The Smokeys

 Time Shares Sales.   Yup, their hitting us up.  Not sure when they got the data that we were retired but somehow they know.  We figured for 200 bucks, we'd take the tour/presentation and gain a 4 day stay in the Smokey Mountains out of the deal.  Not bad considering a decent hotel room is easily 100 a night these days.  More on the weekends which we discovered on our trip to Rhode Island where the 129 per night on a Thursday is 490 on Friday and Saturday.  Sadly, this company markets itself as family and pet friendly hoteliers, no pets are allowed, so the doggies get a vacation at Miss Judy's in Martinsburg which is sort of on the way to Pigeon Forge.  

Doggies get dropped Friday morning, and we set the google machine to "avoid highways" and off we go.  Again, we plan to have our lunch on the road at a park or the like straight out of our picnic basket.   Funny story, we got this picnic basket as a wedding present; it had all the usual picnic basket stuff including 2 plastic champagne glasses.  Everything has slowly been replaced but the wicker basket remains and it's starting to show its age.  The roads we wind up on are epic and we stick to old WV-55 until we hit 220 and head south for a long time.  Lunch was in the Franklin Town Park adjacent to the river while the maintenance guy is mowing the grass.   

Back onto some of the most scenic roads in this part of West & plain old regular Virginia, as our route takes us across the state line several times before we get to our motel in Princeton, adjacent to I-77.  Over dinner, we discuss our options for tomorrow: get on 77 for a couple of exits to go through the tunnel OR take a local road up over the same ridge the tunnel goes through.  We decide on the road and boy howdy, are we glad we did.  This is the view northwest from the little park that sits on the West Virginia side of the ridge:

It's the annual fall festival in Burkes Garden, which explained the relatively large number of cars heading up the mountain.    Burkes Garden is a delightful spot in the Appalachians where the valley is slightly below the surrounding mountains, spread out like a large shallow bowl.   If you have never been to BG, go.  There is a general store, a couple of campgrounds but it is still mostly a farming community.

The festival makes the main road one way with the return loop along the northern edge of the bowl.  It is a wonderous place and we will be checking out any southern loops to get the entire valley plus leave or depart from the dirt road that approaches from the east.  Rumor has it there is a car in a tree, like 20 feet off the ground in a tree just past one of the switchbacks.

We stopped for lunch in a small picnic area/ park near the VA/TN line.  At the entrance, there are six different historic markers ranging from information in the 1600's to a primary school in the 19teens.  Our inner retired rallymaster cackled with delight over this find.

Our hotel is bright modern and really cool.  There is a separate sitting area adjacent to the door and it has a walk in closet.  Checking online, this room normally goes for 159 a night so the 200 cost for three nights is worth the time share spiel that will be coming on Sunday.  Fortunately, we get to trade into an earlier presentation and find ourselves at the welcome/ presentation center at 845 and not 1145 as originally scheduled.    Turns out, these arent the time shares or our parents' generation; there is no week somewhere on some specific property.  Instead, you buy the real estate equivalent in points, which you can use at any one of their hundreds of locations plus associate partners over the globe- almost every one of them is a resort.  We're not resort people- strike two.  Strike one was the 'no pets' policy despite advertising as family inclusive.  Our presenter, done one on one mixed in with a powerpoint presentation covering all the benefits of the program, nonchalantly to go on Amazon and just get our dogs a "service animal' vest: Strike three.   The weird part was at no point was the cost of the program discussed until the "offer guy" came to our table.   Let's just say the know how to hard sell and we saw exactly how folks get into these programs; the offers sound to good to be true and you can finance almost the entire purchase through them.  But the offer is only good today; when you walk out the door, the offer is void.   Their price you ask?  More than the estimated cost of our new truck which we plan to purchase next year.  Like a lot more, oh and no discount for paying in cash.  Sounds like they make their money on both unused programming and the financing.

After we say 'no', the 'exit interview' guy shows up to make sure we understood the material we were presented and to rate our overall experience.  Then he flips over the exit questionnaire with a new offer, different from the first which looks suspiciously tailored to different clients. Our was for retired persons as 'you have no business wanting to get into a 20 year program' [duh].   Our guess is they have these prearranged depending on the status of the potential client with younger families getting longer terms and more flexibility.  There were several young families in our group of 10, one with an infant in tow.  That prospect of using this program at Disney must have been really hard to turn down- FYI Disney for a family of 4 for a week is just short of 10 grand now and that doesnt include any travel costs.

After extricating ourselves from their sales pitch we talk over the presentation during lunch figuring that at least two families bought into the program and another three probably took the second offer.  That second offer was very tempting even for us, but again it was centered on resorts and we are NOT resort people.  Speaking of resorts, Pigeon Forge is one giant tourist trap/ resort.  We have heard for years about the epic traffic on this 6 miles of road; it did not disappoint.    After lunch we take in one of the many miniature golf courses before returning to our room for some pool time before dinner.

Monday is our last full day in Pigeon Forge; to complete the experience we have tickets to the Hatfield McCoy Family Feud Dinner Show, because of course we do.   Jean wants to go one of the local churches for Monday morning service and she drops me at the Gatlinburg Golf Club with the intent of picking me up much later.  The tee time is 850; the drop off is at 730 and the bar doesnt open until 10.  You do the math.    It is an amazing track with elevation changes that are truly breath taking. 

View from the 10th tee box

The 100 foot drop to the green at the 12th.

We fully expected the dinner show to be absolutely cornball humor ripped straight out of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour material.  We were not disappointed.   Dinner was served in metal buckets on metal plates by servers in coveralls.  Drinks were in mason jars just like at the Phyrst in State College.  We wound up on the McCoy side of the audience and some canned responses to shout at various times including "None of you darn  business",  Arguably, the best bits of the entire show was when things didnt happen as expected and the actors who played the mayor and sheriff ad lib a cover for the mistakes were just downright funny.  

We took a combo of the google machine's avoid highways and fastest route settings after crossing through the Smokeys on 441.   If you have never travelled on 441, the trip is highly recommended.   We met some friends for dinner in Lynchburg on Tuesday night.  Good times.

View from our hotel room in Lynchburg

Picked up the dogs just after lunch and we arrived home just as our biweekly cleaning crew got started.  

https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/6903-1474dcb2-683a/view

follow up- another invite for a time share weekend from the same company just appeared in my in box

Camping- August 21

Camping!!!!

It's been since our trip to Newfoundland-Labrador that we have been camping.   Dusting off the gear, checking all the batteries, replaced one of our Byer cots and a new EZ up secured, we're off to the Finger Lakes, to the Finger Lakes Campground.

We thought we'd try the Sagan Planet Walk in downtown Ithaca;  this would be our second scale model of the Solar System adding to the spectacular one along US-1 from Presque Isle to Holton Maine.   This was a walking path that seemed to snake it's way around several city blocks before running along one of the many gorges in town.

Saturn is located in a construction site for now.

It was a bit of a let down.  Cool definitely but a let down and we give a 4 on a ten point scale.    Lunch was entertained at Kelly's Dockside along a major inlet into the lake.  A fellow a few tables over sketched this of our two doggies.

Last night in camp was very buggy, but the dew was light overnight.  We packed up, headed home into the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

Maine 2021

 Now that we are both officially retired, like most people we hope to travel.  Unfortunately, COVID has made that a little more complicated than in prior years.  Regardless, we have a method to our travel: set our destination for the day, set Google Nav to "avoid highways" and go.

Our first trip is to Maine: specifically to join the family gathering at Happytown Farms near Elsworth where the celebrations of Karen's 80th birthday, Paul's 70th birthday and their 45th wedding anniversary will take place.  The other part of the trip was to spend a few days at Catherine Hill Winery outside of Cherryfield, about 45 minutes downeast Route 1 from the Farm.  Deb and Walt bought the winery in January of 2020 and have settled into the Maine lifestyle quickly.  Open Wednesday to Sunday, their micro winery bottles up some awesome vino.

But first- where to go and what to see.  Lots of stuff and lots of place.  For those that have not yet seen our "master map" here it is:

and this does not include any trips to place like Newfoundland-Labrador or the glacial lake region of Ontario.  These are just places on a map; some common like Jackson Browne "Standing on the Corner in Winslow Arizona..." some are just odd like the Archbald Pothole, or an abandoned cable rail bridge in the middle of nowhere.

Sticking to the let Google sans highways do the navigating we set off for Kingston, NY via the Stargazer's Stone near Embreeville, PA.  We have been to the Stone years ago, and it was nice to visit again; heck it was on the way. 

The Stone was set by the Mason Dixon Survey as a fixed position on the globe to determine the "starting point" of the Mason Dixon Line.  More at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Gazers%27_Stone

The navigation rules were simple: follow the Google no highways directions, if we drop out of cell coverage for too long, just make it up until we return, avoid chains for meals, and see some cool stuff along the way.  So of course, our first lunch under this new paradigm was a Red Robin.   The new nav rules lead to some interesting bits of driving- lots of unnumbered roads.  The rules could be amended if we were running significantly late or when the only passage is a major road, but for the most part, this worked well.  

After lunch, we caught up to 209 and that took us all the way into our motel in Kingston.  Just up the road a piece came the highly recommended Boiceville Inn; boy howdy what a great pizza. After ordering the house special, the waitress asked if  that included anchovies; of course it includes anchovies.  We took the leftovers home and made two more lunches out of them.  There was this funky place along the road just east of the inn on 28 with interesting artwork along the road.  

The hotel pool was nice and large, but they were low on pool towels (?).  Still a refreshing dip after dinner.  Next morning brought no "grab and go" breakfasts so we packed up and headed over the Olympia Diner-  cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger, 2 chips, Pepsi.  [google it kids].  And off we go, to Newport, VT just shy of the Canadian border.  Same Nav rules apply- no major highways- and today was a whole bunch of backroads; the kinds with names not numbers. 

It truly an amazing drive and we hope it bodes well for such future travels.   With some leftover pizza in our cooler, we stopped in Vergennes Falls Park in Vergennes, VT for lunch.   Popular spot for picnics and fishing.

After a short, bug infested walk along to the old canal towpath, we got back on the road heading for Newport.

Intermittent rain fell as we arrived into Newport, the capital of the Northeast Kingdom, or simply NEK or the Kingdom.  This sliver of earth is completely different geologically than the neighboring Appalachians.   The Kingdom is home to some of the last active volcanoes on the eastern seaboard which created the granite native to this part of the state when the Taconic orogeny took place.  Yeah, we had to Google that too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconic_orogeny 
The Newport City Inn is a funky place along the main street through town; you can tell it has been expanded several times during its life and now has a separate building with a conference center as well as a very nice pool house attached to the rear of the motel.   Dinner was from the East Side Restaurant, located on the east side [duh] of Lake Memphremagog.  We arrived early and were very glad we did as the line was very, very long for seating as the outdoor areas were closed due to the rain.  I tried to get a picture through the windows of the lake but the window screen had that Moiré effect and it looked weird.

Sunday was up early and on the road after a great breakfast from the Brown Cow.  That gave us leftovers too which served as lunch this day.  The Nav rules got bent a little today as getting to the farm via the winery was time sensitive; all that really changed was how much of 95 do we use in Maine.  Turns out, just the stretch from the Turnpike/295 merge to Bangor.  We arrived at Catherine Hill Winery pretty much on time as Deb and Walt were setting up for the day's business.  A quick trip through Ellsworth to grab ice cream from Morton's Moo for the happenings at the farm and we arrived there to find the party in full swing.

Karen and Paul have been successfully running an organic farm since the 1970's- way before it was cool.  Their farm is mostly covered in trees including sugar maples which syrup is part of their offerings, as well as free range eggs, turkeys, pigs and some sheep.   The party was set up in the front lawn along Happytown Road overlooking Branch Lake- it was an ideal setting.

Karen and Paul renewed their wedding vows and live entertainment was provided by a group of talented fiddlers who seemed to have that whole 'pick up a tune and run with it' which made for some good times.   We talked with the cousins; it's such a pretty place to be.

The winery is a busy place, 7 days a week job despite being open for only 5 of them.  Although not as labor intense as farming, there are daily tasks to perform just to keep the wine flowing.  Monday was an 'off day' meaning there was some early morning chores to perform in the fermenting room as well as some prep work after dinner to get ready for filtering day on Tuesday.  This meant the five of us could do some fun things; the weather was nice so we headed off to Lubec, the easternmost point of the lower 48 for a short hike around the woods before heading into town looking for lunch and some craft beer.

Tuesday, our last full day in Maine for this trip, was just us out exploring.  We had intended to have an early lunch at the Jordon Pond House; apparently, so did everyone else on Mount Desert Island.  The line to get the table pager was over a quarter of a mile long- just after 11am!!!!   Popovers will have to wait.  So lets head to Stonington and grab some lunch along the way.   On our way to Ellsworth from the island we spy what has to be the world's smallest Harley dealer; no bigger than the average lobster roll shack.  There wasn't even a boutique or adjacent service building.

Ellsworth is a fun little tourist town; lots of funky art, cool viewing and pedestrians.  Good food too.  The trip to Stonington was uneventful although it appears those folks who couldn't get into the Jordan Pond House decided to get some ice cream in Stonington.

New Nav rules suspended, the trip home was mostly normal.  But we did see this gem just along US-1A near Holden among the early morning fog.

Retirement trip 1 is in the books.  We have some camping, a trip to the Smokey Mountains plus our first full month on Jekyll still coming this fall.  Stay tuned.

the whole trip is here:

https://new.spotwalla.com/trip/6197-17130732-4f68/view

2021 MS 5000 Challenge

My goal for 2021 is different;  my pledge is to again match every dollar donated to support my ride through the MS5000 donation page below AND ride at least 2 miles for every dollar donated.  Donate $50- that equals a $50 match plus 100 miles in your honor.   As you may know, my dear friend Paul who hosts this fundraiser has MS.  After initial diagnosis, he was told the cure was “a million miles away” so he thought he’d just get on his motorcycle and go get it.  To date, Paul has logged 443,860 miles.  This a number that most people never even drive a car in their lifetime.  My Aunt Pat died from complications from MS; I do this ride in her honor.  I’m planning to do my part- the next move is yours.

 

https://www.longhaulpaul.com/ms5000/ms5000-donations/

 

click the “CHECK THIS BOX TO SELECT THE RIDER YOU ARE SUPPORTING” and my name will be second from the bottom [it’s posted in reverse registration order I think].   Donations can be submitted anytime between today and October 25^th, although the riding portion is limited to September 1 through October 20.

 

Thanks again for your support- stay safe and enjoy the ride