Travel Update 9

We started the week by heading down to see more coastline, this time in southern North Carolina. We found some free camping that we wanted to check out in the Croatan National Forest, but wanted to find a reasonably sized population center first to watch the Sounders win the MLS cup. We settled on Morehead city and asked around there for good activities to do in the morning.

Fort Macon State Park was recommended to us at the visitor center, and we're really glad we found it. We spent three hours there, but definitely could have spent more time if we had it. We started by doing a really nice walk around the park.

  

After that we had about an hour to check out the visitor center and the actual fort. They had a video, which is usually one of our favorite things but we didn't get a chance to watch it. Instead we attended a live demonstration of some WWII weapons that they were doing as park of their Veteran's Day weekend. Even though the fort was primarily a civil war fort, it was also used during WWII. They also like to say that the lost shot of the civil war happened here in 1942, when a cold soldier rolled a cannon ball into the fire where it exploded.

After leaving the park, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings, to watch the Sounders game. Which they did indeed win. It may have been a bye for Duck Football, but we did get to get our sports on.

Unfortunately we didn't have as good of luck with our free camping that night. The first place we tried to go was full. We thought we found a spot but then someone came back, telling us that they had in fact been there and just left to go to the store. It was a bummer. On the road up to the other free campsite in the area we ran into a big truck warning us he had gotten stuck in a huge mud pit in the road and had to have his buddy pull him out. He said we could probably make it around if we stuck to the side. Given our vehicle we were skeptical, but we thought we would check it out.

The mud pit that we found was indeed massive. There was no way we were going to make it past. In fact we passed a ranger on the way out who told us that the road was supposed to be closed because of the pit, but someone had taken down the barricade. We asked him for other places, and other than the full campground we tried first he didn't have any ideas. In the end we ended up at our default. Walmart.

The next night we had more luck in the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge. We found a really pretty spot, next to a fascinating marsh. 

 

Our big event during this time period was our trip to Congaree National Park, which absolutely beautiful. We spent a lot of time in Columbia, South Carolina because we were waiting for a new tire.  We finally decided it was time to replace the spare that fell off in West Virginia. Unfortunately, the wheel that we ordered didn't work out so this saga isn't over. We'll have to tell you the full story after we get it all worked out.

We spent a lot of time in the Columbia library, in part because the weather was wet and cold. In part because we had a lot of internet work to do. We've been looking into figuring out insurance and Kathleen is starting to work on fellowship applications for next year. And of course this blog. By the time Saturday rolled around we were very ready to get back on the road and try to move south out of the nights with below freezing temperatures.

Saturday night we ended up getting a room at the Travelodge in Walterboro. Partially because the football game was another late game that didn't start until 10:30 PM, and we didn't want to relay on the kindness of the local Applebees to stay open until the game ended. But we also calculated that we would actually be saving money on a $40 motel room compared to the food/drink costs of a game, plus showers for both of us. We also did some hand washing of laundry in the bathtub, and got to spend some time on the internet. Including watching a women's basketball game, in which Sabrina got her 19th triple double. Throw in the breakfast and it was a great deal.

The breakfast however was not quite up to Kathleen's "hotel breakfast" standards. The drink options were passable with coffee, black tea, water, lemonade, cranberry juice and a funny tasting orange juice. The food was a little strange though. They had Fruit Loops and Rice Krispies but no milk. They also had a yogurt machine. We made cereal parfaits and were satisfied, but it was definitely an odd breakfast.

Given that football season is almost over, we probably won't have another super late game, but maybe there will be a basketball game that will justify another motel.

Congaree National Park

Congaree National Park sits in the heart of South Carolina, within 30 minutes of the state's capital. It was protected because it is was one of the last places in the country to have a large hardwood forest on a flood plane.

The flood plane, which floods an average of 10 times a year, provides the trees with fresh nutrients from upstream allowing them to grow incredibly tall. The park features 25 "champion trees" - trees that are the tallest of their species in the country.

The most interesting of the trees to us was the Bald Cyprus, which features "knees" - roots that grow back up out of the ground. Scientist's best guess as to why they grow these is to provide stability during high wind, but that remains just a guess.

Because the park is on a flood plane, water sits around making the perfect spawning ground for mosquitoes. Luckily for us, the temperatures have been close to or below freezing, so we had the "All Clear".

 

In the park, we went on a 7-mile loop hike. There are only a few hikes in the forest, most of them loops that expand on each other, a 2-mile boardwalk trail, a 4-mile loop follows the boardwalk then branches out. The hike we did  branched out from that 4-mile loop, all of them ending on the boardwalk again. The boardwalk is nice because there are 20 sign posts referencing you to the boardwalk tour where they tell you facts about the history and biology of the park.  Pets are also allowed in this park, so Aiden was able to join us again!

 
  

All-in-all it was a  unique park that we're super glad we visited. There just wasn't too much to do to warrant more than a day or two without going fully into their designated wilderness.

For our science nerds out there - good news! The amphibians of Congaree have not been hit very hard by Chytrid. We asked the ranger and the front desk who had no idea what we were talking about. But he kindly called their wildlife biologist who said that they have not been hit very hard. We were pleasantly surprised. 

Here's a bonus picture of Declan contemplating a beverage.

Travel Update 8

Our big event this week was Shenandoah National Park, which we absolutely loved. It of course has it's own post. As does our visit to the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Outside of those destinations, the week was a pretty slow one. We spent a total of three nights at a Brayley Pond, a camp ground in the George Washington National Forest in Virginia. It was a great free camp ground that gave us a chance to rest and recharge. We did a short hike around the pond on Wednesday.

Other than that, we just took some to hang out and let this kids explore.

 

Unfortunately it started to get pretty cold, so it was quickly time to move on. From there we continued south to Durham, North Carolina where one of our friends from Eugene is currently living. She kindly invited us out to drinks with her work friends, which was a lot of fun. It's always great interacting with other people.

We are also excited to finally be getting into basketball season. On Saturday, the Oregon Women's Basketball team took down team USA in a historic victory. Unfortunately we couldn't find the game televised anywhere (it was an exhibition game, so strictly speaking it didn't count). Instead we parked close enough to a Walmart to get internet and constantly check for updates from Oregon Live. Having seen highlights afterwards, our suspicions are confirmed - This is the team to watch this year!

Kitty Hawk

North Carolina license plates proclaim them as "First in Flight." Which seems a little like cheating the first people to fly were boys from New York, living in Ohio, who happened to chose Kitty Hawk, North Carolina as the place for their flight. None the less, we wanted to see the place where that first flight happened.

There is now a National Monument at the site of the first flight. It also includes a rail like the one the Wright Brothers used to take off, and other rocks marking how long each flight they took was.

Because it was once sand dunes the hill that they flew off of has migrated back about 500 feet. But grass has been planted on the hill so it now stays in place, complete with another monument on it.

Inside the visitor center they have a recreation of the first plane (the original is in DC at the Air and Space Museum) as well as lots of information about the state of knowledge at the time when the brothers flew.

It was a pretty fascinating museum with some cool information. Not a ton here, but a very interesting way to spend the afternoon.

We wanted to spend more time on the Outer Banks, including checking out the a light house and wildlife preserve further north on the island. Unfortunately, the area was not very RV friendly and we couldn't find anywhere to stay. We decided that Kitty Hawk was really what we had come to see, and moved on.

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park gets a lot of visitors every year, in large part due to the fact that it is only 70 miles away from DC and the large population centers around there. This is especially seen in their weekend visitors, since it's a pretty easy weekend trip down. Even though we were there off season, when we arrived on Sunday evening the park was swamped.

The main "attraction" in the park is Skyline Drive, a beautiful winding 105 mile road down a ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had always thought that the Blue Ridge Mountains were a specific mountain range, but it is, in fact, an entire region of Appalachia. Or as wikipedia terms it: a physiographic province. Also - John Denver led us astray, they are predominantly in Virginia, not West Virginia. As is the Shenandoah River.

Nicerthannew.com

The views down Skyline Drive is stunning and there are tons of look out along the road to take in the sprawling views in either direction.

There are over 75 overlooks down the length of the road to stop and take in the view, which is amazing in both directions. 

There were also more hikes than we could possibly do, but we did do a sampling of the variety. The Appalachian Trail runs the entire length of the hike so we did a few miles on that. There were also tons of great hikes up to peaks with great 360 degree views. 

We also did a really nice hike down to look at some waterfalls. The waterfalls were not the most impressive that we've seen but it was a really nice hike through the woods and along a stream. 

 

Our main constraint on this park was where to stay. There are a lot of lodging options within the park, but unfortunately most of the camp grounds were closed for the season, leaving the more expensive lodge as the main option. The one campground that was open was a fairly reasonable $20 a night, but we decided to pass and drive out of the park for a free spot. We did Make use of their coin ops showers and laundry though. They were great facilities that apparently often used by AT through-hikers. So far this has been one of our favorite parks, largely because of the variety of things to do and see here.

 

The Life, Death and Rebirth of the Sticker Map

One of our favorite gifts off of our wedding registry was a map for the back of the RV. It was a blank map with a set of stickers for each state so that you add each one as you go. We very dutifully took pictures as we put each one on, alternating who got to do it as we went.

              

Sadly, as we mentioned in Travel Update 6, after putting on Pennsylvania at our camp site, we left the roll of stickers sitting on the bike rack when we drove away. We didn't realize our mistake until we got to New Jersey and were ready to put our new sticker on. Having just crossed a bridge that was tolled in the other direction it would have been about 60 miles to get back to the camp site to try to find them. In hindsight we should have turned around, but we thought our best course of action was to try to repurchase the map off of Amazon to replace the stickers.

When we got to internet several hours later in New York, we discovered that our current map was no longer available. At this point it was much to late to turn back. We made the decision to buy a new map, that was a close to the same size as possible and have it meet us in Portland, Maine. Not fully ready to give up on the old map we stuck all the stickers on the new one while the base was still on it's cardboard.

     

Then we stuck the new map in the window, having both maps showing for a couple of weeks. We decided we wanted to wait until we could go back to our Pennsylvania camp site and make sure the stickers weren't there before we fully committed and peeled the old map off. 

So we lived the two map life for a little bit. 

 

But after checking to find the stickers, and not succeeding, it became clear that we needed to say goodbye to our first sticker map. 

  

And put on our new one. 

 

We kept the original map on the cardboard that the second one came on as a memento, even though we have no idea what we're going to do with it. 

And now, we're getting back to our old sticker map habits.