One Old Rooster and The Cackling Hens


Oh for a shower!  After 2 nights camping without services, last evening’s campground with services was welcome as anyone within 15 feet of us would probably have attested to.  (I am sure that kind of information is a highlight of the blog!)

After getting a little bit turned around this morning and having trouble finding our way onto the Parkway (we actually ended up on a bloody expressway…it seems Sue’s map reading skills abandoned her this morning), we stopped and wandered around the Mabry Mill.  This grist mill was built over a hundred years ago and during the summer grinds corn meal for demonstration purposes.  The Mabry’s also ran a sawmill, a wheelwright shop and a blacksmith shop.  It was nice to see a little bit of agricultural history, though we have to admit, where corn or anything else was grown in the hills around there is beyond our comprehension.

Or next stop was the Blue Ridge Music Center.  This area of Virginia has a rich history of mountain folk music and dance.  The fiddle, banjo, and guitar welcomed us to the center and yes, I actually stayed and listened to a few songs played by a band that called themselves the Old Rooster and the Cackling Hens.  The facility houses a museum but most impressive was the outdoor amphitheatre which is massive.  Summerfolk would kill for this facility.

We are camping just outside of Boone North Carolina…yes we have left Virginia behind… in a KOA Kampground (no that is not a spelling mistake).  Tomorrow we are going to take a ‘down’ day.  Besides, we really need to do some laundry!

Distance Traveled = 243 km.  Wildlife Sightings = Deer, Cardinal, Tufted Titmouse, Phoebe, Red Tailed Hawk, Goldfinches, Eastern Bluebird, Chipping Sparrow.


Mabry Mill


Sorghum Molasses Evaporator



Blue Ridge Music Centre Amphitheatre


The Old Rooster and the Cackling Hens




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Some Final Thoughts

Image
I have always found it difficult to write the final blog.   This one is no different.   As we pulled into our yard last evening, reality hit…this adventure had come to an end.   But we have so many memories. Being on the road for 3 ½ months, we traveled 22,742 km through 23 States and 1 Province.   We know that we will be asked, “What was your favourite place that you visited?”   That is impossible to answer.   We saw and experienced so many things.   The variety of landscapes in the United States is simply ‘mind boggling’!   It has so many beautiful National Parks and we had the pleasure of visiting quite a few of them. It is time to wrap this up.   We would like to thank all the people who have taken the time to follow our travels.   It has been fun to share our experiences with you once again. We would also like to thank all of our friends and family who shared in and made our adventure possible.   Without your help and support Sue and I would not have been able to lea
Read more

Up One Side and Down the Other

Image
We drove north today to South Dakota’s capital City, Pierre.   It is pronounced ‘Peer’…only the Americans can pronounce a clearly French word in such a manner.   Pierre has a population of only 14,000.   It is the 2 nd smallest US State Capital.   There is also nothing there.   If you wanted to tour their capital buildings, you had to give them 48 hours notice…not sure what that was about.   Didn’t matter, we probably would not have anyway! What we did get to do today though, was drive up one side of the ‘Mighty Mo’ (The Missouri River) and down the other.   The river is a big one.   In places it is 2 miles wide.   It has a large water shed and this is the river that caused a lot of the flooding problems in the late Spring and early Summer.   It is still running far higher than usual for this time of year.   It dumps into the Mississippi.   We can only imagine how bad things must have gotten down in Louisiana after we left there…the river was already pushing the limits of its
Read more

A Family Connection to Plantation/Slave Ownership???

Image
Wednesday June 5, 2019 We were off to visit a sugar cane plantation today and made an interesting discovery…more later. We visited the Destrehan Plantation, a large plantation along the Mississippi River.   We joined a guided tour of the original plantation house built between 1787 and 1790 by only 8 men.   Our tour was with a bus tour…no we were not on the bus tour…we just had to endure the presence of a large group of people…and you know how much I like crowds…not!!!   The plantation has a long and storied history.   It began as an indigo plantation and by 1800 switched to the more profitable sugar cane.   It was large…one mile wide and stretching 8 miles from the banks of the Mississippi River.   By the beginning of the Civil War, it had 200 slaves. It continued growing sugar cane until the early 1920’s when it was sold to a Mexican Oil Refinery.   It then became their headquarters and was abandoned in the late 1950’s and sat vacant for over 20 years.   It was a mess when
Read more