Time for the monthly update! During June, we retreated to the mountains of north Georgia and North Carolina and were lucky to have cool weather most of the time. The day after Memorial Day, we drove up to Crossing Creeks RV resort outside of Blairsville, GA. This is a nice campground and we upgraded to a large site on the creek with some nice shade.
Creek next to our site 
Jill enjoying the amenities 
View of site from creek
While in the area, we were able to visit several friends. First off was a great visit at the campground and then dinner with Bob & Sonja Short. We’ve known the Shorts from back in our whitewater paddling days and it was great to catch up with them again. And, discover an AMAZING authentic Cuban restaurant in Blairsville (Dan’s Grille).
Blairsville is close to where we spent many days and weeks when we had a cabin just north of the Georgia border in Murphy, NC. But lots of things have changed and we’ve discovered there are still lots of things to see and do that we never explored or didn’t exist back when we used to visit the area.
Our first exploration was to the Sun and Moon Alpaca Farm very close by. This is a working farm where they sell the “fiber” from their Alpacas as well as make various garments and other items from the fiber. We enjoyed the close up visit with the Alpacas as well as with the dogs that belonged to the farm
Ironically, long-time friends of Jill, Hill and Bridget Kelly, live just across the street from the Alpaca Farm so we dropped in on them to visit a bit since we were in the area. Great to be able to meet and see each other this year without masks!
Next on our schedule of exploration was to visit Project Chimps, just down the road from our campground. This is a non-profit that takes in monkeys (mostly chimpanzees) that have been used for medical tests and are now “retired”). They provide a place for them to enjoy and live out the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, tours of the facility were only being done periodically (unless you wanted a personal tour at a very high price) so we decided to just tour the grounds instead. This included a nice trail and a pond with some very large koi (which are also rescued!).
Next up was a visit with several friends including Bob & Cheryl Siler and Linda Cahill at a winery and restaurant (Crane Creek Vineyard and Paris & Company Restaurant) in Young Harris, GA. Beautiful place, great views, wonderful food, and fantastic time!
Wine tasting 
Two dudes 
Three pretty ladies
Not all days involved exploring places or eating out with friends. One day, we had a wonderful fresh grilled meal right on the creek. It included sausage along with fresh grilled tomato, potato, and squash. We even had entertainment from the local ducks.
Dinner on the creek 
Our local friends
Back on the road, we drove over to Blue Ridge to check out Mercier’s Orchard which included some spiked cider tasting as well as getting several of their famous pies! After a fun visit to Mercier’s, it was over to Harvest on Main for lunch. The place was pretty busy so we got chairs at the “bar”. This isn’t really the bar, it’s more of where the chef’s prepped for dinner. We enjoyed a great meal as well as talking with one of the chefs who was prepping for dinner service. Quite a great show!
After 10 wonderful days in Blairsville, it was time to drive north to Maggie Valley, NC. Due to the higher altitude, we enjoyed very pleasant temps while visiting for a week. We stayed at a favorite park of ours, Cross Creek RV Park. This year, we were parked next to the pavilion which provided extra entertainment as the seasonal folks (mainly the men) had regular gatherings every morning to talk and we could hear them starting around 7 everyone morning.
We were in Maggie Valley for a week and really didn’t do much. We did visit one of our favorite markets, Christopher Farms, which brings in all sorts of produce and other items from Asheville. Lots of fresh veggies and fruit! We spent a day walking downtown Waynesville which is a wonderful small town for window shopping.
Next stop was the very small town of Pineola, NC. The closest town of any name recognition is Linville which is also the name of a a river, some falls, and caverns all nearby. We were less than two miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway. We camped at a lovely little campground on the Linville River. Most sites were occupied by seasonal campers but everyone was friendly and it was a very quiet place to hang out for 9 days.
This campground did have a few unique quirks we have never encountered. They had no cable but that’s OK since we stream everything over a dedicated cell router. But, we were told we could not use our own WiFi because it would interfere with the campground’s WiFi. Almost every campground we have visited has had WiFi, never been told ours would interfere. So then we figured would could stream over their WiFi – nope! Not strong or built to handle any streaming, not even that good for email. And since we were so far up in the mountains, we were limited to a couple of PBS channels over the air. Yes, we are glamping when our only complaint is not getting good TV while camping 🙂
Lola 2 off to the right 
View down one of the streets
Our first outing took us onto the Parkway for a short but very difficult hike up to a great view of Grandfather Mountain and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
This was an easier part of the trail. 
Grandfather Mountain in the distance. 
After a strenuous walk, we needed a place to rest, have a snack and rehydrate. Luckily, Linville Falls Winery was just down the road. This is a beautiful winery (and Christmas tree farm too!) with a great patio to enjoy the views.
Our next adventure was to check out Linville Falls. The river, which flows lazily by our campground, reaches a point where it has created what some call the Grand Canyon of the south. The river plunges into the gorge in a series of water falls that are quite impressive to see.
Upper falls 
View of upper and lower falls 
We had a few rainy days while in the area but that didn’t slow us down. We decided that a rainy day would be a good time to visit another nearby winery so we drove over to Grandfather Winery for some tasting and enjoyed more scenery.
Our final outing was over to the town of Little Switzerland to visit the Bon Ami Mine. This area of NC Mountains was a very active mining area from late in the 1800’s to mid-1900’s. Various minerals were mined during this time and some of the abandoned mines are still accessible. The Bon Ami Mine has been turned into a museum where you can examine the tools and equipment used as well as explore a small portion of the mine. You can also see displays of products made from minerals that came from this and other nearby mines including Bon Ami cleaning products (see below)
We chose to skip the panning activity and just explored the museum and the mine. It’s amazing to realize how much was done by hand and very basic equipment to get these rocks and minerals out of the mine. After the mine was abandoned, a nearby stream was allowed to resume it’s natural flow and actually filled the mine (and another close by). But in the 90’s, as part of opening up the mining museum they decided to regain access to a small portion of the mine entrance. They built a small canal to pull some of the water out of the mine and set up more equipment and displays inside so that you have the opportunity to actually go into and experience what the mine might have been like when it was active.
There were a lot of artifacts but Dan’s favorite was this special item…
Yes, these may be the original versions of port-a-potties! The taller one is for two while the yellow one was for the boss (he gets his own potty!). They would roll these into the mine for “use” and then tow them back out for dumping. Sorry, no privacy while using!
After exploring the mine, we walked next door to see the camp store that has been restored for viewing. This is where the local post office was housed, where the boss worked, where minor medical (and dental) issues could be taken care of and basic supplies could be purchased (which is a nice monopoly since the miners would get paid, then walk the the store, run by the mine company, and give their money back to the company buying supplies…).
Our last stop before heading back to the Atlanta area was Travelers Rest, SC. This was a smaller KOA built along a creek. For the first time this month, we had a nicely shaded site that backed up to the creek. The upside is that temps were much nicer (we were now experiencing warmer temps and higher humidity since we left the mountains) under the shade but the humidity and the nearby creek brought in tons of little flying insects (Jill calls them fruit flies which seemed to make sense since they liked to hang around her glass of wine). Below are some pics of our site, the road thru the campground, and the creek behind our site.
Given our short day, we only planned to venture out one day. We were only 30 minutes out of Greenville so we decided to drive in and explore their downtown park that includes the Reedy River running directly thru it. It’s an amazing example of reclamation of what used to be an abandoned industrial area. It went from an area you couldn’t even see (a road bridge had been built over the falls area) to an area where hang out, enjoy the view, play with their dogs, etc., all right in downtown Greenville.
Given concerns about weather and the July 4th weekend traffic, we made the decision to depart Travelers Rest a day early and head back to Garrett Ranch on July 1st. We dodged most of the rain and pulled back into our regular site where we plan to remain until July 24th. That’s when we head off on a 43 day trip up to Decatur, Indiana to the American Coach factory for some warranty work. And of course, there will be lots of exploring along the way. But, before we wrap up this update, we thought we’d end with a few pics of our wonderful kids and grand girls (who are 18 months old!) who came to visit us over the 4th of July weekend.
