Manteo to Murphy – The Last Leg

On June 8th we temporarily left our itinerary thru North Carolina for a short stop in Gaffney, SC. This is where Freightliner has their main production facility for the chassis that our RV is built upon. The chassis includes the foundation, the engine and the generator. Like any machine and related parts, this needs a good annual inspection and regular work and we figured it would be good to visit the factory service center for the work. We made an appointment and pulled in the afternoon before to park behind their service center so we’d be ready at 8 the next morning. Nothing glamorous but they did provide power.

All worked out well with the servicing, no problems found so we were able to leave after work was completed and drive about 1 1/2 hours north to the small town of Marion, NC. where our next week would be spent at a nice little campground on a creek with some shade and views of a huge open field.

While in the area , we visited Linville Caverns. We had previously visited this area last year, camping north of Linville Falls but never made it to the caverns so this was another chance to visit. It wasn’t really much to see, run by a private company that tended to run lots of tours thru so things backed up and it was hard to hear the guide at times. But it was still interesting and a cool place to be on a warm day.

The following Sunday, we travelled over to Tom’s Creek Falls which was an easy walk to a very nice waterfall. We were greeted with some wonderful views of this 60 foot waterfall.

After a relaxing week along the creek, we headed further west to one of our favorite places, Maggie Valley. We stayed at Cross Creek RV Park with a great view of the field and woods next to the campground. We’ve visited this area for the last several years so not a lot to report at this stop. We made our regular stops for fresh produce at Christopher Farms, a beer alongside Jonathans Creek at BearWaters Brewing, and a great meal and drinks at Boojum’s in Waynesville.

Although much of the south was experiencing temps in the 90’s and above at this late part of June, we were lucky to have cool enough weather to leave our windows open at night and even get in a good wash and wax on Lola 2.0

With regards to entertainment, it was pretty quiet at the campground. We did, however have some native visitors. On one occasion, a turkey wandered thru our campsite. One evening, the campers behind us were unlucky enough to be visited by a skunk. What made it way worse was that their dog attempted to chase the skunk, got sprayed, and then ran into the RV and jumped all over the furniture! Needless to say, they had a lot of work to do in trying to get the smell out of their dog and their RV!

On one of our last nights, we treated ourselves to a local production of Steel Magnolias which was put on at a very small intimate theater in Waynesville. It was very well done!

Our next and last stop was not officially in the state of North Carolina but still counts as we would complete our trip to the end of the state from this campground in North Georgia. We returned to Bald Mountain RV Resort in Hiawassee at a spot along the creek with some great shade. This was a busy week of meeting up with friends.

Over the course of the week, we met up with a lot of Jill’s friends from back when she lived in Lithonia. This included sisters Linda and Cheryl (and Cheryl’s husband Bob), Bill Mays, and Donna Moss (and her husband Jack). Linda and Cheryl just happened to have planned a family camping trip at the same campground at the same time so we were able to hang out at each other’s campsites. Donna and Jack had recently moved nearby to Hayesville, NC so we were able to see their new place as well as join up with them at a local winery. And not to be left out, we were able to meet up with our wonderful friends Bob and Sonja Short who we have known from way back in our whitewater paddling days! Overall, a great way to spend a week in the mountains!

Finally, it was just about time to wrap up this journey. To make it official, we travelled west to the very end of the state, reaching the state line at Tennessee.

As the sign indicates, we were now standing 563 miles from Manteo having travelled the width of the state of North Carolina. But, we didn’t take a straight line in making this journey. Here are some bits of data related to the trip:

• We departed April 25th from Dallas, GA and arrived back at the same location on June 28th. This totaled 64 nights
• We camped at 11 different campgrounds along our journey
• We travelled a total of 1,669 miles in the RV plus additional miles in the car
• Including our quick step across the line into Tennessee, we visited 4 states

We’d return to our friends’ property outside of Atlanta where we would remain until near the end of July when we’d make a few short trips. More on those plans with the next update but this gets us pretty much up to speed on our big trip for the year. Hope you enjoyed traveling along with us and see you down the road.

Dan & Jill