Mountains 2012 day 7

Note:  Due to lack of Internet at most of our campsites, this blog is being posted after the fact.   In the future we will need to work on a different way of posting.

This day found us at Grandfather Mountain.   If you have never been her, you owe it to yourself to go someday.   It is a bit pricey ($17 /person) but it is an amazing place.    The views are drop dead gorgeous.

Mile High Swinging Bridge.  You can see Mc Craes peak, that we climbed, in the background.

Beautiful vistas

We have visited here before but never had time to do the clime to McCraes Peak.    It is a one mile hike to the peak but it is misleading as you need to climb nearly 1000 feet in the last half mile.    This involves climbing 9 ladders and using safety lines.   Those with fear of heights, need not apply.   Jan will freely admit that she was way outside her comfort zone on the climb but she hung in there and made it to the summit.   I have already been told that she will never do it again.      

A series of three vertical  ladders,  about 90 feet climb combined.   ....and yes that is nearly straight down.

Jan spending a moment in her comfort zone

This is at the top of the ladders.   We are still about 200 feet from the summit

Reaching the summit

We left the summit and decided on a more protected route down as it looked like bad weather was headed in.   We started down the Underwood trail which only involves one ladder ( 60 feet high) but the trail resemble a large bolder field.   You had to slide on your butt most of the way down.   Just when we thought it couldn't get any more challenging, the heavens opened and the rains flowed.   I am so glad we took the "easier" route as coming down those 9 ladders in the rain would have been extremely  dangerous.    We tried to make it to a cave we knew of to get out of the rain but by the time we got there the rain had all but stopped.

The entire two mile hike and climb took us over five and a half hours.   It was hard work but well worth the effort.   Like most things in life, when you challenge yourself you will be rewarded.

Needless to say,   we were tired that night.   We cooked a simple meal and turned in to "The Love Shack" for some much needed rest.

Mountains 2012..... day 4,5,6

All is going well.  Lots of hiking and exploring. 
Hiked this morning to watch the sunrise from Little Lost Cove Cliffs.  

Mountains 2012. Day four

We are now basecamped in mortimer north carolina.  I suggest you google map it.   I am sitting at the only place that I can get an internet connection which is the side of a mountain about 5 miles away from our campsite.  I am creating this post on my droid bionic... hence I am not worried much about capitalization and punctuation.   Jan is drawing some of the beautiful rhododendron flowers which are in full bloom.

Images include our campsite and the view from the cliff that I'm sitting on.  The mountains in the center of the image is grandfather mountain.  We are planning a climb to the top of that and beyond this coming thursday. 

We will be in this area for about the next 10 days.   Final 2 nights we're going to pull the plug and be totally off the grid. 

We are eating well drinking well and just relaxing. I am finished 1 book and I am willing to a second.

The cliff we are on is known as dark side cliff.  It is about a 1 mile hike out to a beautiful open cliff area.

Okay we're going to just take time in enjoy the peace and quiet in the beautiful view.  I will post whenever I get an internet connection and have the time. 

Chip and Jan

2012 Mountain Trip Day 2

Hi

What a great night's sleep we had in the  "Love Shack".   We had gone to bed with the AC on but by morning it was not needed.  ........ it was 57°F when we got up.

Here is what our campsite looks like at Tablerock Mountain SP.

We got about 9 hours of sleep last night and felt rejuvenated after yesterdays grueling trip.   Breakfast was bacon and eggs and press pot coffee.

After breakfast cleanup we went off on a 2 mile hike of the Carrick creek trail. pretty easy for acclimating ourselves but very pretty.

Here is Tablerock

We drove about a fifty mile loop of car hiking which included a hike at Caesars Head.   Interesting thing is we have not been here sine our honeymoon, over 22 years ago.

OK, back at camp, cocktail hour commenced.   Getting ready for Italian and some red wine.

After tomorrow, our posts will be shorter as we will only have Internet once a day.   I will probably be posting from the DROID.

2012 Mountain Trip Day 1 adendum

Good morning.   I am on my first cup of coffee as I watch a beautiful sunrise over the mountains of South Carolina.

Yesterday was a looooooonnnnngggg day.    We were up at 0400 and on the road by 0430.    We ate breakfast at the the Waffle house in Gainsville, Fl ( Waffle House breakfasts of ham and chesse omlets with hash browns, scattered smothered an d covered are a tradition on road trips. )   We pushed from there to Forsythe Georgia for gas and lunch then the push to our destination, Tablerock Mountain State Park in South Carolina. It was a 12+ hour travel day.

No camp cooking was planned so we Checked out a local restaurant  called Aunt Sue's.   Country fried steak, okra and fried green tomatoes.....country cooking at it's finest.

Needless to say we were beat by the time we got back to the campsite but no too tired to enjoy our ritual Friday evening martini.  By 9 pm we were tucked in and off to slumber.

   We have a beautiful pull through spot, facing east so as I write, I am watching a most beautiful sunrise.   We will b e here for two nights.

Today we will be exploring the local area, hiking and just plain relaxing.  

Images to come later today.

2012 Mountain Trip Day 1

It was a 12 hour travel day.  Dinner out then a martini before sleep comes. More tomorrow.

Preparation......Loading day

The staging area in our condo has enough equipment to make an Everest climbing team proud.   Lists are being checked and double checked.   I am off to the store for one last batch of "must have items".

Back from the store,  Went to pick up trailer at the yard.   Recognized problem with propane hose.   Had to go buy new hose.   Heat is unbearable.

Finally finished loading everything at 7pm,   I am beat.    We are rolling at 0430 so not much to say tonight.   Pics from our first campsite will come tomorrow

Can't wait for tomorrow.  It is not the destination, it is the journey.

Preparation......Electronics and tech gear

My wife always makes fun of me over how much tech stuff I take on our journeys.   To me it is just the essentials

First of all, here is a picture of the dash of the JEEP as we headed out last year.

The equipment includes:

valentine V1 radar detector
Garmin Nuvi 250W GPS
Motorola Droid Bionic smartphone
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7"   3G enabled.
Sirius Satellite radio ( For back country camping, it is great to be able to listen to news nad programming while off the grid.)

The capabilities are a great tool while on the road.   We love being able to look stuff up while driving as well as finding food, rest areas etc.    It is funny but the radar detector has saved me from tickets , more in town than on the highway.   In case the three standalone GPS units are not enough, I also have a GPS receiver for my laptop as well as full topographic maps for N America.   Overkill, maybe but we find some very cool places to get lost while exploring.

What else do we bring?    Lots!!!! I have one tote that is dedicated to electronics and tech requirements.  First of all, chargers for everything.   Phones, laptops, tablets, cameras..... it would be so much easier if manufacturers would standardize all the chargers.  Lots of 12V splitters and a 110 v power strip.  You can never have enough outlets

OK now the major list:

20" led HDTV with built in DVD player
15" Acer Ultrabook laptop ( Mine for photo editing and camera image downloads)
10"  Toshiba netbook laptop   (wife's for email, news and game playing.)
Motorola GMRS walkie talkies
weather radio
Canon 30d and 50d  dSLR cameras
18-200 lens
10-20 ultra wide angle.
135-400 telephoto
All the accessories for cameras above.

The place where we will be spending  most of our time has no cell phone signal and of course no Internet.   To get a really solid cell signal with 3G data, we need to drive at least 15 miles.   I have one spot that is about a 5 mile drive and a quarter mile hike to where I can get a marginal signal.   Both my Droid Bionic and the galaxy tablet can act as an Internet hotspot for our computers , provided we have at least 3G data coverage.   W are usually driving around all day so at least once a day we are in Internet/phone range.   We take about 30 minutes to answer important emails, transmit blogs and get phone messages.   When we get back to camp, it is nice to be fully unplugged as it forces me to actually read books.   (last year on our two week trip, I read five full books.   It is very relaxing.)

Enough on my electronics.   If you have any suggestions of other items that I should have, please place them in the comments section below.   Thanks for reading.

Preparation......Let the staging begin.

It is one week from our departure on our nearly three week trip to the mountains of the Carolina's and Georgia.   Today is the last official day of school for my lovely wife, so after today our preparations can begin in earnest.

Due to our recent shakedown cruise, most of the important stuff is packed and ready to go.   We have found a variety of plastic storage tubs that fit the storage areas of the "Love Shack" perfectly.  They are all labeled and all the essentials are easy to find.  I amazed at how organized we are and how well it works for us.

The nice thing about the plastic totes is they can sit outside and even if it rains, nothing will get wet.   We do all of our camp cooking outside and we have certain totes that are stored under the Aliner dining room table with cooking essentials.  All of our dry foods, canned goods, spices and condiments are stored in the aft luggage locker making them easy to retrieve and put away.

Having all the essential camping gear stored in trailer makes for a much more orderly tow vehicle.  It is hard for us to imagine that the rear of our Jeep looked like this when we tent camped, the past few years.

I am using an app for my Android phone that makes planning and packing for a camping trip so much easier.   Camping Planner is fully customizable and can be setup with as many subdivisions of things to take as are needed.   Once everything is checked off in a category, the category goes green as in GO NOGO.   It is a great tool for planning any kind of expedition where multiple items are needed and must be confirmed before departure.

I only have one minor mechanical issue to address on the trailer and she will be ready to roll.   Last weekend, I installed a Fantastic Fan (thermostatic exhaust fan) and added a double propane tank holder.   Everything turned out great except I had to do a little engineering on the propane gas hose to make sure it is long enough to reach both cylinders.  A cheap elbow fitting did the trick and everything now reaches.

More as we get closer to departure.

Shakedown Weekend for the "Love Shack"

We have decided to name our A-Liner, "The Love Shack". ( here is the graphic we are going to have put on the spare tire carrier)

Saturday morning of Memorial day weekend found me, before sunrise, at the RV storage lot.    I picked up the Aliner and headed to the condo to load up.   One disadvantage to condo living is that that association frowns on RVs being parked on condo property. Because of this we have limited window of time to pull in and pull out.  We had all of our supplies preloaded in plastic totes, so the loading did not take long.   We had a few onetime setup items like cutting the memory foam topper for the bed and figuring out which fitted sheets would work best.   Normally this would have taken us about an hour but as luck would have it, Jan woke up that morning with a head cold and was running at about 30% efficiency.   We took the attitude that if someone complained about the camper being parked, we would tell them to send us a letter.    We took our time, making sure everything was checked off the list and by noon we were on the road.

A quick stop at Wal-mart for supplies and lunch at MacDonalds  had us on the road and headed off to adventure.   We got to the state park at about 3:30 and after checking in with the ranger, headed to our campsite.    I will be the first to admit that I still suck at backing in a trailer.  ( I get a little better each time, I think)  I managed to back into the campsite with a minimum of laughter from the neighbors in the packed , holiday weekend, campground.    Once in a reasonable position, I  Put the camper up in about a minute, put the stabilizers down and unhooked from the "HEEP".  No problems....this is going so well. I should learn never to say that.    I go and plug in the shore power cord and immediately the breaker blows.   I try again, same thing.   Shutting off all breakers in the camper and breaker pops again.   (I might add that it was about 95° and humid as hell so we really wanted to get the AC running.)

Luckily I always carry a volt ohm meter with me and I tore into the trailer to find out where the short circuit was.   I isolated each branch of the power legs going in and out and found that the direct short was in the converter main power bus.   What I found amazes me!   There was bare wire running from the bus that was tucked into the back of the converter with no termination, no place to connect to and no insulation.   I removed the wire, everything in the camper works and no more blown breaker.   I do not know how the dealer demonstrated the trailer to us when we picked it up, as everything was working fine then.   That wire may have been tucked in there since the camper was made.  We may never know.

Electrical problem solved, it was time to party and a killer batch of margaritas was made and consumed.   Wife claimed the tequila made her cold feel a lot better....I bet it did, plus all that good vitamin C.   Keeping in the Mexican theme, dinner was Yucatan style tacos con carne asada.   Way yummy plus rice and beans.

To be honest with you.   The first night in our new camper, Jan and I  did not sleep together.   Jan was so congested with her cold that she made up the extra bed and we slept in different beds together.   She was so worried that I would catch her cold and that she would keep me up all night.   The roominess of the Aliner is nice that we had that option.

I found out quickly that our 5000 BTU air conditioner could turn the inside of the Aliner into a "meat locker".    Jan had taken the down comforter over to her bed and I was stuck with a sheet.    I must have adjusted the AC a half dozen times before I dialed in an comfortable temperature.

Sleeping was a quantum leap from the tent that we are used to camping in.  A queen size bed with a two inch memory foam topper, was way better than an air mattress on the nylon floor of a tent.   Just getting up is easier.   I can't believe we waited this long to take this step.

Sunday was relaxing.   Nice breakfast, hiking in the centuries old hammocks of central florida and just lounging around.  I read two books in the two days were were there.

To add just a little more excitement to our trip, mother nature decided to send us the outskirts of tropical storm Beryl.   If we had been tenting it might have been a problem but with the Aliner, we just hunkered down inside, enjoyed an adult beverage and let the weather blow.   It sure beats a tent.  I shot this picture at night between the rain storms.

The Storms lasted until about 7am.   It was so nice laying in bed and listening to the rain on the roof of the camper and being cozy and dry inside.

Breaking camp and the drive home were uneventful but we were sorry to see the weekend be over so soon.   We can't wait to head out on our three week trip in the middle of June.   Stay tuned for our adventures from the road.

By the way.......I caught Jan's cold and was sick the rest of the week.    It must have been that cozy afternoon, snuggling in the "Love Shack".