Reminiscing about our new home state

We spent a lot of time on the road our first two years in North Carolina. Our logic was simple, and sensible to us. We had just uprooted ourselves from the only state we both had lived in since birth. Well at least for Mary it was a very deep uprooting. For me, I had lived in several other places, semi-temporarily anyways. I had lived in Honeybrook, Pennsylvania for a month or two, St. Micheal's, Maryland for a few weeks, Honor, Michigan for 4-5 months, Madison, Wisconsin for almost a year and Boulder, Colorado fro 4-5 months. So I wasn't as deeply rooted as Mary.
One of our more memorable trips was to Asheville, North Carolina in October 2009. We had been wandering around Johnston County in shorts and t-shirts the weekend before and thought it would be great to see the Blue Ridge Parkway as the leaves were changing..it was the start of PEEPER season in western North Carolina! The changing of the leaves was one thing we sorely missed about Michigan. We still had the 1995 Chevrolet Silverado with the gasser engine and didn't feel confident pulling the 1968 30 foot Holiday Rambler into the mountains. On a Friday afternoon, we picked up a Coleman tent at Sprawl Marts and headed west towards Asheville.
We arrived around 4:00 pm. that afternoon. We had decided to stay at the Asheville East KOA in Swannanoa, North Carolina. It is a beautiful campgrounds with a lake and full amenities.

UNFORTUNATELY, we learned too late that the peace and serenity of the KOA turned into the Hell Bound train once nightfall came. Between the campground and I-40, runs a train track. This night, the train started running around 8:00 pm. and continued throughout the night. Of course, the train also crossed a road directly in front of the KOA. This caused the train to blast the horn for 2-3 minutes--EVERY 30-40 minutes as it passed.

But before the trainful night, we were restless and thought we would do a short drive along the BRP just before the sun set to get a glimpse of color. We started at Asheville and headed north. Looking towards the mountains, we noticed white patches. It looked like giant broccoli growing in the distance. It took a minute to realize it was snowing at the higher elevations.

We came to the Craggy Rock Picnic area sign and turned left. Suddenly the evergreens were turning white. We picked the day of the first snowfall in the Blue Ridge Mountains for 2009. It was an excellent drive up to Craggy Rock and a once in a lifetime view of the mountains in all their splendor.