We started out as early as we could on Monday, June 15 and headed northwest to our first stop at the Biltmore House. If you’ve never been to a castle, this house is as close to one as you’ll get in the United States. The largest privately owned home in the US (178,926 sq. ft.), you have to see it to believe it. Go to Biltmore.com to get the facts on the house and the Vanderbilt Family. Very interesting stuff. By the time we left the Biltmore, it was pretty hot. I made note of the weather forecast and decided to hang out in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina a day or two to see if the expected heat wave would pass. As it turned out, it didn’t! Our next stop was the Andrew Johnson National Historical Site in Greeneville, TN. Since it was SO close and we probably would not be as close to Tennessee on our way back west, we decided to tag this site AND Tennessee for our Tour. Though the visitor’s center was a bit small, it was very informative. Also, it was a timely visit because in the book on General Sherman I am reading, he has lots to say about President Johnson and Reconstruction. The day was getting late and warm so it was good we had just a little bit of driving to get to our camp at Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park. Yup, that’s right, there is a park where Davy Crockett was born. Even a marker that read, “On this spot, Davy Crockett was born”. How exact is that?! Nice Park and a great site right on the river. We continue our water front camping!
On Tuesday June 16 we were off early in the hopes of beating the heat by getting to our camp before it got too late in the day. We only had about 200 miles to do and there were no stops planned. The road out of east Tennessee was a really nice ride. We took US 321 into Boone, NC and picked up the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 50 miles. We couldn’t resist the chance to ride at least a bit of one of THE best motorcycling roads in the US! By the time we got to Pilot Mountain State Park, it was pretty hot. It was the first time we noticed that North Carolina was getting heat warnings for the central and coastal areas. GREAT, just where we are going! The upside to staying at Pilot Mountain was that it was in the woods (so a bit cooler than the 98 degrees in the sun) and it is also a Natural Historical Landmark. Used by the Native Americans and later those settling North Carolina in the early 1800’s, Pilot Mountain can be seen from 100 miles away on clear days (though for some reason I needed GPS to find it…).
Since June 17 was forecasted to be an exceptionally hot day, we made a slight change to our plans and stopped at only two spots (both pretty much right along I-40) - Guilford Courthouse National Military Park and Bentonville National Historical Site (also a NC Historical Site). By the time we got to Guilford Courthouse, it was already 94 degrees at 10:00. We didn’t tour the battlefield since it was so hot but the heat made the film inside the air conditioned auditorium that much better! Guilford Courthouse NMP is part of the series of Revolutionary War sites that kept General Cornwallis busy till he moved north and eventually surrendered at Yorktown. At the visitor center I finally pick up a copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. I have always wanted to read it. And how current is it! Part of the introduction reads, “…a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.” Those words apply just as true now as then! After our visit we made a beeline onto I-40 and headed further east and into even hotter temps by the time we got to Bentonville. Bentonville, NC was the site of what was probably the last major battle of the Civil War and was between General Sherman and Confederate General Joe Johnston. A victory for the Union, it did come at a heavy price for the South. We had a pretty good visit there and turning our sites to our campground at Cliffs of the Neuse State Park (pronounced ‘noose’), we sort of wished for rain since it was SO hot. We found our spot and just like the campground before, it was pretty well empty. We set up quick and TRIED to stay cool. It was oppressive heat, no wind and plenty of biting insects of all description. By early evening, it started to storm and we got rain alright…all night long! Trying to sleep in a hot, humid and damp tent is not a lot of fun. Everything was damp inside and straight up wet outside by morning (none of the important stuff though). Cliffs was also the beginning of my battle with mosquitoes. For some reason, it is my year for mosquitoes…(and other flying, biting pests).
We were up and packed in record time Thursday, June 18. We were trying to get it all packed BEFORE the next downpour! Even though we packed the tent and other related stuff wet, we hoped the blast to the ocean would dry it out or at least it be dry on the coast when we set up again. We headed east on US70 towards Morehead City. By 50 miles, the skies cleared off and so did our rain gear! Having rain gear on when it is hot and humid, raining or threatening, is just too uncomfortable but necessary. Our first stop on the Carolina coast was Cape Lookout National Seashore. This finished our blast across North Carolina effectively slicing the state in half, west to east. The visitor center is on Harkers Island and this part of North Carolina is WAY pretty! Water, seafood and great ocean views are at every milepost. Oh, and did I mention it was hot…? Once back on US70 east, we were soon on NC 12 headed north to Cedar Island and a highlight of our coastal North Carolina adventure. In order to get to Cape Hatteras and points north, you have to get on the Cedar Island-Ocracoke ferry. About a 2 ½ hour cruise of the Pamlico Sound on the ferry boat, the total $10.00 cost seemed like the best deal of the summer! Once off the ferry, we headed straight to our camp at Ocracoke Campground, only a few miles from the town. We set up quick and since the heat had not subsided at all, we decided to go back into town and find a restaurant to hang out in and get dinner. The Ocracoke Oyster Company was just the place! By the time we got back, it was off to the beach! The beach here is GREAT! No one on it but just a handful of folks for as far north and south as you can see.
After another really hot, mosquito and biting fly filled night, we packed and hit the road early Friday morning. The drive up NC 12 is really nice. You are on just a strip of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pamlico Sound. I think we could live there! Once more we had to ‘ferry it’ from Ocracoke Island to Hatteras but this trip was only 40 minutes on the boat and was FREE! Our first stop was the Hatteras Island Visitor Center in the National Seashore by the same name and home of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse National Historical Landmark. Just southeast of this area is also where the USS Monitor sank (one of the two Ironclads from the Civil War) and is a National Marine Sanctuary. We were going to go up in the lighthouse but since there was a heat advisory for the lighthouse (it is painted black and has no windows), we opted not to go. We continued on NC 12 along Hatteras Island and really enjoyed the ride. No traffic, beautiful scenery and the constant smell of salt air just made us feel real good and forgetful of just how hot it had become. We stopped at Pea River National Wildlife Refuge and that is when it hit us- 99 degrees but the heat index was 103. It felt every bit of it too! We got a chance to explore the visitor center and Alligator River NWR too (which is just across the Sound) and shares the visitor center. There is a lot of interesting wildlife along the coastal regions and we saw more turtles than we could count. This year since being in Arkansas, we have seen innumerable turtles. They have been all over the road (mostly alive…!). Last year it was bears, this year it’s turtles. Our final destination for the day was Oregon Inlet Campground and we weren’t too excited to see it while on our way to a couple of other sites. It was just like Ocracoke Campground- NO shade. Our plan was to stay two nights but I had my doubts. We picked our site and just left to go visit Fort Raleigh National Historical Site on Roanoke Island hoping it would cool off a bit later in the day (it didn’t) and explore a bit waiting for the sun to go down (and eventually it did…). Most folks know about the Lost Colony. Those 117 colonists disappeared from here and no trace has ever been found. Fort Raleigh is the site of this action which took place beginning in 1584. Pretty interesting story. We exited Roanoke Island the way we came in and headed north to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial. What an inspirational place! Just for starters, the Wright Brothers never finished high school and neither had any formal training, they learned all they knew from books. They managed to solve what is considered to be a milestone physics problem- the proper pitch and angle of propellers. Combined with only their own money and determination, it all culminated in what at the time was considered impossible- the Wright Brothers made four flights December 17, 1903, the longest being 852 feet and launching what almost all of us take for granted, powered human flight. From that first flight, it was only 66 years till a man was on the moon. AMAZING…! You got to get out here to see this stuff!
I decided that after the past three days and nights being so hot, and the campsites filled with mosquitoes and biting flies, I had had enough! I was just wore out. Cynthia was fairing a lot better than me but agreed it was time to motel it and besides, we needed to catch up on writing and a host of other things we had not been able to get to since we were in some fairly remote areas. We camped only one night at Oregon Inlet and planned to stop in Hampton, VA after a visit to Fort Monroe National Monument.
Stay tuned, the trip to the coast is coming up! (…and much more!) Greg & Cynthia