Autumn on the Road

My girls have been so excited for fall. Frankly, all of us have and I think this is one of the best fall seasons we have spent together as a family. The weather here in Brevard is picture perfect – crisp and cold in the morning with crystal blue skies, warming to upper 50’s during the day as cotton ball clouds pass through in little convoys. The leaves are changing into a variety of colors and the town has blue lights on the street lamps at night. Shops on North Broad Street have glittering, arched backed cats in the windows and pumpkin lanterns and a bakery serves caramel apples, the smell wafting strongly on the breeze. Trucks drive by with skeletons roped into their grills. We see and hear white squirrels (yes, white!) scurrying and crunching through the dry oak leaves littering the lawn here in our rental. 

That is all good for getting one in the autumnal mood but I think the real reason we are so excited for fall is homesickness. This reminds us all of Colorado and perhaps we never realized how much we craved the changing of the seasons. And most years we never had much time during fall for each other, what with school and school and school. Now we’ve had two weeks of wonderful fall weather, camping in the Smokey Mountains with big campfires every night. We’ve made milk jug leaf lanterns, had hot chocolate delivered by golf carts at a campground, listened to live music by a big hot fire in an outdoor fireplace, hiked the Appalachian Trail in all its fall splendor, and whipped out our sleeping bags in the camper because it got so cold in the early mornings (again, someone refused to get a generator). 

My kids whoops of joy at seeing a campground office decorated for Halloween (picture giant spiders on the roof, skeletons in various poses, gravestones, etc) was so great.

Needless to say we are excited to find somewhere good in Savannah, GA to trick-or-treat. It just has to be a good town for Halloween

After Tropical Storm Ophelia forced us off our plan, we spent a couple wet nights in Emporia, VA and then turned back toward the coast (a little leery) for the Outer Banks. The weather was really terrible. We had one good day and then four days of steady winds (‘fresh winds’, as they call it out there), blowing sand and heavy overcast. The temperature barely changed day or night staying around 70-74 degrees. Sleeping was uncomfortable. Our site barely fit our camper and was right next to the dunes. Sand built up everywhere and on everything. The high tides were scary high and breached the dunes next to the highway in a couple places forcing the NC DOT to bring in excavators to replace the sand. 

We left the Outer Banks, somewhat eagerly, and headed for Raleigh and Chapel Hill. I went for a ride at a small trail system while the girls toured UNC at Chapel Hill. Teagan got herself a nice Tar Heels shirt. We stayed on Jordan Lake in a dry, pine forest with lots of space and privacy and clear, calm, dry weather. Such a refreshing change from the humid, sand-filled wind of Nags Head. It was also our first hint of fall as the temperature dropped a little at night.

The North Carolina State Museum of Natural Sciences was the best museum we’ve been to yet. And yes, we visited multiple Smithsonian’s in D.C. I have never seen my kids more excited. They were running everywhere. Couldn’t get enough. Wendy and I just looked at each other and laughed and tried to keep up. The live spider exhibit helped!

After Jordan Lake we visited two Harvest Hosts. Sienna loves these places, as do we all. You can stay on private land for a night and they have a good app for finding places along your route. We stayed one night at an animal farm. Pint-sized Pastures in Sanford, NC brings their goats, donkeys, pigs, roosters, and cows to fall festivals and school events. They also host at their farm. We had the place to ourselves with the owner and he gave us a tour and we learned a lot about he got started. He gave us some pecans grown on his property. All the while his little white goat, Bella, followed us everywhere. When we stopped she would stand on our feet and look up at us. We parked the RV in the back of his field and watched huge wolf spiders crawl out of the grass and onto the sand under the RV. 

The next night we stayed at Henry River Mill in Hickory, NC. This place is on the historic register and was an old cotton mill that once housed many families in 20 homes scattered across the property. They have been abandoned since the 70’s and you can walk around them and see relics of the past. Nature is slowly taking them over. Also, the main draw, is that it was a filming location for the Hunger Games. While we were there a film crew was filming a music video. In the video apparently someone gets murdered. We heard screams and later saw an actor walking up one of the old roads covered in blood – fake, I hope.

In Hickory the fall weather really caught up to us and we broke out our sweaters and long pants and warm socks.

After that we drove to Asheville and began our tour of the Asheville/Smokey Mountains/Brevard area. It is busy here. Lots of congestion and construction and traffic which takes away some of the draw for me. But the fall weather is special and the three days we spent in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park were sublime.

We are now trying to catch up on sleep, school, repairs, immunizations, online ordering, cleaning, etc. It feels good to have a real home for a bit, but also strange. I realize how nice it is to have everything you need within a 6’ radius when you live in an RV. Now, in this house my s*&% is scattered everywhere and I’m walking up and down the stairs to get a sweatshirt or a book or a charger or food or a tool. In the camper it is all right there and man is that nice. Literally, everything I need to live is within just a few steps in my RV. 

We leave next week and I’m wondering how that will go. Will my kids be sad to get back into the camper (they each have their own room right now)? Or will they be excited to get back on the move? Will we fall right back into the swing of things in the RV, or will it be hard to adjust again after this stop? Wendy and I agree that it took us 4 months to finally adjust. Time will tell how this house stay will affect life back in the RV.

Oh, there’s another white squirrel in the yard. 

Ava, look!

(here are some photos from the past couple of weeks)