Sometimes the view from your own front porch is the best. A storm just came through and left our sidewalk strewn with Crepe Myrtle flower petals.

While at the fiberglass egg rally in Cherokee, NC last Fall we saw some items that just made sense to buy.  Interestingly both items were being used by fellow Oliver owners.  Here we have the Clam tent, and the Magic Chef portable ice maker.

This Clam screen room is fantastic.  I deployed at Stephen Foster state park and we were able to fit our picnic table with seven people inside.  Kept us dry and no bugs.  This thing is a breeze to set up.  Less than two minutes.  Take down is a tad more involved, but still very easy.

We have not camped with the ice maker but the initial tests in our kitchen were impressive.  Ice cubes in less than ten minutes.  Just pour in the water and ice is on the way.  I am pretty certain it will run on our 2000 WATT inverter so even with no electricity we will have ice.

 

This was a fun trip the week after Christmas.  We left all the wrappings, decorations, and leftovers behind and enjoyed a week in a beautiful setting.  Each December the park is lit up with five million “holiday” lights.  Nightly craft demonstrations is a festive setting were interesting and fun.  For those adventourous types there is canoeing and kayaking on the Suwannee river, abd great biking for the rest of us.

Carillon tower at night.  Beautiful music all through the day.

 

Our Summer vacation began August 10, 2015 when we departed Gulf Breeze for Mount Pisgah campground, a National Forest campground at 5,000 feet which has no amenities other than showers, flush toilets, and water filling stations.  More about that later.  While loading the Ollie for a three week adventure we noticed the fridge not cooling properly.  I tried everything…turn on the outside exhaust fan, switch to propane, but it just would not get below 70 degrees F.  So out came the Yeti, and a trip to Publix for dry ice and bag ice.

We decided to make a stop at a local RV dealership to see if they could diagnose a simple problem and make repairs.  Hats off to the service department at Carpenter’s Campers for working us in early in the morning, but the news was not good.  “You need a new refrigerator”.  Ouch!  So we headed North, praying and discussing the best course of action, which turned out to be a detour to the Oliver factory for a new refrigerator…covered by warranty.  Once again the Oliver family stepped up and had us on our way in less than a day.  The 400 mile detour was not in our plans, but with our new fridge installed we said “hail to the rest of the road”, and turned eastward on I-40.

Never have I been on a road with so much congestion, and truck traffic.  The scenery is beautiful through The Great Smoky Mountain Park, but who could enjoy it.  We were glad to be done with that stretch of highway.

Ah Garmin.  We followed our GPS to the letter, and true to form she put us on a road that is fit only for motor cycles and sports cars.  Highway 151 straight up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Nine o’clock on a moonless night with a road wide enough to accommodate one and a half cars…not a Chevy Avalanche towing a 23 foot long trailer.  I don’t know how many switch back turns there were but there were no straight runs at all.  There was no place to turn around so up up up we went, not knowing if we would meet anyone coming down.  I fully expected to see Sasquatch on the road.

We finally made it to the campground.  Dark.  Lonely.  Small sites.  Someone had parked a vehicle on the road directly across from our reserved site making it nigh unto impossible to back in.  We did make it into 25A and settled in for a good nights rest.  The next morning I discovered the fire pit was down a steep hill on the back of the site so we asked the ranger for a relocation, which we made without any trouble.  I learned that about half the sites at Mount Pisgah are first come sites and that is what we will do the next time we are at that campground.

 

Our site had everything one might need, but the parking area did not allow for the truck to be in front of the trailer.

 

 

 

We love Mount Pisgah, but if you go be prepared for a lot of damp, and foggy days.  There was not enough sunlight to fully charge our batteries so we had to resort to topping of with the Honda 2000i.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Blue Ridge Parkway is just spectacular.  We drove down and up the mountain to both Brevard, and Asheville several times and the views never disappointed.

 

After ten days without cell phone, internet, or electricity we were happy to get to lower elevations near Asheville.  The Bear Creek Campground is conveniently located, close to the Outlet stores, plus a terrific farmers market where we bought fresh veggies.  This was our first ever stay at a commercial campground and after the quiet and solitude of the National Forest our senses were assaulted from many directions.