The End of the Trail

Sunday, August 21, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 6:
IN WHICH WE GET BACK IN THE GAME

After the intensity of Thursday's hike on the Tanawha Trail, everyone was in favor of taking it easy on Friday.  We spent a relaxing morning playing games before a lunchtime visit to Coyote Kitchen, a Caribbean-influenced, vegetarian-friendly Southwestern restaurant in Boone.  Generous portions of unique dishes prepared with fresh, local ingredients combined with attentive, helpful service to inspire us to make a return trip for dinner Saturday evening.

Friday afternoon found us in the neighboring village of Valle Crucis (pop. 2,000).  One of the town's best-known landmarks is Mast General Store.  Built in 1882 by a local merchant, the store has been in operation at the same location for more than a century.  In the early days, the Mast family attempted to carry all the merchandise their neighbors might need, from cradles to caskets, inspiring the store's slogan, "If you can't buy it here, you don't need it."  Even today, the store carries such uncommon items as plow bolts and carriage bolts in a variety of sizes.
  
Mast General Store, Valle Crucis, NC  (photo from Wikipedia)
Since 1980, local residents can even pick up their mail at the main store.  After the community of Valle Crucis lost its post office in the mid 1970s, Mast General petitioned for the right to operate a substation to help keep the Valle Crucis community's name and identity alive. Postal service was restored in 1980, operating with 280 antique mailboxes located in a corner of the store. 
  
Mast is an all-purpose general store.
After undergoing only two changes of ownership in more than 125 years, Mast General Store has become a legend in western North Carolina.  The current owners have expanded the business significantly, opening Mast General Stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
  
Appalachian State University campus
Before the week wrapped up, a few more letterboxes beckoned, including a series on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone.  With classes beginning next week, we arrived there just as students were checking in for the fall semester, intensifying the need for us to exercise maximum stealth as we searched.
  
One last hike took us to the Green Knob Trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The section of trail we hiked followed Sims Creek and led us through a beautiful old-growth hemlock forest, with rhododendron tunnels along the way.
Green Knob Trail
Saved from certain death
As we returned to the cabin from our hike, we found a sizable black rat snake sunning himself on the mountain road.  About four feet long, he seemed to be in a trance until we gave him a bit of a nudge to encourage him to leave the roadway in the interest of his continued survival.
  
Does this mean Emma can drive home?
With a little help from a digital camera and an iPhone app called iSwapFaces, Heather and Emma were able to try a little role reversal.  Actually quite a bit of swapping went on over the last week, but this was the final example. 
  
Games marathon
More games were on the agenda Friday afternoon and evening and during Saturday's rain storm.  We tried to leave no game unplayed with sessions of Rummikub, Bananagram, dominoes, Scrabble Slam, and a new entry called Appleletters, in which each player selects 21 letter tiles for use in forming words to add to the crossword-like board.
  
Appleletter fun
Having so many letters allows you to make all kinds of words while awaiting your turn to play.  You can even try to read (and write) the other players' expressions.  We found the game to be challenging and enjoyable.

Relaxing on the deck was a popular activity all week, but especially these last couple of days when we were trying to wind down as we wound up our mountain vacation.
  
Marion once again displays her prowess at packing twice as much as the car will hold. 
Sunday morning marked the end of our Mountain Week 2011. Though we enjoyed being together and had some great experiences, we really missed having Grandma with us. It was not the same without her there.
  
Chillin' on the deck
 sdpace 
FRIDAY, 19 AUGUST—SUNDAY, 21 AUGUST 2011

Not Just a Walk in the Woods

Thursday, August 18, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 5:
IN WHICH WE GO DOWN UNDER

Stretching 13.5 miles parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Tanawha Trail winds around Grandfather Mountain to offer a scenic and challenging hike.  Today we explored a two-mile section of the trail from Stack Rock to the Wilson Creek Overlook.  Though short in distance, those up-and-down two miles took us almost four hours to traverse.
  
This section of the trail (pictured above) snakes under the Linn Cove Viaduct, the most controversial and costly section of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Construction on the 469-mile parkway began in 1935.  By 1967, all was complete except for the 7.5 miles through Linn Cove, one of North Carolina's most sensitive biological environments.  National Park Service landscape architects and Federal Highway Administration engineers agreed that the road should be elevated on bridges where possible to eliminate massive cuts and fills.
  
Linn Cove Viaduct
After considerable wrangling and innovative engineering, a design was finally agreed upon that would integrate prefabricated structural elements with a progressive placement technique to minimize impact on the sensitive ecosystems.  Workers, materials and machines would be moved only on completed sections of the bridge as construction proceeded.  Lack of funding delayed construction until 1979, and the viaduct was finally completed in 1983, filling in the missing link of the Blue Ridge Parkway after almost 50 years.
  
Marion and Heather happy to pause on the climb
Like the viaduct, the Tanawha Trail was built in a manner that would preserve its fragile environment.  Intricate but natural-looking stone stairways carry hikers through jumbles of massive boulders.  Occasionally stopping to search for letterboxes, we scrambled up and down rock treadways, through small streams, and under granite cliffs, as giant hemlocks loomed overhead.
  
A great hiker since she was a toddler, Emma had no trouble keeping up.
More than $750,000 was spent in the construction of this demanding trail.  Wooden bridges placed to keep hikers away from delicate vegetation were built off-site and lowered into place by helicopters to reduce the damaging consequences of construction.

By the end of our hike, we all felt we had achieved a personal accomplishment.  And never a whine was heard, not even from a tired eight-year-old, who had taken about 50% more steps than the rest of us.
  
(Photographer not pictured; doesn't know how to take selfie)

THURSDAY, 18 AUGUST 2011

Gather Ye Letterboxes

Wednesday, August 17, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 4:
IN WHICH WE GO TREASURE HUNTING

Another beautiful day dawned in the mountains, or so we heard.  We had to learn about it secondhand as we stuck with our goal of getting a later start, not heading out until 10:30 to seek some local letterboxes.  The Boone-Blowing Rock area boasts an extensive collection of boxes, thanks mostly to the efforts of two very talented letterboxers — Shoafsters and wee3.
  
Our search began on a small trail opposite the Thunder Hill Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  After climbing a hill above the overlook, we were rewarded with a letterbox bearing a beautiful view and a brilliantly carved stamp.
  
In the Insect Shield clothing & hat, Dianne looks like a fake park ranger!
After finding another box along the parkway in Moses Cone Park, we headed into the village for lunch.  Downstairs next door to our family favorite ice cream shop, we meandered down a garden path to the Village Cafe, which serves breakfast and lunch in the courtyard of a turn of the century home.  When we arrived the garden tables were filled, but we were lucky enough to find a table inside.
  
Mediterranean Spring Salad
The food was fresh and seasoned to perfection.  Service was attentive, and the atmosphere was friendly and efficient.  We will definitely return to this Blowing Rock gem.

A bit of regrouping and recuperation at the cabin left us ready to search for just one more letterbox, this one in a local cemetery, one of Emma's favorite places to search for letterboxes.  She enjoys reading at the gravestones and wondering about the lives of those interred there.
  
Stamping in at the cemetery
This happened to be the family cemetery of the letterboxer who planted the box there.  In the clue, she shared some touching stories about her father, grandparents and other relatives.  It was a poignant tribute to her family.

Back at the cabin after dinner, it was finally time for the promised marshmallow roasting.  Since they discovered the firepit in the cabin's yard, Ken and Emma had spent the last three days researching and planning and preparing for a campfire.  All their materials were in place so that when dusk fell, the fire was lit.  A couple dozen marshmallows and several fireside ghost stories later and it was time to end another day and begin planning for tomorrow.
  space 
WEDNESDAY, 17 AUGUST 2011


Paddling Our Own Canoes

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 3:
IN WHICH WE'RE UP THE CREEK

A beautiful clear day + mild temperatures = the perfect day to canoe down the New River.  The river is mild and placid but shallow enough for any good size rock to present an opportunity to get your canoe snagged, which happened to both our canoes a couple of times.

Though this gentle river looks like a great place to float along serenely, we had to do lots of  paddling to avoid the rocky obstacles.  Only occasionally did the water get deep enough for our youngest canoeist to help with the paddling.

A picnic lunch on the riverbank provided a nice break midway in our five-mile trip.  At this halfway point neither of our canoes had flipped yet, though we did see a kayaker who went bottom up.
  
A pause from paddling
All fueled up and with rested arms, we continued our journey down the river.  Another couple of hours later we had finished canoeing the New, with no mishaps, no turnovers, and nothing and no one wet that shouldn't be wet.
  
Marion gets a break.
We had ambitious plans for a Spanish dinner feast with some new recipes from the latest issue of Vegetarian Times magazine.  The main dish was fideua (fid-AY-wah), a noodle-based Catalan dish similar to paella.  For a side dish we would try the garlicky mushrooms recipe in the same issue.
  
Chefs Heather & Ken
After lots of chopping, dicing and slicing of the 12 ingredients for this Spanish style stew, we finally got the food on the stove.  We were lucky to have five people assisting in the prep or we might still be working on it.  Though our version didn't look exactly like the one in the magazine's photo, the fideua turned out great, and we all enjoyed it.  The garlicky mushrooms were less successful.  The two cups of wine which the recipe indicated would evaporate had to be poured off, but not before it completely overpowered the garlic flavor.  Next time, we'll drink all but two ounces and add that to the 'shrooms.

Finally after dinner, the tooth that had been wiggling around in Emma's mouth for the last few days, broke way to freedom.  There is a small possibility that her tongue might have encouraged this release, but we have no definite proof of that.
  
Baby tooth, be gone!
Relieved of her tooth-loosening responsibilities, Emma was free to create a new game for us to play.  Called Adventure Challenge, the game had rather complicated rules, that seemed to change frequently.  That was the challenge part.
  
Not sure but guessing Emma may win the Adventure Challenge game.
It was the perfect way to cap off another day of family fun in the North Carolina high country.  We lost one of our group today as Ryan had to return home to work tomorrow.  And now we are five, missing both Grandma and Ryan.
  
TUESDAY, 16 AUGUST 2011

So Cool!

Monday, August 15, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 2:
IN WHICH WE FIND A NEW HOME

In our jackets, we sat this afternoon on the deck of the vacation rental home that has become the latest version of "our mountain house." It's actually just up the hill from the place we've stayed numerous times; yet in many ways, it seems light years away.
  
Tasker Cabin (pictured above) has been renovated recently, and it shows. From the granite countertops to the new appliances, the house provides all the amenities we look for and then some.
  
Cooking together
As much as we like cooking in the significantly larger kitchen, however, the house is only a small part of the guilty pleasure that we are enjoying here.  The really amazing advantage is the incredible relief from the heat of the Southern summer.  After enduring more than two months of 90+ degree temperatures, this morning the thermometer reported the low 50s, and tonight it has fallen (from the upper 70s) to the low 60s.  It has been a wonderful day.
  
After hiking the Maze Trail at Moses Cone Park this morning (and finding a couple of letterboxes along our course), we made our way to the Price Park picnic area for lunch, even though it just didn't seem right having our picnic without Grandma.  
  
Where's Grandma??
A bit more hiking and letterboxing after lunch before the traditional visit to Harris Teeter, our friendly local grocery store...
  
Grocery shopping again, of course
Then it was back to the house to relax and explore the neighborhood before preparing dinner — a delicious pasta with Heather's one-of-a-kind tomato sauce and Ken's incomparable bruschetta.  Of course, the only way to top off such a meal was a trip to Kilwin's, the local ice cream establishment.
  
Emma never needs to be asked twice about Kilwin's.
Back to the mountain house, a couple of games, and it was time for bed.  Still missing Grandma, we make our plans for tomorrow.
  
MONDAY, 15 AUGUST 2011

Sunday, August 14, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

BACK TO THE ROCK, Chapter 1:
IN WHICH WE'RE ON OUR OWN

At last the time had come for our long-anticipated annual trip to Blowing Rock, North Carolina.  Located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, Blowing Rock offers beautiful scenery and a multitude of recreational opportunities.  Perhaps most enticing, however, is its climate.
  
Our annual pilgrimage
Each year, we monitor the drop in temperature as we drive the 22 miles from the town of Lenoir to Blowing Rock.  As we climbed almost half a mile in elevation today, the temperature dropped from 87° in flatland Lenoir to 72° at the rental house in Blowing Rock, with an elevation of 3,700 feet.  A perfect vacation location for August in the South.

Since 2004, we have spent a week each summer in Blowing Rock with Ken's family-- sister Marion, her son, daughter and granddaughter, and Grandma, Ken and Marion's mom.   On our first trip, Emma had just celebrated her first birthday and took her first halting steps here.  This year she is a very grown-up eight years old, about to enter third grade.
  
Emma in 2004 & 2011
As we prepared dinner,  enjoying the cool mountain breezes blowing through our open windows this evening, things somehow seemed a little off.  We were missing an important member of our little family group. Grandma had decided that she would not join us this year, a choice which we all found disappointing.  However, we did not let her decision deter us from the pleasure of a visit with her.  Since Grandma wasn't coming to the mountains, we visited her in Charlotte on the way to Blowing Rock.
  
Needed a dose of Grandma's stories since she isn't coming to the mountains this year
Everyone was rapt as she regaled us with tales of her favorite golfers and their exploits.  With everyone pitching in and bringing a dish, we enjoyed a delicious lunch together before we hit the road again, still failing to persuade Grandma to join us.  This year we're on our own, but that certainly doesn't mean we won't try again next year.
  
SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2011

Hot on the Trail

Tuesday, August 02, 2011 Road Junkies 0 Comments

MURFREESBORO, Tennessee — After introducing our nephew Steven to letterboxing earlier this summer, it seemed only fair to sweep him away for one last letterboxing adventure before he had to return to school.  Our first destination was the nearby town of Murfreesboro, a hotbed of middle Tennessee letterboxing, and home to an extraordinarily talented carver known as mstrwndl ("Mister Wendell").  Even his signature stamp is a very realistic self-portrait.  Images of some of his hand-carved masterpieces can be seen on his blog. 
  
After locating a box near the beautiful fountain in Murfreesboro's downtown plaza, we went to snag a couple of hidden treasures at the Stones River National Battlefield, the site of significant conflict during the Civil War.  Before we left the downtown area, we almost lost Steven as he camouflaged himself in local statuary.

The following day we letterboxed our way south toward Fort Payne, Alabama.  In Manchester, Steven proved that he still has an attraction for hitchhikers when he magically pulled one out of a letterbox we found in a local cemetery.
  
Another hitchhiker!
To top that feat, he located a letterbox in Monteagle that was 20 yards from its hiding place.  Not realizing that someone had returned it to the wrong spot, Ken and I were in the process of concluding that the box had been "muggled" (removed) when Steven exclaimed, "I found it!"
  
I found it!
But the real object of our mission was hiding out in Little River Canyon near Fort Payne, Alabama.  When he became interested in letterboxing last month, Steven had asked us, "What's the coolest letterbox you ever found?"  With very little deliberation, our obvious choice was a letterbox called, "Spy vs. Spy" in Little River Canyon.  The clue reads in part:

"Canyon-side, you should see a small break in the trees. A few feet away from the road, there is a tree at the top of a crevice with a rope attached to it. Use the rope to descend until you are between two boulders. There is a small path in front of the western boulder. Take it and begin walking to the west carefully. To your left should be the cliff face and to your right is the canyon. You will eventually come to a deep overhang (or a shallow cave) with some tiki torches and a few small waterfalls. In front of one of the waterfalls is a group of rocks that hides the spies."

Little River Canyon is a national preserve operated by the National Park Service. Sometimes called the nation's longest mountaintop river, Little River flows for most of its length down the middle of Lookout Mountain.  Over many eons, the river has carved out one of the deepest canyons in the Southeast.
  
Little River Falls
A scenic highway winds around the rim of the canyon, offering numerous scenic overlooks and trailheads for hiking and horseback riding.  And while we enjoyed those views, our real objective was to capture the infamous Little River Canyon spies.  Ken and I had visited them in the fall of 2008, shortly after they selected their cavernous hideaway.  We were optimistic about a second encounter— until we reached the tree where the very necessary rope had been attached.
  
The crevice leading to the canyon wall path
The terrain is much more vertical than this photo shows, so the rope (uphill from this photo) was critical in climbing down to the path, but the rope was missing.  Another rope had been tied to a tree near the bottom of the crevice, but it was too far down to be of much use.  In addition, rain had been falling in the canyon off and on throughout the day, so the rocks were still wet and very slippery, which would have made the trip down inadvisable even with the rope.  It was clear that we could not complete our mission on this trip to the canyon.

We had to wonder if those dastardly spies had removed the rope themselves.  Lest they think they have foiled us, we have not given up. We have only postponed our capture of these sneaky spies until another trip when we will come prepared with backup and with all the equipment needed for their capture. 
With more letterboxes in our sights, we headed back north the following morning toward Chattanooga, where we found boxes at the Hunter Museum of American Art and Lookout Mountain before settling down for the night in a suburb called Ooltewah (oo-doo-wah).  The name is believed to derive from a Native American word for owl's nest, and appropriately the mascot for the local high school is the owl.  (How could it not be?)  Ooltewah is also the home to McKee Foods Corporation, the family-owned company that began making dessert snacks in a small bakery in the 1960s and named them after their four-year-old granddaughter, Debbie.  In case you wonder what Debbie looked like, well that's no model on the logo.  Today the company started by Little Debbie's grandparents sells more than $1 billion worth of cakes and cookies annually.
  
Some of the sculptures are quite realistic.
Another very interesting Ooltewah landmark is Habitat International, whose location we visited in search of a nearby letterbox.  Located at the end of an industrial street, the area in front of the main gate is a veritable menagerie of iron and stainless steel sculptures. 

In addition to the animals, there were sculptures of trees, fanciful staircases that led nowhere, and people.  Dozens of people.  Some communicating in pairs and some in a perpetual parade.  The sign at the gate read "Habitat International:  a company of positive distractions."  A very apt way to classify the sculptures, we thought.  Only later did we find out we were very wrong.

All in your mindset
Since we were limiting our visit to the area outside their gate to look for the letterbox, we never actually went into the business or talked to anyone there, but a sign near the sculptures caught our eye.  "Able!" it proclaimed, and informed that one could find the Habitat story in bookstores.  Intrigued, we had to learn more.  What we discovered reminded us on multiple levels of the wisdom of those who advise that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover.  First, the company is not in the sculpture business.  Rather, Habitat International is a leading supplier of artificial grass and indoor-outdoor carpet to such companies as Home Depot and Lowe's. The sculptures are merely decorative.  The other surprising discovery was that 80 percent of the company's employees have a physical or mental disability, or both. 

According the the aforementioned book, "At Habitat, people with schizophrenia drive forklifts next to those with Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy. Hearing-impaired employees cut floor mats alongside co-workers who have endured strokes, severe head injuries, or loss of an arm. For the past two decades, the company’s owner has been hiring people with disabilities, urging other entrepreneurs to do the same thing, and defying the naysayers who said it couldn’t be done."  The "positive distractions" in the company's description are the owner's way of describing what the rest of us refer to as disabilities.  It's a very inspiring story.  Check out their web site to read more about Habitat International, including a link to a feature story on NBC Nightly News.

As hard as it is to believe, our greatest discovery of this trip was yet to come.  Since our three-month sojourn to Europe had cut into our annual letterboxing statistics and our letterboxing anniversary date was looming on August 30, we were frankly interested in finding lots of letterboxes to pump up our personal statistics.  And Steven wanted to get to 50 finds.  So we decided to try a series in  Red Clay State Historic Park near the Tennessee-Georgia border.  A Native American symbol series promised 43 letterboxes on a two-mile loop trail.
                     
HOT on the trail
OK.  For accuracy's sake, we're not talking about 43 actual letterboxes... more like 22 little ziploc bags with double-sided stamps.  But they were very clever and well-done, so we were game.   But we also need to establish that the temperature was 97°, and the humidity at least 248%.  When we say we were HOT on the trail, we are not exaggerating.  Actually most of the trip had been like this.

This was a very woodsy and poison-ivied trail, so you have to be wondering about ticks.  After all, I am the queen of tick magnets.  In fact, last weekend, when I was letterboxing on the beach (ON THE BEACH!!) with our friend Cathy, I ended up with two (or more) ticks and numerous bites from said ticks.

In the meantime, however, we made an incredible, awesome, wonderful, fantastic discovery.  It is called Permethrin and is a synthetic chemical based on a naturally occurring insecticide in chrysanthemum plants.  This magic potion is said to be effective against mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, mites, no-see-ums, and more than 50 other kinds of insects.  We purchased the spray, which is for clothing only (not to be put on one's skin), as well as some clothing pretreated with our nice new friend Permethrin.  All of these we found on Amazon.com.

When we went on this very woodsy, very ticky trail, we wore our pretreated clothing and our hiking boots which had been sprayed.  We had also sprayed Steven's shoes, socks, and pants.  On the trail, we had NO problems with insects except for gnats, which were buzzing around Steven's and Ken's heads.  They were not bothering me because I was wearing a Permethrin-treated hat... until I gave the hat to Steven.  Then he had no buzzing and I did.

So, yes, this was our biggest discovery on this wonderful trip with our letterboxing buddy... a way to protect all of us from the wicked ticks that carry those nasty diseases.  Hooray, Permethrin!!  And we found 38 letterboxes, enjoyed each other's company, and finished the trip with a wonderful dinner with Steven's parents and sister at Franklin's P. F. Chang's... priceless!
  
Woodie & Rachel at P.F. Chang's

FRIDAY, 29 JULY—TUESDAY, 2 AUGUST 2011

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