Wednesday, December 02, 2009

We spent the first week of November touring Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding area. We stayed in a nice campground just off of Interstate 40 and north of the park. The national park is beautiful this time of the year with the leaves in color. At times we thought that the leaves that had fallen from the trees and were lining the forest floor added to the spectacular view.

We also had some disappointments in the area. The commercialism of the area leading to the national park is an eyesore, distracting from the natural beauty of the area. There is a dichotomy in a county where there are no liquor stores (Dry County) but they allow adult entertainment establishments next door to children’s entertainment. This does not compute for us.

From the East Tennessee area we moved to North Carolina, spending three days in the Chapel Hill, Durham area. We have some friends from our military days who are living in Durham and we had a wonderful time visiting with Pete and Dolly. We look forward to the time when we can return to the area and spend a little more time renewing our friendship.

We then moved to Fayetteville and spent a few days with Dan and Marge another retired military couple whom we had not seen for over 25 years. It is funny how you can just pick up with some people where you left off. We had a great time renewing our friendship and getting reacquainted with them.

Following our visit in Fayetteville we moved to the Atlantic Coast staying at the Onslow Beach RV Park in Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Our parking spot was about 100 Yards from the beach. We had a great time here touring the area and visiting the old towns with great history. One of the memorable towns was New Bern about 50 miles north of the campground. There is the classic architecture of the 1700 and 1800’s that is well preserved.

We also enjoyed the great seafood that dominates that restaurant fair. I think that the first few days Julie must have eaten fried oysters every lunch. We also enjoyed picking up fresh seafood and cooking our own meals.

We had some vary nice days while we were at Onslow Beach with the temperatures reaching the mid 70’s so we were able to enjoy long walks on the beach picking up some east coast seashells for our grand children. We were also able to find a few sharks teeth to send to them.

We left there on Nov. 30 and moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where we again are camped within a few yards of the beach. As I write this today it is raining hard, so there will be no beach walks.