Pleasant Garden, NC

Last Thursday, we drove to Hagen-Stone Park near Greensboro, NC for the annual High Lonesome Strings Camp-N-Pick. We spent the whole weekend visiting with musician friends from the Triad area and playing a wide variety of music from old-time to bluegrass. For the first time in ages, I played all of my instruments - bass, fiddle, banjo and mandolin - over the course of the weekend. What fun!

On Saturday evening, we were treated to a covered dish supper featuring some delicious pork barbecue prepared by our resident chef, Kent, with help from his cut-up friend, Brent. I nicknamed them the "Ent" brothers. ;-) After we all pigged out, we were entertained by the Snyder Family Band featuring 10-year old Samantha on fiddle and 14-year old Zeb on guitar. Talk about young talent - wow! Then the picking sessions resumed until the wee hours of the night. . .

Boone, NC

We spent this weekend at about 3,500 feet in elevation in the NC mountains with our RV club - the Sams-O-Wake.

On Friday, we took some friends up to Blowing Rock, North Carolina's oldest tourist attraction (it's over 250 million year old). It is called Blowing Rock because the rocky walls of the gorge form a flume through which the northwest wind sweeps up the mountain with such force that it returns light objects cast into the gorge. I didn't try it though. The scenery was nice, too. From there, we drove to Valle Crucis, NC to visit (and shop) at the original Mast General Store. This place is like going back in time. They even had an old-time band playing on the back porch.

On Saturday, our main goal was to show our RV friends the famous Grandfather Mountain. This place has a mile-high swinging bridge that takes you over to the rocky summit of the mountain. We all crossed over the bridge but I was the only one who was brave (or stupid) enough to walk out on the rocks but the view from there was totally awesome! Then we traveled north along the Blue Ridge Parkway, walked under then drove across the Linn Cove Viaduct, and finally visited the Moses Cone House/Memorial Park before returning to the campground for dinner with the club. A fun weekend indeed!

Knightdale, NC (Home)

After a marathon drive from Gettysburg through work areas and traffic jams, we're home again - a month earlier than planned, but home we are. Get ready, Dr. Moore, I'll see you on Monday to hopefully fix my sciatica!

Gettysburg, PA - Day 3

Most of today was spent driving around the self-guiding auto tour of the Gettysfield Battlefield. While we covered a lot of it on our Segway tour yesterday, this time we saw the whole thing. We started at Oak Ridge where we walked to the top of a viewing tower, then on to the Eternal Light Peace Memorial. From there, we went to the North Carolina Memorial, McPherson Ridge, past Pitzer Woods down to Warfield Ridge, Devil's Den, Little Round Top, the Wheatfield, Plum Ridge, and many other historic battle sites. It never ceased to amaze us at how people were so willing to give their lives for what they believed in.









Our last stop of the day was back at the RV park where they have the country's largest diorama. This is a miniature display of the entire area showing every battle that occurred during those three days in history. There was a 35 minute long narrated light show using the diarama to document the major battles and their impact on the outcome of the war. Quite impressive for an RV park.

Gettysburg, PA - Day 2

We're doing it again - taking another Segway tour. We spent about 3 hours touring the old community of Gettysburg and most of the Gettysburg National Military Park by Segway instead of by automobile. What an amazing way to see the area! We were the only two on this tour, so we had our own personal guide for the whole 9+ mile trip. We saw many monuments - including one dedicated to the soldiers from North Carolina - and numerous cannons spread out over the enormous park. All along the way, we listened to a recorded explanation of the various battles and heroes of the battles that took place there.

After a late lunch, we walked through the Soldier's National Cemetery and got there just in time to become part of a tour guided by a Park Ranger. One of the things he pointed out was the actual site where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 (which, at the time, was viewed as one of the worst speeches ever given). The Lincoln Address Memorial monument shown here is about 300 yards from the actual site.

Gettysburg, PA

We're staying at an nice RV park that is literally surrounded by the Gettysburg National Military Park. What a cool place! Once we got the RV settled in, we went over to the park headquarters and signed up for a tour of the Dwight D. Eisenhower farm and home here in Gettysburg. The brick structure on the right was the originl home with the larger white section added later. He and Mamie bought the farm in 1950 and lived in it during his two terms as President and they eventually retired here and enjoyed raising black angus cattle. While a rainstorm kept us from seeing the whole farm, we did tour the house itself that was packed with memorabilia and restored to look like it did when they lived here and saw some of the farm buildings.

Pottsville and Hershey, PA

We started today by driving to Pottsville, PA for a visit to the Yuengling & Son Brewing Company - founded in 1829 making it America's oldest brewing company. The town was so cool, lots of interesting buildings built within feet of the roadway and obviously a very old town. We just missed the 10:00 tour and the next tour wasn't until 1:30 so we opted to move on to our next destination. Oh yeah, no tasting available either...pooh!

Next we went to Hershey, PA where we visited Hershey's Chocolate World. This place is both enormous and very crowded (especially considering that this is a Monday). We took the tour in a carnival-like ride that showed the process of making chocolate without actually showing us the real factory. It was still interesting but seeing the real thing would have been better. There were areas there where you could see a 3D movie or make your own chocolate (for $$) and, of course, the largest chocolate gift shop in the state was all around you. Right next door was a gigantic amusement park but we didn't go there.

Our next stop was the AACA Museum (AACA is the Antique Automobile Club of America) which has one of the largest and nicest collection of antique cars we have ever seen. Out in front they had the Hershey Kissmobile on display. Inside, they had an awesome collection of antique cars, some unique racing cars and specialty cars plus there was a wide variety of old motorcycles and busses - all nicely restored. One of the busses was used in the movie "Forrest Gump." There were even some nice reproductions of an old service station (back when gas was 17 and 6/10 cents/gallon) and an 1950's soda shoppe. It was like stepping back in time. A very nice museum indeed.