“USA 🇺🇸 North Carolina ~Monthly Blog Series of….It’s Never Dull!! ~OCTOBER 2024”

• October 31, 2024
• By Pen
• 0 Comment

BOO 👻

October has brought some much needed, cooler weather. I, for one, am grateful!

I picked the kiddos up after school and brought them over to the campground for a craft night. First stop, though, was to feed the little monsters and that’s always a fun experience. Like any kids they like the fast food joints. They do not eat at them very often, so I suppose it’s a real treat this way. It’s the same with soda drinks. They get canned sodas at our house and that’s the only time. I’m not a big fan of the joints, or sodas, but I do want to make them smile and have good memories, without me being the bad guy. They are such good kids.

I love listening to them talk about school, their friends, and life, from the perspectives of young minds. Of course there are always giggles and goofing around, too.

Kenz is volunteering at a local “haunted hay-ride.” It’s really popular and the kids jump out of the woods to scare the guests on the wagon. All the proceeds go to a good cause. Kenz and her friends are dressed-up as the walking dead in one capacity or another … Chels and I had planned on taking the boys on the ride, but Kenz thought it would be too scary for her brothers.

Truth be know, I’m no longer a fan of Halloween, but having grandkids that enjoy it, I’m doing some things to make it fun for them, as I don’t feel imposing my changed belief is right, at this time. They can figure out their own path, in their own time.

Craft night involved water jugs, water, stencils, colored/black felt pens, orange flavored powder drink for coloring the water, and glow sticks. In no time, we all had pumpkin faces that glowed!

We saw this car, on the way to the rec room for the crafts. I’ve seen one on the road, since….

As soon as it got dark, we busted out the glow sticks and enjoyed the fruits of our labor.

Love my little goblins 👹

Aurora Borialis

There was another chance to see the northern lights, a few nights ago. Many states, including North Carolina, got to see them. Here are photos I saved, that people shared, from around; locally, including from the campground and Onslow Beach.

I saw posts coming in, as far away as Ireland, showing the Northern Lights. There is nothing quite like seeing these lights in person!

Operation A/C Pumps, Complete

It took a while, but we now have two new, functioning A/C pumps installed and operating. It was a $400 bill, but a necessity, so cha Ching cha Ching. We are so happy to be done with that.

Next up, in November, we will replace the topper for the passenger side slide. Between wind, sun and rain, the material gets pretty thread-barren and needs replacing. These toppers keep the water from coming inside The Whale, when the slides are out, so they are very essential. We have three toppers, total, and this will make our second replacement. Our third; bedroom slide topper is still in great shape. It is posdible the first owners replaced it, but we are not positive about that. So the replaced ones last 7 and 8 years. Good to know.

Fall Sports

We are still enjoying soccer games and softball games, though this month ended McKenzie’s softball season, and now the boys soccer teams are into play-offs.

I’m really going to miss driving Kenzie home, after her Monday softball games. I just loved our conversations! She’s quite a gal and I enjoy her so much!

I’m already looking forward to her softball, next season.

Rylan’s team lost in the playoffs, though Ry scored a goal! Super proud of him this season. He has come so far, learning the game and playing hard to win!

On the other hand, Luke’s team is still winning and in the playoffs. Luke scored two goals! Now that we are back from our road trip to California, we get to continue supporting Luke. The next game is in November. 

Sibling Love ❤️ 

After this one particular Saturday, where Luke and Ry played games at the same time in neighboring fields, Grandpapa and I alternate watching them. We’ve tried moving back and forth between games and that doesn’t work very well, at all. Best to be completely focused on one kid for a entire game. That way, we don’t miss them making goals!

We also enjoyed a get-together at The Whale for my homemade Seafood Fettuccine dish, with my homemade pasta and local shrimp and scallops! It’s Chelsie’s favorite and I’ve been making it since she was in high school. The kiddos love it, too!

A good time, for sure!

Painting

Now that I’m all set-up in The Whale for painting, Chels came over so we could paint, together. We will def do this again, not just because we didn’t complete our painting, but it’s just so enjoyable!

Shed Addition

Oh the labor of love! Bit by bit, Daryl is working on his addition to the red shed. It’s been fun to watch. It will be a lockable annex for tools.

The Haunted Hay Ride

So this year, McKenzie is volunteering at this haunted hay ride location. The money goes for  a good cause and all the “actors” who dress-up are teenagers and offering there time. We def wanted to support our granddaughter, plus the location is close by and it’s the place that has taken on a food drop for those in need, following Helene.

Kenzie told us it was really scary, after I said I wanted to take the boys with us. We didn’t have a lot of time, since we were leaving on our first of two road trip, this month, so the night before, we did the haunted hayride to check it out.

It was very well done and the property was really set-up! Good lighting, great props and energetic teenagers who jumped on and off the wagon screaming, to scare everybody.. it was fun. I do think Luke would enjoy it, but not Rylan.

I did not get too many photos, though, because the tours started after dark, and went along the woods.

ROAD TRIP #1

By mid October, we packed up Baloo the truck, and headed for Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, and other part of North Carolina.

This would become a much scaled-down road trip, from the leaf-peeking adventure I had arranged and got all the reservations and tickets purchased for; before Hurricane Helene hit, and quite literally destroyed Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, along with damage to many other southern states.

It will be months and years to overcome such a tragedy as that hurricane. Sadly, the death toll will be in the thousands, and some missing persons will never be found.

We easily considered not doing a road trip at all, because how could we, when so many are suffering. It was a very intense week, just wrapping our brains around the tragedy, but like, in true American fashion, volunteers and donations poured in, for the disaster relief and it was quite heartwarming to see.

In the end, we decided to take in, part of the trip, that would benefit from tourism dollars, too, further north, only doing part of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and staying away from the damaged area, the best we could. This would change, again, to not doing the Parkway at all. It’s very hard to get real truth of what’s open and not open.

After I made reservations again, with the new plan, this was a good call, because the National Park Service made an official announcement on their website:

“The National Park Service shared these photos today of the Blue Ridge Parkway and said there is catastrophic damage along the parkway, which will remain closed until further notice.”

Photos: National Park Service

One day, we will get to drive the entire Parkway (almost 500 miles) do our stops, get our pictures during the fall, and do hiking, but it wasn’t meant to be, this time. The same is true for visiting The Great Smokey Mountain National Park…..Another time, after the healing. (So far we’ve tried to get to Smoky three times and it has not worked out; each time).

So crazy, but we will keep trying.

What we still did do, was drive to visit Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, Harper’s Ferry Historical Park, in West Virginia and the New River Gorge National Park (latest added National Park in the system). We actually visited there in West Virginia, a few years ago, when camping with Tiny the trailer, but it had only been added recently, so there was no signage. I got my park sign picture, and we visited the lower gorge historic towns, at the bottom, this time.

We decided to continue North, to Ohio and visit Cuyahoga Valley National Park, because what’s another six hours on the road, right? Well, it was really great.

From there, we took in the ancient Serpent Mounds, along with one other Earthenwork site, ended up in another part of Amish country (which we enjoy)  then we spent the night in a historic hotel, and went on to visit an abandoned Amusement Park, with QUITE a history!

With these three Park visits I have now visited 43 National Parks, out of 63.

Interestingly enough, since we left Shenandoah National Park in Waynesboro, Virginia (south exit) and since the Blue Ridge Parkway is right there (north entrance) we wanted to see for ourselves, what was up. Well, the Parkway was open! There were no closure signs at all, nor were there any “restricted travel only” signs, nor how far travel was allowed, if the road did close. I mean 496 miles is a long ways, but still, it would be nice to know, with some signage. Oh well. We drove on it only for a short time, since we had cancelled that part of the trip, prior, and had other commitments.

In addition, Later, on our way home from our second road trip in October, we passed by the South entrance of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It too was open, with zero signage, to indicate any issues.

 Getting home from our first road trip, was the only thing that was not super clear, before we left on the trip; as far as a route, after coming back in to Virginia, since the most efficient route goes so near the Blue Ridge Parkway area where there was major flooding and damage, so we played it by ear, since a major interstate was closed; both directions, for a section.

In the end, we did have a strange detour, but it got us going back, the right direction, in short order.

In the end, we had a safe trip and even had some good weather for the majority of the six days. We drove 1,825 miles, I took a couple thousand photos and edited them down to under 700. We got in on some beautiful leaf-peaking areas and we were very satisfied with that, traveling through four different states.

We had a blast and enjoyed the adventure, immensely! It was good to get away, for sure.

In the meantime, I was missing the kiddos big time, so we called up Chelsie to invite them to meet us for dinner at Olive Garden, as we came in from our first road trip. That was great and the kids were all well, sans some mild sniffles. Chelsie did break her big toe while we were gone, when a heavy item landed on it, and she will be losing that toenail; poor thing. Unfortunately, this ended her softball season, early. Bummer.

Well This Was Not Planned ~Road Trip #2

So we were home for less than a day, when it became necessary for us to make another road trip, which couldn’t be avoided. We had some business to take care of at our home in California. We knew this trip would eventually be necessary, ever since we decided to stay in North Carolina, instead of continue moving around, in The Whale.

So, two days after we arrived back to NC, after getting the first oil change on Baloo, we buttoned The Whale back up again, right after we unbuttoned everything, from just being gone for a week, and began our drive to California.

We have some items we want to bring back with us that are stored back home; like some of Daryls wood-working tools and my metal detecting tools, for example. It was a no-frills trip, but we indeed had fun and worked in five more National Park visits!

Given the time on the road, with back-to-back road trips, and me doing my share of the driving, I did zero writing, so I’m not sure how fast I will get my blogs written and posted from our fun trips, but I will get them done, eventually, and for sure, after we get back home to NC, again.

We def will not be taking any road trips for awhile, since we are feeling all filled-up in that department.

Our next, pre-planned trip to Tampa, Florida for scuba diving; off the shores of Venice, for shark teeth won’t be happening next month, either. Tampa got hit hard by both Francine and Milton Hurricanes. Some other time we will go, again, after the healing and things are operational.

So that’s about it for the month of October! Now, I will get busy on more blogging from our amazing road trips that totaled almost 8,000 miles of driving!

Stem Cell Patch Therapy Testimony

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