Eating an Elephant

I have to admit, I'm tired of eating elephant. It was a big, 3,500 pound beast, white with black and red decals, double axle with a queen size bed, and the source of many really great memories. I finished the last bite this afternoon. It took about two months to finish, chewing and tasting about four to six hours a day, usually three or four days every week. Well, except for the three weeks I took off during the Christmas holidays to eat turkey and occasionally crow.

It all started one morning last September when I stepped out of bed in our KZ Sportsmen travel trailer and felt the normally solid floor beside the bed had a soft spot. In the RV, Recreational Vehicle, realm, this common problem is known as a “spongy floor.” My wife, Ilse, and I were camping in the Georgia mountains a thousand miles from home when I first discovered the problem, and after some tentative probing and carefully inspecting the trailer, we decided to wait until we got back to Port Charlotte, Florida, before we undertook any serious repairs. No need to tear up the trailer while we were still living in it. It was going to be miserably hot and humid when we got back to Florida, so rather than worry about it right away, we would wait until the end of October before tackling the problem.

After parking the trailer for a month or so, we had a serious discussion about what I could do and not do. We decided this was for the professionals to fix, so we towed the five-year old trailer to a local RV repair shop we used in the past and asked for an estimate to restore our compact little home on wheels. The RV technician walked around the trailer, poked and prodded, made a few guesses, then finally gave us his analysis, and his morbid prognosis.

“Well,” he started,”It will probably be between four and six thousand dollars, depending on what we find when we take out the old floor.” He paused, scratched his chin, and continued; “You could just pull up the linoleum and put a piece of plywood down and just sell it as it is.”

My wife and I exchanged understanding glances. We wouldn't be using this shop, no matter what happened. We hauled the trailer back to the house and parked it alongside the garage so I could have electrical power to it and began by pulling up the old linoleum over the soft spot. The plywood floor was rotted over quite a large area, and as I pulled out damp, moldy pieces of plywood, I was stunned to see the cross members under the floor were also rotted. The more rotted wood I pulled out, the more I found. It just kept getting worse and worse. The wood was rotted as far as I could see. The bed and closets would have to come out to see how far the damage extended, but that wasn't the real problem; I had no idea where the water that caused the rot was coming from. I would have to find the leak and fix it before I could attempt to repair the floor.

I spent that first night scouring the Internet and YouTube looking for information, and I was actually overcome with despair, something I had never experienced before. I always see an answer, a way or a solution to every problem. I always have. It is a skill, or a talent, or just an outlook, whatever, that got me to the position of Technical Specialist in the computer repair business years ago in a past lifetime. Not running out of ideas has been my trademark for years, but not this time. I watched video after video and realized I had nothing but hard, tedious work ahead of me, and I had no idea if I had the skills or tools required to fix a simple “spongy” floor.

The next morning I got serious about assessing the damage and began tearing out the interior of the trailer. The more I pulled apart, the more I realized the videos I had watched the night before were only a foreboding of work to come. I sat on the edge of the mattress before I tore out the bed and looked around the trailer. Ilse came in and sat beside me. We talked about the long-term commitment needed and we decided to give it our best shot, but I still couldn't shake the gloom of spending the winter working on the trailer.

We called Monica, our daughter, and she could tell I was having a bad day. After discussing our situation, she was quiet for a moment, then asked the old, rhetorical question about attacking an insurmountable obstacle. “Dad,” she said, “How do you eat an elephant?”

We both laughed. “Right,” I answered, “One bite at a time!”

With the help of my neighbors Al and Charles, who supplied pickup trucks to carry sheets of plywood and air-powered staple guns, among moral support and plenty of suggestions, I decided to undertake as much of the rebuilding on my own as possible. If something got messed up rebuilding the trailer, I wanted it to be my fault, not someone else's. Besides, how hard could it be to pull the aluminum skin off a trailer? Oh yeah, and replace it as well. Ilse and I found out, and believe me, it was a team effort.

To say it has been a journey is an understatement. It was the rainiest winter in Florida I can remember with over twelve inches of rain in January alone. Several multi-day storms rolled through our little sub-tropical paradise with winds that ripped the huge canvas covers I had to reinstall every time I finished a day's work. Covering and uncovering the open, vulnerable trailer did not add humor to the task. I don't like climbing on top of the camper to start with, and doing it twice a work day just added to the repair time. We also decided to alter our daily work schedule to start later each day when the temperature would rise close to 60. I am not a fan of cold weather. We found three water entry points, two in the very front along the front seams on each side of the trailer, and one about halfway up the right wall corresponding to a pass-through door retaining latch that was held in place with two rusted screws. 

I replaced all the rotted or water stained wood - luckily no water was running down from the roof - and I replaced all exterior screws with stainless steel screws, and resealed everything we put back on at least twice, including the aluminum skin. I also found the RV manufacturers - none of them, apparently - caulk under the bottom half of any light or fixture in the trailer's skin. They believe water runs downhill so it isn't needed on the bottom of any extrusions that pass through the skin of the units.  Apparently they have never used what they build. Driving in a pouring rainstorm at sixty miles an hour forces water into every possible crack and fissure. While the manufacturers save literally only pennies, they will cost owners like me a small fortune in mold and wood rot. We checked our unit for leaks continually for the short five years we have had it and had no idea we had a rotted unit until we pulled out the linoleum flooring. For the uninitiated, unmitigated water damage is not covered by any insurance policy.

Ilse painted the new Luan front wall to match the decor and we picked a new champagne colored carpet for the carpeted area around the bed. Today, just before Valentine's Day, in the finally warm Florida sun, I laid the last piece of new flooring. After sitting on the newly reinstalled mattress having a glass of wine, we decided to re-christen our rebuilt trailer with a four day camping trip during the Easter weekend. Shades of our very first camping trip with the KZ back in April, 2011, when the only camping spot available anywhere in the Florida State Park camping system was in the middle of nowhere, the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.

 We took that last open site, and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. This time we wanted to stay in Anastasia, or Wekiwa, or maybe Rainbow Springs, but lo and behold, only one camping spot was open in the entire state park system. The only spot in Florida was once again at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.

So, we booked it and we'll be on our way after we finish cleaning the camper and maybe even giving it a coat of wax. But I have to be honest; after four hundred dollars and many, many hours of self examination, I am really, really tired of elephant. It was quite simply one bite at a time.

If you want to rebuild your travel trailer sometime and want to know what to look forward to, take a look at my photo album at:

The complete photo diary is at  Photo Album of Eating An Elephant

Next: Back on the road, a familiar campground.

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2016/03/charmed.html

Manatee Springs State Park

Entrance to the Magnolia 1 and 2 camping loops at Manatee Springs State Park

We broke camp and departed Vogel State Park near Blairsville Georgia, and drove south down the unforgettable Blood Mountain Saturday, the first day of the Labor Day weekend. After a short stop with family and friends near Athens, Georgia, we headed to another campground we hadn't visited before, the absolutely flat Manatee Springs State Park near Chiefland, Florida.

We extended our stay at Vogel, which is now one of our favorite state parks, and spent more time there than we planned, but temperatures were becoming milder, and the rainy season in Florida was drawing to a close, time to mosey toward home. Besides, Manatee Springs looked inviting, we hadn't been there before and it was on the way home. If we liked it, we would stay a couple of days as we still had time to kick back and enjoy our vacation.

We arrived at the campground on Florida's northwest gulf coast, appropriately located at the other end of the Suwannee River – we started at Stephen Foster State Park near Fargo, Georgia, the headwaters of the river some five weeks ago – around six in the afternoon. We anticipated another great vacation experience, but as my mom always said, “If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all.”

Unfortunately, my mom didn't write a blog, and blank computer screens just don't make good reading. But, in all fairness, I can honestly say Manatee Springs State Park is probably a really nice day-use park. The spring is very reminiscent, although somewhat smaller, of Blue Spring State Park near Sanford. Overnight camping is another story.

We were up at 5:45am the next morning and after coffee, started packing up. We were on the road by daybreak and we were home by noon. We were told by campground volunteers the night before we had site 40, the best site in the campground. Fine, let someone else have it.

There was a popular song some years ago by Huey Lewis and the News where part of the lyrics were about a diner where you could eat all you want for a dollar ninety-nine, but a dollar's worth was all you could stand. That's Manatee Springs State Park campground.

Author's note: 9-14-2015 - In all fairness to those who may read this blog looking for specifics, I've included a more in-depth review of Manatee Springs Park Campground in Florida. This is also in fairness to the volunteers who kept the restroom and shower facilities spotlessly clean while we were there. We had no complaints about the facilities on Magnolia Loop One, but the rest of the campground did not match level the shower facilities.

It had a been a long time since this campground has seen a mower or a weed-whacker. Our past experiences with Florida State Park campgrounds overgrown with weeds and tall grasses tells us this is chigger city. We carefully avoided stepping off the paved path to the shower. The camping loop roads are sand, and we were thankful it wasn’t raining when we were there. I can only imagine the mess. The pad we had, number 40, was cement, sticking out like an island of refuge in a sea of destitution. Many of the sites are difficult to distinguish, looking just like the unkempt, rutted sand road you drive in on. Many of the sites simply were awful.

Magnolia Loop One has sewer hookups, the only loop that has the full facility along with water and 30/50 amp electrical service, however, one of the unfortunate facts of physics is water flows downhill. Our black water/waste water drain, which I assume is pretty much the same level as most RVs, was below the level of the lip of the sewer hookup. In the many years we have been doing this, this was the first sewer I couldn’t dump into without shutting off my camper valves, disconnecting the sewer hose from the trailer, and lifting it high enough to drain into the campground sewer. The process had to be repeated several times to empty my holding tanks.

I saved the best for last, or the worst part, actually. Never have we ever stayed in a campground that smelled like garbage. Manatee State Park campground smelled like garbage. I walked to both of the dumpsters I could see and checked; they were both empty but stunk so badly I couldn't hold the lid open and look inside. Sorry, Florida, if this is the new standard for your state parks, you may have to give back your past awards. This park is not on our list for a return visit.

NEXT: Eating an Elephant, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2016/02/eating-elephant.html

Vogel State Park - Going Away Gift

Tonight is our last night in Vogel State Park, our favorite state park in Georgia. Located eleven or so miles south of Blairsville at the edge of the Chattahoochee National Forest, there are bear warnings posted conspicuously everywhere around the campground. 

Campers are warned not to leave food or containers where bears can get to them, but many people seem to pay little attention to the signs. Our camping neighbors have told us about bears we just missed seeing twice in the two weeks we've been camping here. One bear drug a camper's cooler to the nearby creek sometime last Saturday night and helped itself to a $50 dollar dinner of ribs. Another bear walked across our campground at dusk as a blue grass band played gospel music on the lakeside pavilion not far away. While we heard excited stories about the bears from our camping neighbors, we unfortunately did not see any.

Exactly forty-two minutes ago, at 8:10pm in the fading evening light at dusk, we got our going away gift from Vogel as we walked across the parking lot in front of the visitor center. A full grown black bear slowly sauntered out from behind the split rail fence around the pear tree in front of us, not thirty feet away. It had been helping itself to the tree full of pears. Ilse could hardly speak as she hoarsely whispered, “Bear! Bear!” It only glanced back at us briefly as it strolled across the pavement onto the grass verge and casually walked toward the rental cabin on the side of the hill. The bear could not care less about us or our dog. 

Taz, our Golden Retriever was momentarily shocked as well, but couldn't contain himself and began barking wildly, just of course, as I tried to get a photograph. The bear began to hustle up the hill, then stopped once to turn around and stand on its hind legs as if to smell the air. Then it dropped to all fours and disappeared into the darkness behind the rental cottage. 

If Taz hadn't barked I might have gotten a better photographs. I got three, quick photos, all blurry, indistinct shots that require a page or so of detailed explanation to pinpoint the bear, but it was a unique moment we won't soon forget. Now I can apply my bear decal to the side of the camping trailer and feel like we earned it. A great going away gift at a great park. We will be back.

Really, there is a bear behind the tree... 

NEXT: Not all surprises are fun, at Manatee Springs State Park, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2015/09/manatee-springs-state-park.html

Camping with our Furry Friend

Taz, our twelve or thirteen-year old, mostly Golden Retriever, will rudely interrupt a conversation we are having with friends if he thinks we've wasted enough time talking when we should be walking him. He barks whenever he has something to say, and that can often be embarrassing.

People who don't know him are taken back by his ferocious bark, especially when it's unexpected, such as in the middle of a pleasant conversation with people we meet in campgrounds. He sounds like a much bigger dog than only forty-five pounds. His bark is dominating among dogs, and quite intimidating around people who don't know him. He doesn't bark for fun, though. Some of our friends have never heard him bark except to say hello.

We found out Taz is a “talker” when we had him in obedience school. That's what the instructor called him and she was right; he actually tries to talk. Out of water? No problem, he'll tell us. Don't want to interrupt our walk and talk with someone? He tells us exactly when it's time to go. Dinner? Oh yeah, no problem there either. He is really well behaved and follows commands without hesitation. He doesn't touch anything he is told not to touch, even food. He is not a yapper. When he barks, he is trying to say something.

He's a rescue dog with a past we haven't been able to figure out. He has an undecipherable tattoo on his inner thigh, but does not have an imbedded chip. He has a torn ear and a scar across his belly that goes almost the entire length of his abdomen. He has a severe gash on a front paw and his right hip was crushed when he was younger. Our veterinarian x-rayed his hip and was astonished Taz walks as well as he does; his hip socket looks like a cauliflower. And he doesn't like the water. He loves boat rides, and will splash around the water's edge, but swimming is out of the question.

He's a smart dog, but he's been known to not play well with other dogs. He has no tolerance for aggression. Any dog that foolishly threatens him is in for a ferocious fight, and I don't mean for fun. Taz is kept in quarantine around other dogs to prevent flashes of aggression that seem to come out of nowhere. He is another reason we have the travel trailer; he sleeps with us in the camper and avoids staying in our daughter's house when we visit her and her family.

Taz is persona non gratis, or more properly, canine non gratis. He's not allowed inside as he was a bad house guest and was ungratefully rude to our daughter's Black Labrador. He loves people, though, all people. He has never met anyone he didn't like. As long as you stand upright on two legs, you're his buddy, his friend, his source of gratification through petting, and he'll wag himself silly to say hello.

He didn't eat this morning, and regurgitated what little was left from last night's meal. We have to be careful as we don't know if he is reacting to something he might have picked up from one of the many other dogs in the campground, or if it is symptomatic of a more serious, chronic ailment. 

One of the drawbacks of being on the road and not having a reliable veterinarian to call on. We'll find out in the morning, right now he's lying on his bed watching us and wondering if we'll ever shut off the lights and go to bed.



NEXT: Earning our decal, a going away gift at Vogel, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2015/09/going-away-gift.html

Thwarted - Humor

It's quiet, as still as a forest should be in the dim, early morning light of late summer. Not a sound from outside. I carefully, slowly use both hands to peer through the horizontal metal ribbons that form the Venetian blinds. Not a soul to be seen in the heavily forested campground. The few trailers and recreational vehicles parked to the side of the main road like branches on a tree seem lifeless. There is no sign of activity anywhere. The wet, narrow ribbon of asphalt leading to the campground shower is barren, giving hope to the fact the restroom and showers are as empty as well.

I quickly grab my shaving kit and check to see if I remembered to replace the small, oddly shaped piece of soap that looks like a very small saddle. Yes, a new bar is safely in the plastic case, so I grab fresh underwear and my camp towel, slip on my shower clogs, and quietly open the trailer door. I look around before I step out, as if perhaps I was being watched by professional surveillance teams, and once I assure myself no one else has ventured into the realm, I step down carefully, one step at a time, breathing the heavy, smoke laden air from the campfires that had burned late into the night. As I slowly walk to the road a small bird silently flutters across the campsite, the only sign of life, but it is no threat to occupying the small shower stall that awaits me.

I glance uphill, toward the cul-de-sac, luck is on my side, the road is empty. I turn and head quickly down the road, I only have one hundred or so yards and a hot shower awaits. I speed up, as if I'm racing an unseen competitor, and, suddenly, I am competing with someone! A heavy-set man in his late forties steps into the road between me and the bath house and stops to look at his shaving kit. Where did he come from? I speed up, flopping noisily now, practically running to get ahead of him, but he looks up and sees me coming. He quickly bolts for the bath house. There is no way I can intercept him or pass him. I resignedly slow my pace. At least there are two showers, so not all is lost. I doubt he'll use all the hot water before I finish.

But catastrophe strikes just as I turn on the final path to the door; another camper comes around the corner of the bath house from the other side, his red towel draped around his neck like a horse collar. The first gentleman graciously holds the door open for the johnny-come lately and they both enter together. Damn! Back to the camper. Time for another cup of coffee.

NEXT: Camping with our furry friend, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2015/09/camping-with-our-furry-friend.html

A Different View of Helen, Georgia

Weinerschnitzel? Or, Can they cook it even if they can't spell It?

Helen, Georgia

Helen, Georgia, the make-believe German town in the north Georgia mountains where three out of four “Bavarian” restaurants misspell Wienerschnitzel on their menus, suffered greatly when struck by a uniquely twenty-first century malady. After talking with several frustrated shop owners, we found that problem is all too common.

The fiber-optic communication trunk that carries the Internet for the whole community apparently goes down often enough to cause a communal groan. When the Internet provider goes on the blink, or rather goes dark, the whole town returns to the twentieth century, from cash registers to hotel reservations.
Restaurants place hand-scribbled signs in the door asking for patience, and cash, if possible. A few merchants scrounge up old-fashioned mechanical imprint machines to take credit cards, but many just shrug their shoulders and hope it doesn't take six days for service to be restored like it did not too long ago. Labor Day Weekend is only five days away. They have their fingers crossed.

We came in from the Richard Russell Scenic Highway on the north side of town, an absolutely beautiful stretch of twisty road that runs from near Brasstown Bald to just outside Helen. This is one road the British television program Top Gear should have driven instead of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The beautiful roads up here draw motorcycle riders by the thousands from as far away as Atlanta. We got to see one emergency airlifted from Vogel State Park after he crashed on one of the nearby popular highways. Now I know why the parking lot at the state park has a big white H with a circle around it painted in the center. It is apparently used quite often.

Air med-evac from the Vogel State Park parking lot

We drove into town just after the lunch hour “crush.” The Chattahoochee River that runs through Helen was almost void of tubers, you know, tourists floating lazily down river on flamboyantly colored inner tubes. We counted only six people in the river the entire time we were in town.

They really aren't inner tubes these day, they are only shaped like the old black, rubber tire inner tubes that stunk and left dirty black marks on your bottom. I had an old one with a red rubber patch on it that blew up like a piece of bubble gum after I jumped on it from a dock. The new ones are color coded so the tube-rental operators know who to pick up with which bus on the other side of town.

Richard Russell Scenic Highway

We crossed the bridge over the Chattahoochee River in the center of town and drove to the new, free City of Helen parking area to avoid the $5.00 fee charged near the tourist shops. Walking an extra block or two is a very European thing to do anyway. We were the only car in the free city lot when we parked and the only car there when we walked back two hours later.

We crossed the main street several times with no traffic in either direction. Visitors were sparse and mostly empty-handed. Summer is fast drawing to a close this last day in August, 2015, and it doesn't look like there is any pre-Labor Day rush. The merchants we talked to are painfully aware their peak season is almost over, and they certainly don't need the aggravation of lobotomized cash-registers to make matters worse.

Free city parking lot at Helen

We stopped and scanned menus posted outside several of the more prominent, European-named establishments, and decided if they can't spell the entree, there's a good chance they can't cook it either. Either that or the same company prints all the menus, and they don't know how to spell Wienerschnitzel.

We decided to eat at a river-side restaurant we'd visited years ago with our daughter and granddaughter. While we enjoyed the view and reminiscing about our past visit to the restaurant, we were once again disappointed by the poor quality of the very expensive food. Trust me, the German food is as authentic as the spelling is accurate. Bland, tasteless, even cold food can be labeled anyway they want, but it still tastes awful. They want top dollar for it as well, just to add insult to injury. The side dishes must all come out of the same forty-gallon containers.

A popular grocery chain has a delicatessen in every store, and we have made them a regular stop on our Georgia mountain vacation because we don't like prepackaged, micro-waved, high cholesterol, sodium laden food we seem to get at every local restaurant we stop at. We have had our share of bad restaurant food during this trip, including a barbeque place in Hiawassee that should be red-flagged.

Unfortunately, we didn't find a grocery store coming into Helen from the north, so if there is one nearby, we missed it. Too bad, we would have taken one of their custom-made subs down to an open spot on the riverbank and had a good lunch. Hmm, thoughts for next time.

NEXT: Timing is everything, again, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2015/09/thwarted.html

The Last Train to Clarksville

BRSR Depot - Blue Ridge, Georgia

The image of stepping up into an old railway coach and through an imaginary portal into years gone by sells as many tickets for the Blue Ridge Scenic Railroad as does the allure of a scenic railroad trip through the north Georgia mountains. The popular heritage railroad runs as much on nostalgia as it does on sightseeing. It does not run on commerce, although local commerce has much to do with the success of the railroad as it has become an integral part of the tourist appeal of the area. The old rail service to the heart of the Copper Basin, back when the track was part of the Marietta and North Georgia line, has evolved into a specialized, smartly run opportunity for old-timers to tell their grandchildren what it was like in the old days.

The trip begins at the depot in the heart of the smart, upscale tourist-oriented town of Blue Ridge, Georgia, and ends an hour or so later in a unique destination just twenty miles away on the Georgia/Tennessee state line. When the freshly painted blue and yellow, ten-car train finally and slowly screeches to a stop, it has its front half in Tennessee and the back half still in Georgia.

Passengers are treated to a very pretty ride along the Toccoa River as it runs north – yes, just like the St. Johns – into Tennessee where the name of the river changes to the Ocoee River. The town of McCaysville, Georgia/Copperhill, Tennessee, the destination of the nostalgia-induced journey, is where the train stops and passengers disembark for a two hour visit before the return trip to Blue Ridge.

There is really only one town, delineated by a series of rectangular blue dashes painted on sidewalks and on the streets, and you may not be aware of which town you're in as you wander around looking for a restaurant or a souvenir to take to the friends back home. Many of the passengers from the train have their heads buried in the brochures handed out by local merchants who greeted them as they disembarked from 

The Blue State Line at McCaysville, Georgia/Copperhill, Tennessee

the train and don't see the fading painted marks on the sidewalks. I couldn't help but think of cruise ships that flood small, coastal communities from Jamaica to Alaska with sightseers and tourists, then depart with everyone back on board, leaving nothing behind but cash and credit card charges. Except here they depart by train. When it's full, as many as five hundred passengers shuffle back to the waiting train when they hear the warning horn. Don't miss the four blasts on the train's horn, the ten minute warning, or you take a taxi back to Blue Ridge.   

Toccoa River

The Toccoa River is not the wild and scenic river envisioned by tourists who rely on television or multimedia advertising for their understanding of the world outside of their daily lives, but it is a testament to what we can achieve when we want to. The upscale homes that dot the banks of the clear, light green-colored, steady flowing water aren't the rustic, Appalachian leftovers from the defunct copper mines that give the Toccoa River its distinct color. Visions of pioneer outposts soon give way to parked Mercedes sedans and four-wheel drive pickup trucks. This area has been discovered by realtors and summer residents as well. The river is very popular with tubers, kayakers and white water rafters as the 1996 Olympic whitewater sports competition events were held just a few miles downstream from Copperhill. This is also the trout fishing capital of Georgia.

The 500 year-old fish trap on the Toccoa River

 One of the artifacts pointed out by the guides on the train as it slows to allow photographs is a Native American fish trap thought to be over 500 years old. The fish trap, created by carefully placing large stones and rocks to form a river-wide sluice that funnels the water flow to a central collection point, is directly in front of a newly built river-front home. The thought of tribes that preceded the Cherokees living and fishing where someone now parks their Lexus triggers my imagination and awe. I would have a hard time mowing the lawn here without thinking about what happened on the banks of the river so many centuries ago. The Toccoa River is still a beautiful river, and most property owners do much to keep it pristine or clean. It is a very pretty ride through a very unique part of Georgia.

McCaysville, Georgia/Coppertown, Tennessee - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 The friendly BRSR staff asks everyone as they re-board the train which side they sat on during the trip down, – the trip may have been north, but you went downhill – then has them sit on the opposite side for the return trip to Blue Ridge. Everyone gets to see both sides of the excursion. The railroad even has a properly dressed conductor who walks through the train, chatting with everyone and punching tickets just like in years gone by. In reality, if you have a color-coded sticker with your assigned car number on your lapel your ticket has already been verified, but it is a nice touch for all the old-timers and dreamers who like to think they've taken a step backwards through time. While the whole journey takes four hours, the trip back lasts seems to last for only forty-five minutes or so, or is it just my interpretation of the return trip – they always seem shorter – and before we know it, we are back in Blue Ridge with plenty of time to stroll around and look at shops.

The train runs Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and sometimes Mondays, depending on the season, and is incredibly popular during the autumn months when the mountain foliage turns red and yellow. The train runs daily during the month of October, and twice daily during fall weekends. The Blue Ridge Scenic Railroad shuts down after the first of each year and but starts again each spring, so check their website at brscenic.com for schedules. Yes, we'll do it again next year.  

NEXT: Helen, Georgia - A closer look, at:

http://sleepstwo.blogspot.com/2015/09/authentic.html