A Stupid Decision = UNBELIEVABLE Night!

After we left Virginia we decided we might as well drive on to Brevard, North Carolina, to see Davidson River Campground, another Cradle of Forestry run camp ground. Dee, Al, Mickey, and Kevin (from Hardin Ridge) are there. We may be going there next year and we were missing our friends. It was about 156 miles so why not?  I'm very glad we went but we got into monsoon rains. Oh my gosh, did it come down. At times you couldn't see the road. I'm not sure how many inches they got but there was flood warnings out, and they were ready to evacuate some of the people around Davidson River.  We went out to dinner with everyone and when we returned Al and Dee were without electricity in the manager's cabin. Al said let's go to the motor home as they have a generator. However, it wouldn't start, so Al had to go out in the rain and work on it to get it started. He came in soaked and had his head light one....just had to get a picture.

Their new motor home was beautiful and we sure did appreciate having lights from the now working generator. 

Mickey, Kevin and Art were sitting on the couch talking with Al. I had held the camera on them for the longest of time to get them to smile. Finally I had to ask them and I got some big ole' grins. Of course Al and Dee's little dog Pearl was laying on her bed and looking so sweet so got a picture of her too. And last but not least is Dee.

I love this picture. It was in one of the hotels we stayed in. I love old log cabins and leaves so it was perfect. I still don't understand it but Art wouldn't let me take it hmmmmm.  :))

Kevin and Mickey took us to a gorgeous nature attraction just up the road from Davidson River. It is called Looking Glass Falls and it was running so fast and furious due to all the rain that they had received.

I could have stood there forever to listen to this, however, it was freezing!!!!!!! And the mist from the water was hitting us and that was making it colder.  

The picture at the top of the blog on the right is the Falls also. This is my first video upload. I am thrilled I learned how to do it. 

So now we are traveling on up the road to another amazing site.

This is a slide in the mountain stream that people slide down. Ah...no!  There are big rocks and bumps that are made of rocks, hello wouldn't that hurt?  And cold, it would have to be July before that water would be lukewarm. There is a life guard on duty because at the bottom it is 8 ft deep.  

How many of you would like to do this? I would if it was completely smooth but oh the rocks. Did you see the railing where the swimmers climb back up the slide. That would take some stamina to do I would think against the current.

After we said our good byes to Al, Dee, Kevin and Mickey we were on our way. We drove on up into the mountains towards the Blue Ridge Parkway, but unfortunately it was closed. However, the road we were on was beautiful. We arrived at Cold Mountain....

And it was appropriately named, it was freezing up there.

See...I wasn't kidding.  The water coming off the mountain was freezing into icicles. It was neat looking .

So now we are heading back to Indiana. Things were going great. The sky was blue, the traffic wasn't bad, and we were making good time...until we saw snow plows sitting on the interstate. There was no snow on the ground, no little flakes were flying in the air, so I called our daughters and said,"would you check the radar for us?" UH Mom, there is a huge snow storm headed for Louisville KY, and yep you guessed it we were headed right toward it. But being the smart level headed people we are we thought we can make it home, we have driven through major snow storms before, even ice. We have but others apparently had not!!! We left Brevard NC at 11:30am and we arrived home at 4:30 am. No that is not a misprint, 17 L O N G hours in the car. SIX hours stuck on the interstate surrounded and pinned in by dozens of big rigs and it was snowing and blowing like crazy. I thought I was going to loose my mind. Now with all our years of wisdom you would have thought we would have known that people drive like idiots in bad weather why would this night be any different? It wasn't! We were being passed while driving 30mph by people easily going 50 -60mph. And then guess what? They ended up in the ditch, thus requiring police and tow trucks to pull them out, thus stopping traffic. And when you add it up to hundreds of stupid people driving stupidly that is a bunch of delays. We would creep along at 2 mph for about 50 ft then stop, and wait and wait...then move a teeny tiny more. It took us 6 hrs to go 70 miles. FINALLY we came to an exit and we exited as fast as we could. We were back in Indiana now so we knew we could figure out a way to get home. Now I know what you all are thinking and asking yourselves...why didn't you stop and get a hotel room and wait out the storm? Well guess what, we at 2:30am started to ask the same thing. They were full :) Now "we feel" like the stupid people. I thought you were supposed to be wise in your old age....apparently we missed that gene in our development. We arrived home and if it hadn't been for the fact that I couldn't bend over because of being in a sitting position for 17 hrs I would have kissed the drive way. The only good thing is........next year we will be in Florida.
      Safe and sound in our warm home with snow on the ground we send best wishes.