Saturday, September 23, 2006
September 2006
Sunday, September 17, 2006
Around midday, we headed toward the hills of North Carolina – Vincent’s (RV) first trip out of state. We took the most direct route this time – up I-77 to Charlotte, stopping for lunch and literature at the NC Welcome Center. It’s a nice spot, with lots of crepe myrtles and day lilies.
We rolled into Forest Lake Preserve around 3:30 and were escorted to a very nice campsite. We used our levelers for the first time – bright orange “leggo” bricks that worked like a charm.
For the next two days, we were the guests of the Thousand Trails, a private membership camping club with campgrounds all over the US. For free camping, we agreed to listen to the sales pitch.
The Forest Lake Preserve was originally part of the Cooleemee Plantation, which has been owned by the Hairston family since 1817. The family still owns a majority of the original 4,200 acres of the plantation and the original plantation estate.
Our little ‘Class B’ RV was a bit out of place in this resort campground. Most of our neighbors were monsters – or at least they were driving monsters. Most of them were towing a car for day trips and many had a golf cart for zipping around the campground.
We just had our feet to get us around the place, but we mostly took it easy and enjoyed the quiet and cool.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Slept late and headed off to check out the park’s hiking trails.
We saw a memoir of the old plantation – a 17th century graveyard. Most of the headstones were broken and hard to read, but it’s an interesting bit of history along the trail to the river.
The river was a bit harder to see, even though there’s a trail along one side. There aren’t very many reasonable access points – reasonable meaning that you didn’t need long pants and heavy boots.
This is the Yadkin River, which has its origin near Blowing Rock NC, in the far northwest corner of the state; it is one of the longest rivers in North Carolina.
We saw wildflowers, butterflies, mushrooms, even a copperhead snake.
Back closer to the campground (actually in between a couple of campsites), we saw a 19th century tobacco barn.
After lunch, we attended the sales presentation for Thousand Trails membership – it would be tempting if we had plenty of time to travel. It would take a lot of camping nights to cover membership fees.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
We broke camp and headed out about 10 AM. Took a quick look at the historic town of Lexington – the bar-be-que capitol of North Carolina.
Drove through Salisbury and stopped for a visit at Gold Hill, NC.This quaint little village was one the richest gold mining town east of the Mississippi. Gold was first discovered here in 1823 and copper some time later.
Today it’s just a nice place to walk around and look at old buildings and a bit of history.
Further along we saw lots of cotton fields – it looked like picking time was just about upon us, but we didn't hang around to find out.
Heading south, we went through more small towns – Albemarle and Wadesboro, NC, and then on to Chesterfield and McBee, SC. At McBee, we stopped at McLeod’s Produce for “Last Chance” peaches.
We drove on through the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge, about 45,000 acres of mostly longleaf pines and wiregrass. This ecosystem once covered more than 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas. It’s a unique area, shaped by thousands of years of natural fires that burned through every 2-4 years; today, there are less than two million acres, mostly on public lands.
This particular wildlife refuge is home to several threatened and endangered species, including the pine barrens treefrog, the southern bald eagle, and the red-cockaded woodpecker. We did spot a woodpecker hole in a pine tree (marked by white paint), but otherwise not much sign of wildlife. We need to come back and check out some of the hiking trails.
From there, we headed into Camden and back home by late afternoon.
