On The Road Again in 2013: Hello from Concord, NC

Want to buy a bucket truck anyone? These are directly across the highway from us and we initially 'assumed' it was the yard where they were all stored on a weekend, however, they never moved all week so we finally asked and there will be an auction this coming week where they, along with many other types of construction vehicles, will be sold. I'm not kidding....there must be 500 vehicles of some sort over there and according to the lady we talked to they have an auction of this size every month. Wow!! Where do these all come from and where do they go?

It was an interesting departure from Winchester last Monday because that little hill we were parked on at the campground, turned out to be too steep for us to get down without dragging on the bottom of the rig. So with the neighbors help, and some boards under the front tires, Dick was able to back up from being partially down the hill and then back out of the space and get turned around to get out of the park. Oh the things we still learn. And I guess we still didn't learn because later that day we stopped for a break and a soda at what turned out to be a VERY small truck stop along the interstate. Dick missed the turn into the truck stop so we went on down the road but couldn't find a place to turn around without unhooking the car (we take a wide space to turn with the car hooked up) so we unhooked, took a little break, hooked back up, and went on down the road.

We are here at the Tom Johnson Campground connected with a large RV dealer here in Concord and it sits between the RV dealer and the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The park is nearly empty because there are no Nascar races here until later this summer. Since we didn't have any definite plans to be somewhere, we decided to stay a week since the rate is very reasonable ($160). Of course, there has been a heat wave throughout this area and the humidity was 90+ most days but what the heck, it's good for our skin right? Not!!

We have been at this campground before when we were doing all of our Nascar work so it has been fun to come back and look around when the area isn't so crowded. We did go to a race on Tuesday night at the speedway as part of their Summer Shootout Series. Free twinkies were given to everyone (I think that was the day they came back on the shelves) and we saw both Legend Car and Bandolero racing. These are smaller cars with body styles similar to those of the 1930's and 1940's and powered by Yamaha motorcycle engines. The Bandoleros are designed for drivers as young as 8 years old and the young-at-heart of any age. When you think about it, the Nascar guys all pretty much started when they were kids doing exactly this at their local tracks in various types of vehicles. Probably the best part of the night was two 'specialty' races........lawnmowers and school buses. Oh my gosh, the lawnmowing guys /gals take this very serious. In fact, they have their own national association of lawn mower racing and will have the 'national' race here next spring. The school buses were 6 old buses and this week they called the race 'fastor pastors' as they were driven by pastors from local churches. I believe each week they have different organizations who drive the buses. Again, what a fun thing to watch and the winning pastor was so excited to get a trophy for his church.

Another day we went to the Stewart-Hass Race Shop in Kannapolis, NC. We still follow Tony Stewart, although not as seriously as we used to follow Nascar. We have seen several other race shops in the past and it still holds true that they are IMMACULATE! It is hard to imagine that the guys are there working on these cars and you could eat off the floors. There is absolutely no grease or anything anywhere, plus their tools and tool boxes are spotless. Depending on the team how close you can get and with Stewart-Haas you can only watch from behind a glass wall. We were lucky enough a few years ago to get a 'behind the scenes' tour at Hendrick Motor Sports and that was a special treat to see how this big team is all put together and where they all have the best of everything to work with.

We drove into Charlotte one day and what a beautiful, very spread out, old city with magnificent big tree-lined streets in some areas. They do have segway tours around Charlotte and I kinda wanted to do that but it was just too hot so we walked around a bit and just enjoyed the scenery.

These flower beds are all around the part of
downtown Charlotte where we were

There is also a huge outlet mall here in Concord so I frequented that a couple of times and we drove into 'old' Concord which is very pretty as well. Basically it has been a week of 'hanging out', some RV housekeeping, and eating some very good NC food. I use tripadvisor.com a lot when we travel and it has become a game to try some of the restaurants and things to do in the areas that we are, to see if we agree with previous ratings. One of our best finds here in Concord has been Jim 'N Nicks Barbecue where EVERYTHING is made from scratch. Both times we've been there the waitresses told us that there is no freezer in the restaurant, that it's made fresh all day long. I had just read an article in Thousand Trails magazine about this restaurant being started in Birmingham, AL by a gentleman and now being run by his son in the same manner as his father started. I would love one of these out west but so far they are only as far west as CO. We try to do and use 'local' things instead of the big chains that we see everywhere we go.

We'll move on tomorrow to Asheville, NC. It's only about 175 miles so will be an easy traveling day we hope and our plan is maybe 3-4 nights in Asheville, another very pretty city in NC. Rain is predicted for later this afternoon and all day tomorrow so hopefully only rain and no storms.