It was our longest travel day so far. We left Savannah, pulling our toad with Mollie in her stroller/car seat on Sunday 8/1. We learned a few things. We ALL need a break every 2 hours. It’s definitely not like taking an easy Sunday drive. And, everything takes longer in an RV. Yolo is equipped with a Ford E450 super duty engine so has zero problems pulling up the mountains of North Carolina but me (Jana) is still learning how to drive all this power. So, I feel pretty white knuckled going 55 mph up a mountain and again white knuckled heading down seeing signs for runaway ramps. I’m not sure anything feels better than landing in our new “spot” when we finally arrive. But here, in the Smoky Mountains, it just felt like a huge Ahhhhh.
We knew Kimberly had to travel the very next day so we basically just hooked up Yolo and found an amazing dinner and cold beer at a place called Goldfinch in Black Mountain. My dear old friend Kevin met up with us and even after a long travel day, we were happy and full and ready for our first sleep in cool mountain air.
Typically, Kimberly returns late afternoons on Fridays of a travel week. But, on our first week in Asheville, her dear childhood friend passed away and Kimberly flew from her travels back to Florida for Angies memorial. Kimberly got home late Sunday but had 7 days of playing in Asheville and surrounding areas on our second week here. Of course we prepared for these types of life events to occur after we started travel. We will always try to be where we need to be for our immediate and greater family.
So I had a week of exploring in advance. Kevin and I took a waterfall hike and found the best produce market/farm store ever. I cooked outdoors and had fires in the fire pit each night and slept with all the windows open. Mollie seems to have taken on the role as queen of the campgrounds. She tends to wander over to the office a good bit and she has learned about free roaming chickens. There is a “bark park” here but Mollie just sits next to me on the bench without a clue about how to run around in a park. What queen would run around a park?
I have enjoyed the abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables and BREWERIES. We are here at the perfect time for corn, tomatoes, blackberries, peaches, watermelon, beans, peppers, squash and BEER. We also get fresh eggs from the campground chickens.
Our Campground, SkyIsland Retreat and Campground is located in Old Fort, NC, pop 850. The owner Deb has been an awesome host and we are so happy we planned a month here on site number 4. Deb took me to the local brewery and I was shocked that a small town this size has a brewery! Hillman Brewery is awesome and I have since become a regular. Our campground neighbor is an actor and you’ll see him in the final season of Ozark in February. I can’t tell you anymore than that, lol.
Week two was Kimberly’s birthday week so we took out the pad and pen and, after a restful and local day on Monday, we started checking things off the list. We went to Packs Tavern for lunch and overstayed our parking meter. Really easy to do around here since there is a pub, tavern or brewery at every turn and all the beer is good, dammit. So, we got a parking ticket which I immediately appealed stating we were JUST finishing up our last swallow. I actually won the appeal with a note saying I wouldn’t be so lucky next time.
Then we thought we’d checkout Black Mountain and go to the laundromat for a laundry marathon interspersed with a brew hop between laundry transfer. Sounds so fun! We loaded the laundry in and decided to find a pint and get back by transfer time to dryers. How fun is this? I’m navigating, wife’s driving, we are looking hard for this tiny pub, and the wife accidentally rolls through a pedestrian walkway with just a few pedestrians in it, in front of a policeman. Only took the young man 5 seconds to turn on the blue lights and pull us over. We oops and apologized and told him how handsome he was and NO ticket. Might have been different had there been any injuries.
Birthday week included hiking and exploring and maybe a few breweries but most definitely ended with lobster on birthday night! Enjoy the pictures. We have 2 more weeks here in the Smokies with Kimberly’s daughter Megan visiting Thurs-Sun. I will post Asheville Part 2 once we head to Virginia on 8/29.
CoBro + 1 with Yolo and the TOAD 
Ok, I’m starting to get the gist of this trip. Drive to campground -beer, do laundry-beer, go sightseeing-beer, get lost – beer, birthday dinner – beer AND margaritas! We are looking forward to seeing you guys in a couple weeks for a night – with beer! Be safe!
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