Craig's blog

We had a relatively lazy morning and didn’t get out of the campground (after dumping for the first time) until after 10. 

Patty called the University of North Carolina School of the Arts while we were driving to see if they had any tours.  They said no.  She called back to see if we could tour on our own and the person said we could try, so we decided to take a slight detour and stop by.  We got there at noon and went to the “Welcome Center”.  Edwin from the admissions office happened to be standing at the door and seemed very excited to see us and offered to take us on a tour of the campus!  We toured for about 90 minutes and saw the dance practice rooms, the theaters, the movie sets, etc.  It’s not much of an academic college, but if you want to study the arts that they offer, it looks pretty impressive.  The dorm room reminded me and Patty of prison cells.  L

We ate lunch in the motorhome in the parking lot of the school and then we headed off for the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Maddie had wanted to see Grandfather Mountain, so we went their first.  It was a steep, windy road to the base of the mountain, but they don’t allow vehicles over 28’ up the last part of the mountain, no exceptions.  We’re a little over 31’, I think.  So we couldn’t go up. 

Instead, we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 10 miles and drove north up to Julian Price Memorial Park, which is a campground on the parkway.  There is a small lake at the campground and they rent kayaks, so even though it was 5:30 when we arrived, we rented 6 kayaks and headed out on the lake.  We tooled around for an hour, and then came in when they closed at 7.  We drove back to our campsite and setup camp, lit some coals and made a fire.  We were at 3,000 feet, so it was actually cool (maybe 68).  We had a nice dinner, the girls played some cars and we read by the fire for a while.  It was our first night of dry camping.