Happy Thanksgiving!

We have almost finished up our two weeks here in the Atlanta area, and we have accomplished a lot.  We both had dental work done, and got good news as far as time estimates to complete our procedures that positively affected our timeline in the spring.  So this continues to be the year of changes, cancellations, and more reservations.  I don't think we have ever devoted as much time into planning, and rerouting as we have this year even compared to the last 2 years.

We have had a great time visiting with friends, having meals together as well as going out and even meeting new people.  We've enjoyed a few craft breweries and new restaurants.  It's been good times.  The weather is cooling but we did some great warm nice days.  

We are easing into our winter, Florida mindset.  We have one more stop, Cedar Key before we get to our winter digs in Nokomis, FL.  We had to cancel that reservation 1 1/2 years ago, but they were nice enough to let us move it to next week. 

We have a lot of projects this winter to keep us busy, some big, some small.  One of the biggest is we will have to have our captain's chairs recovered again, something we are NOT happy about.  We had them recovered in 2014, spent a fortune then for the best quality material and they are both cracking, and separating way too soon, maybe a bad batch of material, I don't know.  We'll get more into that after we get there, and like usual, the posts will slow down.

We wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving and hope you will spend it with loved ones and family as we slowly return to normal.

One More Day Until Atlanta

We moved the whole 28 miles down the road to the Blue Ridge KOA, a very nice campground right on the Toccoa River.  And we have been busy.  

We were frustrated with our fire pit in Murphy.  I made up 2 propane hoses with quick disconnects, one 18' long and the other 12' long, and they can be connected together to be 30' long.  Although we haven't used the fire pit much this year, but when we did I used the short hose and it was great.  In Murphy at Peachtree Cove we needed the whole 30' and we couldn't get much flame.  Jan even cleaned out the pit and replaced the rocks, and still pathetic.  It was bugging me, so when we got to Blue Ridge I decided to do some figuring.  So I removed the quick connection fittings from the long hose to see if there were any restrictions in the hose, no, hmmm.  So I removed the fittings from the short hose and the same.  Then I took a closer look at the male portion of the fittings and found, amazingly that one was wide open with perhaps a 1/4" opening and the other had a pinhole only!  Now I am the one that put the quick disconnects on.  I thought I had bought two identical kits and never really looked at them.  Never even knew there were different fittings for whatever reasons.  Anyway, the local Ace Hardware had the correct fitting, so now we have FIRE in our fire pit:-)

The bad fitting

The correct fitting
We did this when Jan had the rocks out,
actually the flames are even higher when the rocks are installed

We had a nice surprise when friends' John and Diane came up to visit.  We met at a great restaurant in town, Southern Charm, had a super meal and a super visit.  Then we moved down the street to a brewery, Grumpy Old Men, that another friend, Brett had recommended and had a rare, for us, and delicious beer.  It is a cool place with quite the choice of beer, from porter to IPA to lager, something for everyone.  They have a couple food trucks there also, that we did not use, but it was busy, lots of outdoor seating, friendly informative pourer, worth a go.

Diane, John, and I solving the problems of the world:-)
A beautiful day

We then came back to the campground for a fire!  And a bourbon for us, and wine for the gals.  It was a gorgeous day and pleasant evening, perfect visit before they had to make their way back home.

I said we've been busy, well it's true, busy riding around, exploring, and finding places to eat.  It's a tough life but someone's got to do it.  We found a cool place called Rocco's in Jasper, GA.  We had an excellent lunch and while there and reading the menu found out they have a bourbon list that is amazing!

If you are at all familiar with bourbon, check out this list!
I mean, Pappy?????

Jan's fantastic patty melt

My luscious cheese steak,
and those onion rings were the absolute bomb!

Another day we went back to Blairsville to that Cuban restaurant I mentioned before, Nani's for one more meal.  Remember I said we did a lot of eating as well as exploring:-)

Pork mojo with yellow rice and red and black beans

Shrimp Creo with the same sides

Then we drove a big loop in the mountains through Suches, at least we think we did, as we climbed in elevation we got up into the clouds, fog, and drizzle, we couldn't see anything for awhile until we came back down, but it still was a gorgeous drive.

We drove by the upper Toccoa River which looks excellent to fish in the future.

The scenery was beautiful even with the incoming weather.

Yesterday was Veteran's Day, we are so thankful for our vets who put everything on the line to protect our freedom and way of life, thankful this day and every other day.  So we were quite disappointed that our flag was the only flag flying in the campground.

So tomorrow we move down to Atlanta, we both have dentist appointments, dermatologist appointment, pick up our mail and a few packages, visit with friends, and then we will make our way to Florida for the winter.

Quick Update From Southwest North Carolina

We had just arrived in Sevierville to Two Rivers Landing, a very nice park, essentially two rows of sites, one row back ins across the road from the French Broad River and one row of pull in's restricted to motorhomes directly on the river.  When we had called and made our reservation only across the river sites were available and that is what we got, still very nice. 

We woke up our first morning, I use the term loosely as it was 0330am to cop cars, sirens, loudspeakers and popped straight out of bed to find there was a huge fire in the campground way at the end away from us thankfully.  They think a battery caught fire or exploded setting their equipment shed and all the equipment on fire!  The fire engines rolled in shortly after, but there was little if anything left.  So our day started pretty early.  Then it poured rain all day so we just hunkered down and made stew.

We hit a period of poor weather, drizzly off and on and cool, okay by us.  The next morning we got up and had breakfast at Waffle House always a good take, although we only do it about 3 times a year, then ran a couple errands, Lodge cast iron cookware was right next to us so we stopped there, and the world's largest knife store, Smoky Mountain Knife Works was right across the street so we got lost in there for awhile.  

We only had one more day and it dawned beautiful and warmer, and we noticed there were a couple sites empty on the river side, so we asked to move over and they said yes.  What a difference, we didn't realize the river sites were much larger, still all concrete and right smack on the river!  Fantastic!

As you can see an awesome site, and private too as they have a line of hedges between sites, we'll be definitely going back there.

Then off to Murphy, NC and Peachtree Cove, a small park we have stayed at before as recently as this spring, it is quiet, in the woods with a small brook babbling right outside.  We are working ourselves closer and closer to Atlanta, but we had an issue come up that we felt we could address from this spot.  I had been battling an ugly swelling on my neck that had been really bothering me, so I made an appointment with our dermatologist in Woodstock, GA a mere 90 miles away.  So we made a day of it, dermatologist to get my neck fixed, then out to a very disappointing lunch, horrible in fact, I won't mention a name, then over to Costco, Total Wine, Publix, and a few other spots then back.  A long day, 0845am to 4pm, but very worth it, and it's a very pretty ride.  North Georgia and western NC are mountainous and beautiful and still have  color.

We have been here a week and enjoying our time, not doing too much, it's been quite cool and rainy off and on.  But it's peaceful and quiet.

Our site in the woods

We have been cooking, riding around, eating at numerous restaurants, some good and some great, relaxing, reading, walking, just having a nice time.

Jan went all out one rainy cool night and made an awesome Osso Buco!

Absolutely delicious!

We drove down to Dahlonega, a favorite north GA town to walk around the square and have lunch, it was just okay, but we really went for the drive.  It's a really cute town.

Then our second to last day we wanted to go check out Blairsville and surrounds, and tried a Cuban restaurant with good reviews, Nani's.  It was fantastic!  Small place, very friendly and like I say excellent, what a find.

These are delicious corn fritters

This was Jan's.  Shrimp Creo with red and black beans and yellow rice!

My delicious Cuban sandwich with beans

We will be going back there.  We were chatting with the owner and he asked if we were staying at Crossing Creeks, we said no and realized we had no idea of where he was talking about.  Understand we have spent many hours in this area exploring even when we lived outside of Atlanta and have looked, with what we thought was diligence, for campgrounds, so to hear of one we missed and find out it was right in Blairsville was quite a surprise.  So we went to visit.  It is a huge ownership park, very interesting and almost affordable:-)

We got a nice break in the weather and were able to go outside for cocktail hour with a fire finally, first time in a week!

So today is our last day, sunny and bright although 27 degrees this morning after the time change.  And I will interject, I have been reading about a lot of states wanting to do away with Daylight Savings Time, and it seems they can do that themselves, and in our opinion they can't do it soon enough.  It is utterly ridiculous to change our clocks twice each year for no apparent or justifiable reason.

So this afternoon we rode up to the Nantahala River to sightsee and check out the fishing spots.  The weather kind of put a kibosh on us fishing this fall, but we plan to come back in the spring and give it a go.  If we had known today was going to be this nice we would have fished, oh well, next time.

The beautiful Nantahala:

Off to Blue Ridge tomorrow and a little closer to Atlanta.