Seeing as though I will not be doing any laundry, or dishes, this afternoon, due to no running water. I will begin the story of our latest adventure.
This past Friday afternoon Phil and I ventured to Eastern North Carolina, and set course to see as much of the Pisgah, and Nantahala National forests as reasonably possible in 2 1/2 days.
The following is a day by day account of what occurred.
NC Mountain Camping trip Day 1: Friday
I had to work in the morning, so as soon as I got home we packed up the RAV and hit the road. It was about 3:15pm when we left Raleigh, so by the time we had reached any worthwhile scenery it had long sense been dark. Ashville by 7:15, we were making good time, and looking forward to a cozy campfire to end the long day. Phil had printed off two maps of the National Parks in the area, and had highlighted the places to camp and the attractions we wanted to visit, we found our favorite campsite on the map and followed its trail into the twisty, turny, pitch black forest.
8:45pm, we arrived at the gate to the park where we wished to camp. We hadn't made reservations for a site because most of the sites were 1st come 1st serve, and there are dozens of them in the area. Unfortunately, because we didn't make reservations, we had no idea that the gate to the park would be closed promptly at 8:00pm. We were 45 minutes late. SOL...as it were.
After taking a few wrong turns, due to a combination of mountain signage, poor lighting, and two unhappy campers, we came across a gas station and went in to ask about our lodging options. The options we were given were as follows:
1) you can drive your car up to the park gate, drop off your camping gear, drive your car back to the gas station park it here overnight, and walk your gear into the park. (this option did not sound good to me as I had been suffering from a terrible stomach ache for the majority of our drive. * Ladies, there are certain times of the month during which, Camping is not advised.)
2) you can drive back down this twisty, turny, pitch black forest road, turn onto this other, more narrow, road and take that to a different entrance to the park where you can find a campsite.
Naturally we went with option #2.
20 minutes later we found the 2nd entrance into the park. This entrance however, was in reality a small parking lot with a Port-O-Potty, a street lamp, and a hiking trail that may or may not have led to the actual campsites that were still at least 20 minutes South of that location. At this point we were both tired of driving, but the thought of having to set up camp next to the port-o-potty gave us the inspiration we needed to keep following the map toward those little tepees that had been so full of promise just a few hours earlier.
As our luck would have it, our "yellow-brick" mountain road emptied out into a private gravel drive about 10 minutes later. Our only feasible option was the parking lot. This... was not what we had in mind. On the up side, there was a nice babbling brook close by to lull us to sleep, as we lay, under the stars, behind a tree, next to a Port-O-Potty, with no campfire.
* I've go to give the Port-O-Potty some credit here, it was kind of nice not to have to squat in the woods.
Part 2 Coming soon
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