join us for a few days.  I’m sure glad they have.  In the shots above, we were on the Tideland Trail right here at the cg doing a little geocaching.  We finally found the hide…well Nancy actually found the puzzle one.  We’ve had a busy few days but we’ve had some nice relaxing times also.  The weather has been perfect for roasting veggies over the campfire and enjoying a picnic together too.

There’s been plenty of other activities that I’ll post about later.  You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get to it real soon but I’m just enjoying life one day at a time.

CARPE DIEM!!

Relaxing Day

Huntington Beach State Park site #111
Murrell’s Inlet, SC

This was our last full day here so we spent it relaxing around the campsite.  We were recuperating a little from yesterday’s long walk actually.  We did still take a bike ride through the CG to look at all the nice sites here.  They are definitely filling up for the long holiday week end.  This is our site #111.

It’s pretty private although the fire pit area is opened to the next campsite.  We prefer a site surrounded by plants and trees as long as the satellite dish receiver works.  Generally the sites on the right-hand side of the road have a more private patio area.  These folks are definitely set up for the holiday.  They have friends and family staying at several other sites here like a family reunion.

I know turkeys are the symbol of Thanksgiving, but I’ve grown accustomed to the beautiful birds of the marsh here.  The egrets and herons, although the mosquitoes have been almost as big and most plentiful.

  

We enjoyed the afternoon and evening sitting by the campfire.  Maybe it’s just me, but I can get a little testy on our last day at a beautiful place.  I know I hate leaving here.  I think full-timing will be quite a bit different because I’ll look forward to going to  another nice place.  We’ll be on the road tomorrow along with a lot of people so I’ll wish you all a…

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!  

(Chalk drawing provided by kids in the CG)

Thanks for dropping by, and enjoy each day of your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.

Smudge’s Day

Huntington Beach State Park site #111
Murrell’s Inlet, SC

We had planned to spend the morning on the bikes but Smudge had other plans.  She has separation anxiety and hasn’t eaten much the last couple of days.  She had an upset stomach so we knew we needed to be with her instead.  We decided to take her to the shore since there is a lot of hard sand there.  A poodle doesn’t do good in the soft sand…gritty.  She barked at a bird and stared at it.

 

But mostly, she barked at me to pick her up.  We should have named her Velcro because she sticks to me and she looks like velcro.

 

She really doesn’t care for the beach like some dogs.  That’s ok because I can’t imagine all that sand and salt water in her fur.  I’m not sure if the tide was coming in or out, but this was a nice tidal pool flowing.

 

After we all had a nice stroll on the beach, we went back to camp to enjoy a lunch of delicious left-overs.  Since Smudge was feeling better, Gin and I took a few minutes to ride the bikes around in the CG.  This place stays pretty full.  Some of the Thanksgiving crowd is already arriving.  We now have neighbors on one side of us.  Gin got a nice campfire going while Smudge curled up in my lap.  We cooked some brats and marshmallows for supper.  Don’t worry.  We had our veggies for lunch.

A few folks asked about the roaster so Gin took some shots to show how we have it set up.  Notice the reflection of the bikes in the freshly waxed MH.

 

We sit one of those disposable aluminum pans in the roaster pan so that clean up is easier.  For storage, we put the lid in the styrofoam packaging that it came in.  We also kept the box and reinforced it with duct tape and cut out a little spot for the handles.  There is enough room in our basement to put our Baby-Q grill on top of it.  We plan to take it with us when we finally hit the road.

 

We’ve enjoyed the wonderful weather here this week.  Maybe it’ll hold up for us so we can enjoy the bikeway.  Thanks for dropping by, and enjoy each day of your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.

Cameras

Huntington Beach State Park site #111
Murrell’s Inlet, SC

We visited with Sherry and David a few precious minutes this morning before they headed north to their house in Va to take care of some things.  It was wonderful visiting with them.  They are good people.  We’ll see them again in April at the RV-Dreams rally.

I rode my e-bike around a little bit taking pictures with our new camera.  It’s a Canon PowerShot SX30 IS much like Karen uses for her blog. Wow! It really does have a super zoom feature!  Our other two cameras are also Canon’s.  One is a small powershot that we take when we paddle and the other is an EOS Rebel T1i with a 250mm zoom.  It takes great pictures, but we always seem to have the wrong lens on it.  The new camera is versatile.  I like the fact that you only have one lens so you are always ready.  You do have to hold your breath to get that real tight zoom.  Here’s a few shots to see what you think.  I was still sitting on the e-bike and the end of the boardwalk to the beach for this shot.  No sand in my shoes.  (Remember that all the pictures will enlarge if you click on them.)

I rode over to one of the observation boardwalks over the marsh for a few more shots.  This flock of birds just looked like specks on the water and I could hardly see what this cormorant was doing on the post.

I enjoyed watching this pelican from a “close” distance, and this great egret was enjoying the sun on the causeway.

  

While I was on the causeway, a gentleman with a tripod, camera, and a huge zoom lens walked by.  Some other folks had told me that a rare Bald Eagle had been perched high in a tree for a while.  I spoke with this guy and he was kind enough to point him out to me.  He had been waiting all morning for him to fly but had to leave.  I’m sure he got some nice shots but this one is quite nice and much easier.

While the chicken wings were cooking on the grill, we sat back and watched the NC State-UNC football game on the outdoor tv.  State won.  It’s been a tough year for the NFL Panthers so we have to enjoy the ole college team.

    

This cute little marsh wren kept boppin’ around and on top of the MH tire.  It was interesting to watch.

As the game wound down, Gin got a nice fire going while I walked to the visitor’s center boardwalk to see if I could get a decent picture of the sunset.  I love these two Wilson's plovers reflecting on their day.

As the sun set to the west, the full moon rose in the east.  It was another wonderful Sylville, and Ginville, kind of day.

  

Thanks for dropping by, and enjoy each day of your life’s journey by finding beauty in the ordinary.

Moore Cove Falls

Cascade Lake CG
Pisgah Forest, NC

I started the morning a little earlier yesterday.  The water on the lake was so smooth and it was quiet.  Except for the humming birds.  I know at least one cg host has a feeder.  They’re hungry little things.

We decided to go to Moore Cove Falls.  The weather was perfect, low humidity and about 80 degrees.  I packed a picnic lunch and refilled the humming bird feeder.  While I was doing that, our cg neighbor came by to say that she has enjoyed the little birds too.  She has been full-timing about four years now in her Lazy Daze Class C MH.  She’s a senior citizen and is on oxygen but seems quite happy.

We drove over towards Brevard and Hwy 276 past the Ranger Station.  There is a little pull-off on the right side of the road right at a bridge.  This is where the trail to the falls begins.  It’s about 7 tenths of a mile one way…up.  That’s the Suki by the road.

 

We saw a lot of fern and moss on the trail.  You can hear traffic for a while but then birds and running water are the only sounds.

 

It was so peaceful with a small creek right beside us.  Mostly “down” beside us.  It is only about 4 feet wide and that is what the falls is on.  I wasn’t anticipating a very big waterfall.

Little one-person bridges crossed it several times.  There were a couple of big rock outcroppings along the way.

It just amazes me that a big tree or in this case, a beautiful rhododendron bush can grow out of solid rock.  What a great root system.

I sure wish all the trail was this nice, but about half of it had steps, stones, or roots to trip you up.

We finally got there, and it was worth it!  That’s me in the bottom corner.  It’s a 50 foot fall even though it’s a small creek.

The greatest thing about this waterfall is walking behind it and looking up through the water at the blue sky and trees.  Small plants are hanging on for dear life in the rock.

It’s almost like a cave behind the falls.  There is this one really neat rock formation about the size of a car jutting out but touching anything.

I’m not real sure what Gin was thinking about, but she may have been dreading the walk back down the trail.  This is her last hike for quite a while.  Her legs are killing her.

We slowly started our descent back to the Suki.  This is a popular trail.  Many people passed us going up and coming down.  They all seemed to be in a rush to get to the falls but didn’t go slow enough to enjoy the journey.  A little bit like life for some folks.  We stopped to look around and even enjoyed breathing the clear air.

We decided to have our picnic at Sycamore Flats.  It’s a nice public day use picnic area of the Pisgah National Forest.  There is a Forest CG close by, Davidson River CG, that has no hook-up on most sites.  We’ll keep it in mind when we are full-timing in this area.  This picnic area is beside the river and is a popular place.  The squirrels are almost tame.  This one was fun to watch.  He kept burying the same nut over and over.  Notice how he pats it down with his paws.

We made it back to camp.  Smudge had stayed home this time so I walked her as soon as I got there.  Gin took a well deserved nap on the couch and I snoozed a bit in the lounge chair outside.  It’s made for lounging ya know.  After supper, Gin built a nice campfire and we sat outside until the stars came out.  You just don’t know how many there are if you live near a city.  Oh, the coconut marshmallows were a perfect ending to the day.

We plan to take it easy today around camp and perhaps paddle on the lake some.  It’s another perfect weather day so we may just sit outside and enjoy the clear mountain air.

Near Perfect Day

Cedar Point CG site #37
Croatan National Forest

OK so I left ya hangin’ for a day or so.  I’m sorry but this is such a Sylville kinda place that it’s easy to loose track of time.  Sunday was Mother’s Day so of course we each called our Mom’s for a nice chat.  Cell phones have changed our lives mostly for the better.  We mainly hung around the CG on a beautiful day.  There are a few geocaches in the area and a couple right here in the park.  We had logged in some a couple of years ago, but one of them (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha) is a puzzle cache where you get the clues for the coordinates from the nice nature trail.  We used those to find the cache in the woods.  We relaxed some more, and Julie (the camp host) came over for a visit.  Her daughter was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer after having battled other cancers in the past.  It’ll be an uphill battle.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her and her family.

Monday was an absolutely gorgeous day.  It wasn’t very windy or humid so we got the kayaks in the water.  As we paddled out into the White Oak River, it was low tide and very shallow.  The bottom near the boat landing looks like dark chocolate brownie mix.  It doesn’t smell like it though.  We didn’t have our GPS with us but I remembered seeing an island cache on the geocache website and thought we might could find it.

It was kind of a long paddle but it was such a nice day that we thought we could do it.  We found the little green island and the cache and headed back to the boat landing.

We were paddling into a head wind but we got there by keeping it slow and steady.  I was surprised at how shallow it was.  Gin got some nice shots of some birds.  Here’s a seagull drifting in the air.

And a Snowy Egret at the boat landing.  As we approached, he of course flew off down the canal.















This was our first time using the hullavators after rowing for a few hours, and it was nice not to have to lift the yaks over our heads.  They weren't cheap but I think they are worth it for us shorter folks.   We got back to camp and fixed an early supper.  It still felt nice outside so Gin fixed a good campfire.  There is lots of honeysuckle at our site so the fragrance fills the air.  The hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees like it too.

There was an Osprey drifting on air current way above us and we could hear one in the distance.  As the day changed to evening, we sat by the fire and listened to the whippoorwill call for his mate.  It was a nice ending to a near perfect day.