Stuck in the mountains

I'll start with showing this cabin that we have rented for a week starting Sunday night (10th).   We didn't see many pictures when we rented except some of flowers, but it turned out to be cute and comfortable.   (You read in the last blog that we have to spend time away from the boat while it's being repaired.)

 

 

I can't get the remaining pictures on this blog to go bigger as I usually can.  Sorry.

 

This is the coat rack.

 

 

 

Tom likes this very simple, but functional kitchen.

 

 

 

Now back a ways:  When Tom was working last week, I had chances to go out to find hikes around Knoxville.   I took one around a lake at Big Ridge State Park.  Toward the end I got to see this grist mill.  The sign that explained it was what touched me:  It said that everyone from every walk of life brought their corn there to be ground.  It turned out to be a big social event - they traded knives and horses, some played music and all got chances to visit with people from around the area.   Sounds like the nicest time.  We don't have many ways to meet and share needs and funs with others in our communities any more

 

 

The day after we left Tennessee, we explored North Carolina a bit.  Below is Tom looking out from the Falling Off Rock near Hendersonville, NC.

 

 

 

I have to tell you about the visit to Carl Sandburg's home.   It's a 247 acre national park that Sandburg's wifepractically gave to the country a couple of years after his death.   She left everything "as was" and walked away with a suitcase.  So it' not replicas of anything - it's all just the way they left it - a huge beautiful house overlooking the mountains with open fields and gardens.

 

Sandburg was a poet and biographer.   He got that way from traveling the country on the rails during the depression, learning to sing the songs he heard and accompanying himself on the guitar.   He was consulted by two presidents about how to be effective in communicating "with the people."   Below is where he sat to write each morning.

 

 

 

 

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I especially liked seeing the kitchen "a la" 1953.

 

 

His wife became renowned for raising the best goats, especially the best milkers.  She had the world's biggest producing milker record for ten years.  Descendents of the herd are kept there by volunteers who encourage people to enjoy and interact with the goats.

 

 

 

Tom came away from them saying he may want to raise a pygmy goat!

 

Sandburg wrote about how it's important for a man to get away from the worldly environment and think..  He often came to this chair site on a granite boulder near the house when it was nice to sit alone or write.    Tom looks just right there, maybe thinking high thoughts.

 

 

 

 

Okay, change of subject: today, we drove and explored the small town Saluda near the cabin.  Then we headed off to Lake Lure.   It turns out to be a beautiful lake set among mountains.  Many of the mountains have rock outcroppings that make them more dramatic than just plain 'ol mountains.

 

 

Toward the end of the day, we hiked up a steep mountainside at Florence Nature Preserve where we followed a small stream and eventually saw this small waterfall.  It is just so good to walk hard and breath hard, climbing up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continued Sojourn

I won't be posting any pictures 'til after the 14th because of lack of internet bandwidth.    But I can tell you what's happened to us.

We had a grand week in Powell, TN, above Knoxville, where Tom went to work each day and I hiked or shopped or explored. 

The transmission on  our boat had not always been going into forward gear and it got worse on our last trip toward Folly Beach, SC.   So it has been pulled and determined that we need a new one.  We heard last Thursday that it won't be here 'til about Nov. 25 (yes, Thanksgiving!)      And while it's out another person is going to completely service the motor, putting rear seals on it and making sure it otherwise is in good working order.

Liveaboards are not allowed at the marina.  So here we are, with time on our hands in the mountains - not a bad place to be.  

Tom had promised to show me Ashville, NC so we went there straightaway.   That day was overcast and when we got there, traffic was everywhere and all the motels were full.   I didn't get a very good impression of the place.  We drove on toward Hendersonvillle where we found a motel and had dinner at a place where a man was playing a saxophone while we had very reasonable priced, very good food.  I talked a few times with a woman sitting alone who turned out to be the wife of the musician and who had lived in a nearby small town (600) in the mountains, Saluda, for a few years.  She said she had lived in small apartments and very large homes and is now very content in her 650 square foot cabin.    I could relate to that, having been living for a good part of this year in 360 or so square feet on the boat.     And Hendersonville is relatively flat and open with the downtown main street updated with very wide park-like setting where people can sit at tables or bicycle while cars go slowly down the street. Here there are greenways between towns and in parks for bicycle excursions.

We decided to take a cabin here for a week and last night was our first, in a cabin down a windy road, about a mile from Saluda, the little mountain town.  Yesterday, we drove up to a place called falling off rock where there was a wide view and we hiked trails below on the rocky crest.  Later, we went to Carl Sandberg's home here.  I will say more about that and show pictures when I can.  He is an inspiring man.

I have just read yesterday's blog entry by a woman who has left her farm in northwest Arkansas and spent many months looking for a similar small farmsite here in the North Carolina.  In Arkansas, she was disillusioned with the many draughts, freezes and untimely ice storm.  Her post yesterday described a place she finally found here  that will be just right.  

After this year on the boat, we may follow her path.  We'll have to see how we feel when the time comes.

Inland sojourn

So we picked up the Enterprise rental car and started our two-week land trip, having lunch at a Vietnamese sandwich shop (yes, you read that right) in Charleston which we agreed was really yummy.  Springs rolls with peanut sauce, then very flavorful meats with crunchy vegetables in a toasted bun.  

Then we headed west and north through northern South Carolina, southern North Carolina and then northern Georgia (maybe not in that order!).    We noticed right away that fall had come.

 On the drive north through Georgia, we saw a few fields of cotton, something I normally don't see.



Tom found only small scenic roads for the drive.  We took two and a half days to drive about 8 hours over to the Smoky Mountain National Park.  Leaves there were past their peak, but we saw some pretty ones.
When we got to the Smokys themselves, I learned that you may only go into them a few ways and then, unless you're camping, you drive out of them the same day.  

We drove up to the highest part of the Smokys, Clingman's Dome, where there is a tower.  It started to sleet and we didn't climb it.

These berried trees were in many places at the top of the drive.  I should know what they are - a type of hawthorn?

You can see the sleet here - little white slashes.

We had just started down from that high part when Tom pulled over into a trailhead for the Appalachan Trail.   We saw that it was just 1.7 miles to the next trailhead.  He volunteered to let me walk the trail while he took the car on down to the next access.  So I got to walk awhile and alone.  Fun!

I came to a fence!   It turns out that the Forest Service had fenced 20 acres to keep out wild boar to protect a stand of bass trees.  They created this stile so one could walk up and over the fence at entrance and exit to the plot.

It continued to sleet while I was walking.

Tom was starting to walk the trail back toward me when I came out at New Found Gap.

  

Tom at the stream near the place we picnicked.

Cade's Cove.  Apparently a cove is a grassy valley surrounded by mountains.  This was very beautiful, but too popular.   We got stuck in traffic and Tom had to drive us out a back way that he knew that turned out to be so pretty and calm and took us down a nice log-cabin feel motel that overlooked more forested hills.

The day after we drove through the Smokeys, we took a foothills parkway over toward where Tom's son Josh and wife Stephanie live.  Here we could look back to the Smokeys.

Folly Beach!

Who knew there was such a place!    It's the closest ocean access, an island, 30 minutes from Charleston.     That's where we have been these last two nights, getting organized to travel by car to Knoxville, TN.   We've subleased a man's boat slip here for two weeks.   So two days ago, we had to FIND it.  It's two and a half hours down a river toward the ocean from the Waterway.

The bar/restaurant over our marina is the hang out where locals come to watch the sunset each night.  We were there both nights, participating in the local ritual.

It turns out to be a really nice place.     A very tropical feeling place with a long beach with a county park at the end that I biked to and walked yesterday.

Below is an example of the settings of the houses along the river near the Waterway.  Most were under big drapey oak trees.

As we came toward the marina, we passed a couple of islands covered with birds, mostly pelicans

We had eaten all the fresh food aboard, so we HAD to go to a place in town for lunch.

When I walked around the county park at the end of the beach, I came to alongside the inlet where we might sail on out to the ocean when we come back.  We're told it's only 48 hours from here if we head straight to  Palm Beach.   I doubt we'll try that, but we may try something shorter, according to the weather at the time.

I thought that this is just the way these birds stand.  But when one tried to move, he hopped on one leg.   The other must be standing that way just in sympathy.

What is this?  Tom says it's the bottom of a type of crab.

Sunset last night.  Less dramatic, but more dreamy.  Kinda irridescent.

Still no food so we had blackened grouper bits and fish tacos after the sun went down.

Georgetown, second time around

But first, some more pictures of the waterway after we left anchor and motored south toward Georgetown.

There was a fire at Georgetown SC since we were there last.  It took out a few of the many blocks along the waterfront.

Otherwise, the water front and street behind it still looked so fun.  We walked some of the neighborhoods off the main street and saw that most streets were shaded with big live oaks.  Very inviting.

We had drinks at this bar, then went back to our boat for dinner.  We didn't get to eat at Bistro 'cause it was Sunday and most restaurants were closed.

We did have time to catch the sunset.

Now we're motoring on down to an anchorage just north of Charleston so we can get to Folly Beach by maybe the next day.