June 9-11

We arrived in Boone, NC, at the appointed time--3:30 p.m.  When you travel with a caravan, the leaders and parkers need to arrive first and are given time to see sites along the route ahead of you.  In our caravan, typically we are to arrive between 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Once again, we are staying at a KOA.  We have no WiFi and no cable.  Welcome to North Carolina mountain area!  (That means I didn't get to see Game #3 of the NBA Finals--oh, well!)

What we do have is a lovely mountain setting, cool-ish breezes, and wonderful air to breath.  We are north of Boone about 3-4 miles, which provides us with access to a college town with many amenities.

We spend June 9 shopping at the Mast General Store in Boone (the original is in a town called Valle Crusis).  We then drove to Blowing Rock, NC, which we have visited before.  We simply love this area.  Blowing Rock has many small, independently-owned stores and restaurants.  For lunch, we ate at the Village Cafe, which was a story of steps down between buildings in a nice, shaded grove.  The key is knowing where to look for all of these gems!

We visited the Martin House, again, one of my favorite little houses full of shops.  One of the shops sold dulcimers, and Brad encouraged me to purchase a hammered dulcimer, so I did.  It is a small instrument, so hopefully, I can figure out how to play it well enough to take it traveling with us.

Today, we are headed for Grandfather Mountain.  Grandfather Mountain is part tourist "eco-friendly" attraction and part state park.  Historically, it was all tourist attraction.  We had tickets as part of our caravan activities, so we took Alma and Bob Powell with us, playing the CD given to us at the gate, traveling all the way up the mountain and stopping at the nature center, seeing the bears and otters.  As we began the last set of hairpins turns, I felt my vertigo on the edge of kicking in.  I looked down, unfortunately, and that was it.  I told Brad to stop the truck, let me out, and the rest of them went on up the last set of turns.  They walked the bridge, took pictures, and then came back to pick me up!

We traveled back to Boone, stopping at the original Mast General Store and Annex in Valle Crucis.  The prices weren't similar to history as everything was very expensive, but on the other hand, you could purchase old-time candy like Sugar Daddies and Neccos--$1.69/pound.

We spent the evening at the KOA Group Rally Room, talking with each other, telling jokes, sharing stories, and planning for the next day, our travel day to Galax, VA.