On The Road Again in 2013: Hello from Crossville, TN

Crossville is roughly half way between Knoxville and Nashville, TN right along I-40 on what they call the Cumberland Plateau. At one time a few years ago we had purchased a lot here in the RV Community called 'The Gardens' and had full intentions of building here, however, life changes and we decided to full time RV instead. We sold our lot in about 2010 but still have good friends here and we still love the area, so will spend the next few days catching up with everyone here.

We enjoyed our time in Asheville, NC but I will say that Asheville itself is probably not for us. Beautiful old city, the downtown area is very eclectic and new age and was not the easiest place to get around with its narrow streets. The surrounding area of Asheville, such as Hendersonville, was very nice and not the hustle/bustle of Asheville. Of course, that being said, Asheville is very touristy with the Biltmore Mansion drawing thousands of visitors each day. We toured the mansion in 2006 so we did not do it again. It is an expensive tour that you need to do once ($59 a person unless you have a coupon of some sort) but worth it once. The picture I'll post is from our visit in 2006.

We took a Greyline bus tour one day of Asheville and really enjoyed letting someone else do the driving. Michael, our driver, is a professional story teller around Asheville and he told us that they pay him to talk, so that's what he did ALL the entire trip (almost 2 hours). He really knew the history of Asheville and I wish I could remember all of what he told us about. So much history there, big Victorian homes, unique architecture such as the Basilica of St. Lawrence, Battery Park Hotel, the Art Deco City Hall and many more. One interesting tidbit he told us was the McDonalds near the entrance to the Biltmore Village is the fanciest McDonalds they have with a grand piano inside. If we could have found a parking place, Dick and I would have stopped but that didn't happen.

Asheville also has several Farmer's Markets but there is one that has been there since the 1970's and was very close to our RV park. It has both a retail section and then in the back there are MANY farmers and brokers there selling to individuals who want to buy in large quantities for canning/freezing, etc. and the brokers selling wholesale to the restaurants. I talked to a 'local' lady who gave me some 'hints' of what is actually fresh right now in the area and what is being brought in right now, such as peaches from S. Carolina. I asked her about 'greasy green beans' as I was seeing them in most every booth. She's not a fan......said I needed just 'half-runner' green beans for good beans. Greasy ones are just that, in her opinion, and the 'mountain folk' as she called them like to fix them with bacon, potatoes and lard.......hmmm.....don't think I'd like that either. Anyway, she steered me correctly as far as tomatoes (big beef steak tomatoes like I remember as a kid), half runner beans, new potatoes, the S. Carolina peaches were excellent and the sweet corn was too. We aren't much for zucchini or squash or things like that so I bypassed all of that but what we had was very good.

Another day we took a road trip out of Asheville up through the mountains to Brevard, NC, over the French Broad River into the Lake Toxaway area which is an area of many waterfalls. It was an awesome drive, although VERY curvy and most roads were 35 mph in many places. We stopped at Whitewater Falls near Cashiers, NC which was beautiful. It was a short 1/2 mile hike back to the falls and then you could take 150+ stairs down to the bottom of the falls, and of course, you had to come back up......we did it and it was well worth it. We drove on to Bridal Falls which was not near as beautiful (in our opinion) and we both say that if we would have done that one first, we wouldn't have driven another 30 miles on those curvy roads to see Whitewater Falls which meant we would have missed the best one. There are many more falls in that general area but we started heading back as it was all total probably a 175+ mile day and we had seen some beautiful country but decided to save the rest for next time. I can't tell you how many times Dick commented that he was glad he wasn't driving the rig through some of those curves......and my vertigo was saying 'enough is enough' too.

We left Asheville on Friday and had a short day mileage wise to Heiskell, TN where we spent the night to visit some RVing friends there. We met Judy & Lyle in Durango, CO several years ago and have continued to keep in touch as they winter in AZ as well. Judy will be having her 3rd hip replacement surgery in the next couple of weeks so she's not able to get around very well right now. They have a beautiful home on Lake Norris outside Lafollette, TN where we enjoyed catching up with them. They offered us a boat ride but I'm not a water person so we passed, also knowing that she couldn't go right now either.

Saturday we had another short driving day to Crossville. The weather this week had been very nice with no rain to speak of, however, almost to Crossville it poured for about 20 minutes and then, of course, the humidity came out and so the rest of the day was muggy and hot. We will enjoy our time here, most of which will be visiting with friends, getting Murphy a bath and Dick hopes to do some cleaning on the rig.

Just a short update on Mike. He's home back in Phoenix in a 'hard' cast for total immobilization of his heel for 4 weeks. The right one is still in a boot and after these next 4 weeks they will x-ray both again and see where he's at. If things are progressing as everyone hopes, then he'll be in a boot on both heels for 4 weeks and then therapy.

Dick just told me this morning that we've traveled 4200 miles so far since 5/1 when we left Phoenix.

Enjoy your week ahead. I can't believe it's almost August already......