Wilson's Riverfront RV Park, Asheville NC

Our last stop in North Carolina... We have really seen all the varied terrain of North Carolina.  We are now just on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

This park had an interesting entrance... Kind of a hairpin turn into the park from the road.  We drove on past to get to the office, which is located at their repair shop, but still had to back up and get turned back in the right direction.  I'm so glad Brad has had plenty of practice with backing awkward equipment around on the farm!  All I have to do is stand outside and be ready to yell STOP!!!

It was worth the trouble to get in here.  When they say "riverfront", they really mean riverfront.  This is the view out our back window.

The land you can see across the river is part of the Biltmore Estate.  There is a walking path that we can follow to see some of the Biltmore Village, but we will have to drive to go see the Biltmore Mansion (there is no bridge on the walking path), which we plan on doing tomorrow.

Brad is getting the outside hookups taken care of.

We had beautiful mountainous scenery for the last hour or so of our trip today.

The weather is a little iffy right now.  Scattered showers and thunderstorms all around us.  We didn't know if we'd get set up before it started pouring, but for now, the rain is holding off.

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We finally decided the rain had gone away for good, so we took a stroll down the path that goes through our park and extends a half mile in one direction, and a mile and a half in the other.

You can see some of the buildings on the Biltmore property at several places across the river.

On the other side of the path opposite the river is a rock wall.

Can't wait to go check out the Biltmore Estate tomorrow!

Memorial Day

Low-key day here at the park.  We went in to the town of Four Oaks to put fuel in the truck, since we'll be hitting the road tomorrow, but that's as wild as we've gotten.  

The RV park has Memorial Day decorations out.

And Budger and I checked out the doggy park here.  It's nice when the parks have a dog park... Budger likes his time off the leash.  I think about half the places we've stayed at have doggy parks.

Brad has a pork roast going in the smoker... Yummy dinner tonight!

And he keeps his "blue tools" handy...

It's a warm day, but pleasant when sitting under the awning in the shade.

Looking good!

Getting closer!

All done!!  Yum!

Yummy dinner!

Just waiting around for ball games to start now.  Hitting the road in the morning, to head a little farther west.

Rainy Days and Antique Browsing in Selma NC

We woke up to a rainy morning today.  We didn't have a lot of plans, but had wanted to go into the town of Selma NC, to wander through the many antique shops there.  The rain stopped just after lunch, so we headed the few miles north.  There were at least 5 antique stores we went into, and 2 or three others that were closed on Sunday.  Lots of cool stuff.  It helps curb the shopping bug when you know you have very limited storage space!

I was tempted by these hats... ha!

Selma started as a railroad town, and we saw signs directing us to their Union Station.  Cute, but not quite the same as KC's Union Station!

We picked up a few groceries, and then headed back to the RV park... Just in time, as it turns out!

I had planned on cooking some hamburgers out on the grill, but scrapped that plan for some spaghetti!

Hope tomorrow's weather is better, because Brad is planning on smoking a pork roast!

Bentonville Battlefield and RV park picnic

This morning we drove to Bentonville Battlefield, about 10 miles away.  This was the site of one of the last battles of the Civil War.

We first went into the visitors center, where they had some artifacts, and we watched a short film about the battle, and the Civil War in general.

Then we were given a tour of the Harper House, which was used by the Union as a hospital during the 3 day battle.

The house was a basic square, with four rooms downstairs and four more upstairs, divided in the middle by a staircase.  Two of the rooms downstairs were used for surgeries.

This fireplace was in one of the surgery rooms.  It was painted by the Harpers to look like marble, but it was actually wood.

The inside of the front door also had faux painting, to look like wood grain.  Some things, like faux painting, never change!

While the downstairs of the house was being used as a hospital, the Harper family, all 11 of them, lived in the 4 rooms upstairs.  All of the rooms had fireplaces, so it was fairly easy to convert this one room into a kitchen.  The table has a lazy susan built right into it!

Another upstairs room... More faux painting!

During "normal" times, this building was the family's kitchen, built away from the house to protect the family from fire danger and the heat.  There were doors on three sides of it to provide a cross-breeze.

Much bigger fireplace in here.

To keep busy when not cooking.

The family had 3 slaves who would have lived here.  These slaves were to help with the cooking and cleaning.  The family owned a very large acreage of land, but Mr Harper leased out his land for others to farm.

This afternoon our RV park had a Memorial Day hot dog cookout.

Ladder ball and corn hole games were set up.  Brad and I played cornhole, and he whooped me 2 games to nothing.

Brad brought his guitar over and played a few songs.

And we had a little human limbo going on for a side show.

A fun day!

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I guess every Saturday night at this park, they show an outdoor movie.  We had been told it was going to be Forrest Gump, which I thought was cool, since we had just seen several places where it was filmed when we were in South Carolina... But they decided to show Max instead, since it's about a military dog.  They thought that would go well with Memorial Day weekend.  And I think the kids got out there first and chose a dog movie.  It was a really good movie.  Check it out if you've never seen it!