Western Trip 2020, Oct. 23-24

 October 23-24, 2020

From New River State Park to Miller's Campground, Laurel Springs, NC.

We took our time leaving New River this morning because our next park is not far down the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We decided to drive into a little town called Sparta, NC, just to see what we could see.  Fabric store maybe?  Quilt store?

Neither one!  We did stop at a couple other variety shops, though.  We also sat in the parking lot in downtown Sparta and used their Wifi to upload some pictures.  We found a great little restaurant called "Crave" that had good American/Italian food, great service, and wonderful "oldies" music playing.  Best of all, though, was who I was with. We aren't tired of each other yet, even after 40 + days on the road together. 

I see old houses like this one below all along the way, and I always wonder what family lived there and what was their life like?  

We made a special trip to Thistle Meadow Winery in Laurel Springs that we like to go to whenever we're in this area.  They have very good wine, and the area is so beautiful.

After a morning of checking out the nearby towns and shops, we got to our last park of this trip, Miller's Camping, a private campground located right off the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We set up Little House and then headed down to the laundry.  Someone had just started both washers so we came back down to our site and settled in.  We waited about an hour and then headed back down.  Once the laundry was loaded, Paul stayed and completed the task while I just chilled out back at Little House.  I sat outside and knitted a while.  "Chilled out" was right!  It's very chilly underneath these majestic pines. 

That's a beautiful barn quilt on the laundry house.

Just look at the height of those pines!  After the laundry was done we sat out underneath these trees and had dinner by the campfire and then just enjoyed the fire until almost dark.  

Saturday morning dawned overcast and chilly.  We had breakfast and waited for the sun to show itself and then took a hike around the park and up the hillside to where we could see the mountains off in the distance.  We saw this cute bench on our hike, and it looks like a good project for Paul this fall.  One like it would look very nice in our backyard. 

So much beauty!

Christmas trees!  Oh, the smell!

After our hike, we had lunch and sat outside for a while.  We intended to have another campfire tonight, but the clouds came back, and it started to rain about mid-afternoon.  That's ok.  Little House is very cozy. Tomorrow, we head for home--47 nights on the road this time.  Tomorrow will be day # 48.  Check back in tomorrow night for the final blog of our Western Trip, 2020.  Love you all.