Saturday, September 27, 2014

A Tale of Two Yeti's and a Happy Birthday.....

With apologies to Mr. Charles Dickens, happy Saturday to everyone.  It's been a busy few weeks around here, with the start of school and looking after elderly parents with health issues.  We hope this weekend is going to be a not so busy time.

Rob stopped by Stone's Seafood Thursday after supper, to get some fresh seafood for Friday's supper.  He was planning to fix something yummy Friday evening to celebrate his mom's 90th birthday!!

While he was there, he got to talking to the owner.  Rob's been wanting a bigger Yeti to use for our summer beach trips, the off-grid trip we're planning for the mountains next summer, and for the Christmas trip to Hunting Island SP we've got coming up in just a couple of months.  We have a large cooler (in fact, Rob has about 10 or so coolers now) we used on our cross country trip back in the summer of 2008.  But after a couple seasons with the smaller Yeti, Rob wanted to add a larger Yeti to the cooler family that lives in his shop.

To get on with the story, the shop owner made Rob a good deal, and so Yeti #2 rode home with him in the back seat of Truck.  Yeti #1 or little Yeti is a Roadie 25.  Yeti #2 or Big Yeti is a Tundra 45.  
With the assistance of Truck, here's a picture of the two side by side.....


















Well that's about it for this Saturday.  We're off to the mountains for a weekend camping trip at a new campground Friday, so be checking back here to read all about it.  

Until next time, stay safe out there.....-R,T,&J and the rest of the gang here at team R&T.  

Monday, September 8, 2014

Our Missed Turn Adventure......

Happy Monday everyone!!  The whole gang here hopes everyone's week is off to a great start.  The title of today's post has a lot of story behind it, so let's get started.

Our story will start Saturday morning past, right after breakfast.  It seems the little cafe in Marion where our gang went for breakfast was also part of the local Saturday morning flea market.  After walking the market we all decided it has lots and lots of fleas.  Haha.

Anyway, cousin Sharon was going to tag along with us today, and we wanted to go to Spruce Pine to visit The Soap Shed.  That, along with a nice ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and scouting for a campground were the three major items on our agenda for the day.

After seeing all the fleas, the three of us loaded up in Truck and headed up the mountain on Hwy 221/226 to head up the mountain to Spruce Pine.  Now 226 is a narrow, winding, full of switchbacks type of mountain highway.  For some reason, Rob didn't turn on 226, but stayed straight on 221.  After a few miles, he asked cousin Sharon who was riding shotgun if anything looked familiar to her.  She replied that it had been along time since she ridden on this particular stretch of 221, prompting Rob to realize he had missed the turn off.  

But, we were enjoying the view, the road was a much easier climb, so a quick vote (3-0 in favor) was made to continue on our present course.  

Highway 221 crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway at the little town of Linville Falls, NC.  Also located very close to the intersection of the BRP and 221 is Linville Falls Campground.    Cousin Sharon told us she had checked this campground out this summer and liked it, picking out favorite sites for both Splash and Pod.  So we did a u-turn, and checked it out too.  

Having a particular weekend in mind, we asked to tour the campground, checked out the open sites and booked a reservation for the first week in October.  What lucky missed turn adventure!!

This wasn't the campground we had planned to check out, in fact, we drove right past that one and didn't even bother.  

Here's a picture of the office Rob snagged from the campground's website.


Now as to the why we needed a campground for this particular weekend in this particular area, you'll have to read about over on the Trip's page.

After the campground visit, it was south on the BRP, with a stop along the way to give Cousin Sharon an opportunity to photobomb a picture Rob was taking (WARNING!!  Repeat Picture Ahead!).


Then a quick stop for gas in Spruce Pine, a longer stop to shop for soap at The Soap Shed, and we were headed south on the BRP once again on our way back to the campground.  

So the moral of this story is sometimes it pays to, "take that left turn at Albuquerque" that Buggs Bunny always seemed to miss!!

Until next time, stay safe out there.....-R,T,&J.

Saturday, September 6, 2014

P-Nutty Rides Again.....

Happy Saturday everyone!! It's P-Nutty here and I'm taking care of the blog duties today.  It's great to get to tell everyone about our weekend camping trip.  



This weekend Mr. R, Mrs. T, and I are camping at Mountain Stream RV Park in Marion, NC.  It's a beautiful little park, with no cell service and while the wi-fi is good, its satellite based, so we're very limited in how much bandwidth we can use.

This is just a quick weekend get-away type of trip with family and friends.   Our campsite overlooks beautiful Buck Creek. 


We're even camping beside Aunt Sharon and her The Coffee Cup.....



Never mind the tarp over the roof.  Seems the screws that hold the front window covering on to the trailer weren't properly sealed, so Aunt Sharon with some advice from Mr. R will be fixing that little problem as soon as The Cup is back home.

There's even another pod here, named Lily-Pod out on it's first adventure with it's new owner, who actually taught with Aunt Sharon.  How wild is that!!  

Welcome to the Podding Community....


Last night after setting up camp, the Mr. and Mrs.  rode back to town for some supper at Smokey Cues.  This morning a group of campers went into town for breakfast.  They said both meals were yummy.  Then we all took off up the mountain to ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway, scout out a campground for a trip in October (reservations are made), and stop by The Soap Shed in Spruce Pine for some more handmade soap.   

Of course they had to stop along the parkway for some pictures, with Aunt Sharon even photobombing one of Mr. R's shots.....


So I guess this photobombing thing runs in the family!!!

Anyway, thanks for checking by today.  Have a great weekend. 

Until next time, stay safe out there......- P-Nutty