6/26 - Virginia Beach, VA instead of the Outer Banks of NC

6/26 - continued.

So, after having ice cream at the gas station and surfing the net for a local hotel, I finally gave up and decided that a slight change in plans would be ok. We would drive north to Virgina Beach and stay at a hotel nearby instead of pitching a tent here on the Outer Banks. I was disappointed but I was afraid of having another yucky campground experience and to be honest, the last few nights at the Hampton Inn had me spoiled. It was my birthday and I wanted to be comfortable. So I made the reservation and was instantly relieved. That's a bad sign for the rest of the trip, if you ask me.

I explained to the kids about the change in plans and they didn't care one way or the other, as long as they still go to play at the beach. So I packed them all up into the van, called the campground to cancel (I think they probably had it figured out by this time - it was nearly 10 p.m.) and we headed out for another 2 1/2 hours of driving. All the way back north along the dunes of the Outer Banks. Through Nags Head and through Kitty Hawk. So much for seeing the Wright Brothers Museum or eating at the Top Dog Cafe. But that's ok - we have great things planned and there would be fun things to do in Virgina Beach as well.

What a long day - definitely our longest day in the car so far. The kids slept for this last stretch and the car was very quiet. It was hard to stay awake myself. That is, until we started trying to get through Norfolk, VA. Wow - crazy! And it was so dark and the roads were confusing. I got lost several times in a seedy part of town. Kept stopping at the same gas station to look at the map and find my way out. I couldn't get out and ask for directions and leave the kids in the car. It was so late, the place was just so ... scary. I don't want to be politically incorrect so I will only say that there was an air of desperation and I was very tense. And I don't scare easily.

So I finally got it figured out (just as our van was being approached by a dirty looking man in the parking lot) and made it onto the right stretch of interstate. You know how in a major city all of the roads twist and curve and interchange, and if you get in the wrong lane in traffic sometimes you just can't get over before you've already missed your exit? That is what kept happening to me.

On a side note, Norfolk looked like an interesting place. We went through several tunnels ... or maybe it was the same tunnel over and over again ... I can't remember. It would be neat to see it in the daylight. I wonder if it would be less intimidating.

So, at almost 1 a.m. (getting lost loses time!) I pulled into our hotel. Exhausted. Carrying a sleeping boy and nothing else. The only thing we brought in were the blankets the kids like to sleep with. The room was absolutely beautiful. It had two big, fluffy queen sized beds and a pull out sofa bed. A huge flat screen tv and a huge area of floor space where the kids could sit and play. And it even had a kitchenette! I almost wonder if we got upgraded or something - I didn't ask.

I just tumbled into bed ... it was so late ... and a bed never felt so good!!

6/26 - The Outer Banks, NC

6/26 - This day was one of the special days I was looking forward to from the beginning of our trip. Not only was it the day we were going to the see the Atlantic Ocean, it was also my 35th birthday. I planned this segment of the trip carefully so that we would be at the Ocean on my birthday.

We got everything packed away from the hotel and I got all of our laundry done before we left. I had been doing a pretty good job keeping up with laundry all along, if I do say so myself. Funny how much easier laundry is when you are only washing, folding, and drying about 10 sets of clothes over and over again. I should make note of that for home when we get back.

We drove for about 2 hours and stopped at a historical house called Ayr Mount. There is a charge to actually go inside the house and take a tour, but I'm too cheap for that. Instead, I had planned to just walk the mile-long Poet's Walk, a mulched trail that winds around the property and through the woods along the creek. It was very pretty, but very hot. The kids didn't like it much at all - they thought it was boring. I reminded them that it was my birthday and this is what I wanted to do and asked them to suck it up and pretend to have a good time for my sake.

Becky started to pretend she was a tour guide and was calling off interesting things to see along the way. It was SO funny - I wish I had been able to record it in some way. At one part she pointed out an area where "at least 500 people have been killed by a T-Rex. Trust me, you don't want to leave the path, ladies and gentlemen!" I had a good time listening to her and we laughed a lot.

I do have a couple of pictures of this but they're on the other computer - will have to add them later.

I had also planned a stop at the Borders bookstore in Chapel Hill, NC. It seemed straight forward enough, but I just could not find the place! We drove up and down and up and down the main road over and over again. I finally found it after stopping at a Trader Joe's to ask for directions (and to buy some yummy snacks!) but it took about an hour and a half longer than I had expected. And then the time we spent in the bookstore ... well I'm sure you know how that goes! We were way behind schedule.

How in the world did I leave Borders with $80 less than I started with and not even manage to get a single book for myself?! I didn't even have time to look at the grown up books - let alone pick one out. So, the kids were happy, I was on the way to the Atlantic so I was definitely happy even without a new book. I estimated that we would be at the campground on the Outer Banks by about 8:00 p.m., a little disappointed that it would be getting dark. But, we were planning on staying here for 3 or 4 days so it would be ok.

So we drove. And we drove and drove. East and east and farther east! It started to get quite swampy and there weren't very many towns or buildings or people. We really needed to stop and eat dinner but I just wasn't going to stop at any of the shanty towns we passed - they were all very scary looking with the bars on all the windows and doors and scary looking people loitering about. So I passed out some snacks that I had in the car and we made do with what we had.

Finally, we turn down the road that will take us past Nags Head and south down the length of the islands to our campground in Kinnakeet, a small fishing village quite a way south of Nags Head ... 40 miles south in fact. The little I could see was breathtaking. The sun was setting and the road just stretched and stretched ahead of us. The dunes are high between the ocean and the road, so you can't actually see much of the water, but I could sure smell it!

So, we get to the place where I thought the campground was and started looking for it. It's already 9 p.m. It's pitch black, and there is a big storm rolling in. The Outer Banks are already really windy, but this night - I couldn't imagine trying to set up a tent in the pitch black and the wind.

I started to have a little pity party, to be honest. It was my birthday. I didn't get to play in the ocean with the kids on my birthday like I wanted. The kids have been asking all day for cake or ice cream or just something to celebrate my birthday. We've been in the car forever and we're tired. And the mosquitos were out, too. And I still had to get a tent up in this violent wind and darkness!

I stopped to get gas at the only gas station for miles and found out we were actually still 12 miles away from our campground. That was depressing. The speed limit was only 40-45 miles per hour, so it had already taken a long time to get where we were and I was tired.

So, at the gas station, I noticed that they sold ice cream. And they had free wi-fi - perfect. I bought ice cream for the kids and let them sing to me. And while they were eating, I googled hotels in the area. Nothing. For miles. I googled the KOA that was right down the street that I had passed on when planning because of price, but which looked really really nice which made me regret passing them up for this no-name campground still 12 miles away. Nothing available. So I googled hotels farther north, near Nags Head. Nothing available. Farther south - nothing. West - nothing.

So I started looking more closely at the map. Where could we go that would have hotel space available (I guess I had already decided I wasn't setting up the tent that night) but still had a nice beach nearby?

6/25/09 - Emerald City

6/25 - After our experience with digging for diamonds on AR earlier in the trip, the kids weren't really looking forward to our emerald excursion today. I almost just skipped it after our disappointing campground experience in the emerald mine area last night, but my mom called and convinced us to at least try it.

I'm so glad she did! We had so much fun at Emerald Hollow Mine. For $5 each, we each got a seat at the sluice table and we also got a big bucket of dirt from the mine that was included in the admission price. Now, I don't know if the buckets were "enhanced" or not, but we found all sorts of pretty rocks. And not teeny, tiny ones either.

I have NO idea why I didn't dress the kids in the "old" clothes that I had bought for them when we were digging for diamonds. What was I thinking? We got plenty dirty, and this red dirt really doesn't wash out. Cheap souvenier, I guess. Ask Tyler sometime about the red dirt that he brought home from vacation as a kid. ;)

Anyway, sluicing was easy. The kids would use a provided hand shovel to scoop some dirt into their screening box.


Then, they'd set their screen into the stream of water and wash the dirt away with their hands and the provided scrub brushes.



Then, following sluicing ettiquite, they'd lift their screens on an angle to see what was left. Even Matthew did some sluicing. He had a lot of fun getting the dirt, washing it, and pulling out the pretty rocks.


Becky's "I'm supposed to smile but I'm really sick of your camera" smile.


The kids really had a great time since they were actually finding stuff this time.


Clockwise from bottom left: Quartz, Rose Quartz, Smokey Quartz


Clockwise from bottom left, with a penny for scale: Green Aventurine, Blue Aventurine, 6 small Garnets, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire. The small stones on the far right are all Sapphires.


Clockwise from left: Amythest, Mica, and something else. Not sure what it is but the rocks are pretty shades of brown. The Mica crumbles into sparkly flakes, and the dirt at this place in Hiddenite is all glittery with crumbled Mica. It's very pretty in the sunlight.


These are all sapphires. We had run out of our free dirt (ha ha) so we bought 2 more buckets. The man who sold them to us told me not to toss anything at all aside since some of these things really just look like rocks and nothing else. So I kept everything in my screen and when the man came around again he picked all of these out as sapphires. I did some research and he is right, but these rocks are obviously not gem-cutting grade. It would be neat to polish them somehow, although I read that tumbling them isn't going to be the best way of doing it.


The young man who was helping us was very nice. He tossed the following rocks into our screen and said, "Look, you found a Ruby and an Emerald, too!" I think he got a kick out of how excited the kids were about the whole thing. So this one is a Ruby.


And this one is an Emerald.


This is a sapphire with a tiny chip out of the exterior surface. You might be able to see that what is inside is shiny.

6/24/09 - The Beginning of the End?

6/24 - We left Newport this morning and I won't say we were sorry. Waking up several times to shift to a different rocky spot or to scoot yourself back up after having slid down in the night doesn't lead to a restful night.

This may have caused some of the beginnings of homesickness as well, since I started to hear from Hannah that she missed her bed at home.

Anyway, on our way to Hiddenite, NC, which was only a few hours away, we stopped at the Catawba Science Center in Hickory, NC. We had a great time! The center was just big enough to keep the kids busy, but small enough that they weren't overwhelmed.

When I told them where we were going, they were so excited! They brought in notebooks and pencils so that they could take notes on their research.


The first exhibit we saw was a mock riverbed. Along one wall were tanks with fish and snakes, lizards, etc. And along the other wall was a tank where kids could touch turtles.


Clara really loved this until the turtle she was petting nipped her on the finger!

The next exhibit was similar but had a mock ocean instead. There was a tank where the kids could touch small rays in this room. Matthew found an eel that he got a kick out of.


In the next room there were exhibits relating to motion.
Matthew found a car where he could experiment with how the size of the circle you drive on affects how many rotations your tires make if your speed stays constant.

Mostly he just wanted to play with the car, but I think he made amazing strides in his physics knowledge today.

The older girls were really good about reading the information posted about each experiment instead of just playing. Of course, I think that just playing with the stuff is a way to learn also, but I think that Hannah and Clara really got a lot out of it because they were able to read and follow along. Here they are on the "human centrifuge."



Hmmm....
Getting to ride the Teacups at DisneyWorld ... $3000
Getting to ride the Human Centrifuge at Catawba Science Center ... $18
I may have to rethink my love of Disney!

The kids explored lots of motion experiments.



Then we went into the room about space exploration. Clara enjoyed making a dirt devil similar to the ones seen on Mars.


The next section was centered around a swamp theme. The kids really like this part of the science center.


We also saw a baby raccoon, baby skunk, lots of baby alligators, snakes, bats, birds, fish, possum and more. It was pretty neat.

The last part focused on the effects of force on motion. They had a set of chairs where you could use a rope pulley system to pull your chair up into the air. There was a bike you could ride to try to power different things. There was a lot more - the kids and I had a great time.

How hard does one have to roll a golf ball on a track to get it to the end of this set of hills?


Lastly, we found a chair designed to help you feel the difference in spinning speed if you have your arms and legs out compared to if you pull them close to your body. Well, Matthew didn't get that part but he did love to spin in the chair!

Clara, though, told me that this must be why ice skaters hold their arms close to their bodies when they spin, so that they could go faster. DisneyWorld never taught her anything like that!

We left the Science Center refreshed and with some neat things to talk about in the car on our way to the campground in Hiddenite.

When we got to the campground, things kind of fell apart. This was not a KOA campground, and while they did have a pool and a little petting zoo in easy viewing distance, I could not find the office to check in. We went around the camp several times in the van and finally I pulled to a stop in front of the bath house to get out and look around. I thought maybe the office was in the same building since it looked like it had several rooms. The kids stayed in the car with the a/c. I can't blame them.

I walked into the bathroom just out of curiosity and I honestly don't think I have ever been more disgusted. The walls didn't come all the way down to the ground - they were like the walls of a stall? Well, like an old bath house, I guess. And no door to the room - just an entryway that turned once for privacy like some public bathrooms are that you find in stores or restaurants. So, there was absolutely NO way to even begin to keep out flies and other bugs. I opened the door to one of the toilet stalls and there were at least 30 flies inside and that is not an exaggeration. The toilets had black mildew/mold growing all along the bottoms and up the bottom part of the commode. It was just so, so gross.

So I left the bathroom and went across to the "laundry" room. Everything in this room was covered in a layer of thick dust, and there were huge cobwebs in the corners of the room which were also covered in dust. The window was propped open by a big hardcover book, also covered in dust. Now, maybe dust just coats stuff here faster than I'm used to, but nothing in this room looked like it had been used in a month or more. There was a checker board on the table and several paperback books, newspapers, magazines, etc. I didn't even go inside the room.

I started heading back to the car (it was right there - I could see it the whole time I was gone), thinking that there was just no way we could stay there. You couldn't pay me to sit on one of those toilets, let alone let one of the kids. But I had already made a reservation and I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to be charged for not staying, so I needed to find the office!

An old man dressed in nothing but shorts approached me, so I asked him if he knew where the office was, and he had to think for a minute. Then he pointed me towards a man on a lawnmower and told me that this man was the owner and he should be able to help me. So I asked the lawnmower-man where the office was and he pointed me towards a mobile home down the road a ways.

We pulled up to the trailer and lawnmower-man met us there, saying he thought his wife was home to help us but that she was out in the camp. I told him that we had reservations but that I was concerned about the bathrooms and that we weren't going to be able to stay. I felt bad, because I'm sure they needed our money. And I'm not normally a wimp in this way - I mean we had a lousy site at Newport but at least the bathrooms were clean there.

Luckily this man was very understanding and even told me that they've been concerned with the bathrooms for a while, too, but haven't been able to come up with a suitable (and I think he meant affordable) solution. I hope they are able to fix them sometime soon - it looked like a relatively nice place otherwise. They had lots of RV campers there and their rates were great.

Here's something that I don't understand about (some) people who live in the country. If you were working on a job, say ... fixing your fence, and you had your lumber and other supplies loaded in the back of your truck, and then your truck broke down along the way, why would you just leave the truck right there for the next 20 or 30 years and not even bother to unload the lumber and stuff from the back of it?! We passed a truck on the side of the dirt road leading to the campground that was clearly *old* considering the model of it, the amount of rust, and the fact that it had brush growing all around it and a tree growing through the engine. And yet it was still carrying its old and decaying load of lumber.

I just don't understand. I saw all sorts of things like this in both Tennessee and North Carolina. I saw a carport that had long ago collapsed onto what looked like 2 cars from the 70's. I think if I was a vintage car collector/restorer, I would just drive around the country roads in Tennessee and offer to buy the junk ones that are just sitting outside of people's barns. I can't tell you how many cool, old, discarded cars I saw just rusting to nothingness on people's property. I guess car restorers probably want ones that are in better shape, though. Still - what a waste.

Anyway, I called my mom and asked for help finding a hotel for the night. I'm so glad that she and my dad had offered us, earlier that day, a stay in a hotel for my birthday which was coming up soon. At the time, I had told them that I'd take a rain check in case we needed it later in the trip, but once I saw the bathrooms at this place, I new we needed the hotel now instead of later.

Mom helped us find a nice Hampton Inn nearby. It was a real luxury to take showers and not having to try to keep your clothes dry while you're putting them on in a wet shower stall afterwards. Or keep your son from yanking open the shower curtain while you're standing inside naked. And sleeping in a real bed was definitely a treat!! So thank you so much, you guys!

6/23/09 - Down Day in Newport, TN

6/23 - We took this day off of driving around and sight seeing. The kids and I swam at the pool for almost 4 hours (sorry no pics - not taking the camera to the pool!) with a short break in the middle to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers, and as a super treat, ice cold grape soda from the vending machine near the pool deck.

Here are some pics of our campsite at Newport. In this one you can see that I was finally able to make a fire. I tried the night before but the air and ground were just too moist and it wouldn't stay lit. It was very discouraging. But on this night we made hamburgers and veggie packets over the fire.


You can see the campsite slope and the mud, sticks and rocks. We did try to clear our spot before we set the tarp down and put the tent up, but it's just impossible and the mud was thick and gooey. It slopes down into this open grassy area where the kids loved to play and catch butterflies and fireflies, and to watch all of the bunnies in the mornings.


Becky is a firefly magnet. At one point she had caught about 10 of them and they were crawling up and down her arms. I remember that I used to love fireflies when I was a kid, too. My mom used to give us empty spice jars to put them in. They were perfect since they had the plastic lids with the sprinkle holes in them so the poor things could breathe.


Again - not the ideal campsite but we made it through 3 nights and were no worse for the wear. I won't even guess how many Daddy Long Leg spiders we brought back with us from this one - I did my best to shake them all off the rainfly and the tent before folding it all up. There were a lot of them, though - so maybe we'll be in for a surprise the next time we get the tent out.

The moisture and heat, the slant of the site, the mud, and the extremely rocky and uncomfortable ground made for a rough 3 nights at this campground. We were all glad to pack up our tent when it was time to leave.

6/22/09 - Great Smokey Mountain National Park

We headed towards the Great Smokey Mountain National Park to see the sites we really came to this area to see. I had thought while planning that I might take the kids to Dollywood or to Dollywood's Splash Country waterpark, but it was so expensive, so hot, and there was rain in the forcast. So we (and by "we" I mean "I" since the kids don't even know what Dollywood is) decided to spend the rest of the day driving through the Great Smokey Mountain National Park and walking the 1.2 mile paved trail to see Laurel Falls.

This is what it looks like when you go through a tunnel, hold up your camera (not looking through it so you have no idea what it focuses on) and don't check your settings at all before hitting the shutter. Kind of a neat picture, I think.


The view is just breathtaking.


We got out and started along the trail to see Laurel Falls which is the most popular waterfall to see at the park. It is 1.2 miles each way and is listed as moderate even though it's a paved trail. We found out soon enough why it is rated moderate, though - it's a pretty steep climb and the path is against the mountainside on one side and is a steep drop off on the other. I made the girls walk right in front of me against the mountain as we were climbing and Matthew was in the stroller. Any time people came around us from behind or past us coming back down, we came to a complete stop against the mountain so that I didn't have to worry about anyone accidentally falling off the cliff.

Here's Becky posing for a picture that Hannah was taking:


We passed the .5 mile marker when several really loud peals of thunder chased us back down and it started to rain. The tree canopy kept us pretty dry but by the time we got back to the car it was really pouring, so we headed back out of the park. I had visions of our tent being washed down the slope by a mud and rock landslide so I wanted to get back to make sure everything was ok. It went a lot faster going down than it did going up!


The rain didn't last long, so I stopped on the way out to snap this photo. I love how you can see the mist rising from the mountain in this one.


I will admit that I was feeling a little defeated by the 2nd night in Newport. The heat and humidity was just so stifling and it had been several days of this heat without a break. The heat was bad enough, but in Newport, you could literally see the moisture hanging in the air and the leaves on the trees were actually dripping water, even though it never did actually rain at the campground.

I couldn't even get my campfire to stay lit and that was like the straw that broke the camel's back for me and I called my mom to whine. (blush!)

6/22/09 - Everything We Didn't Do In Gatlinburg, TN

We arrived at our KOA in Newport, TN in the early evening on the 21st to find that the campground was basically one giant mud puddle due to several days of rain and storms before we arrived. It was ... fun ... setting up the tent and trying to keep everyone out of the mud so that it didn't get all over everything. And even worse, the only site that would fit our tent was on a mild slant, so that when we woke up in the mornings, we would find that our sleeping bags had slid 2-3 feet into a bunch on the downward side of the sloped side.

I had originally planned on meeting up with a friend on Monday, the 22nd, at a playground in Gatlinburg, but somehow we never finished making the plans so we didn't meet up after all. The heat/humidity was just unbearable, so maybe it wasn't a bad thing that the kids weren't going to be running around and getting even hotter. I do keep a case of bottled water in our car, but Becky, especially, tends to really overheat so I have to keep a close eye on her when it's hot outside no matter where we are.

We drove around Gatlinburg trying to find something that looked appealing. The truth is that I was too cheap and too hot to pay $10 to park in a lot and then have to walk blocks and blocks in the heat to whatever places we wanted to go. Plus, it was really touristy, and I didn't drive all this way just to see the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. In fact, I didn't drive all this way to see any of this touristy stuff.

Here are just a few of the things we did NOT do in Gatlinburg:







I admit that I took these pictures while I was driving. But in my defense, we were only driving 5 mph and the traffic was wall to wall, stop and go the entire length of the main drag of Gatlinburg. Yuck. I was as surprised that so many people braved the heat to see this stuff as I was surprised that anyone would honestly want to pay money for this kind of entertainment. You can see this stuff anywhere - and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park is only about 5 miles away.

We had better luck in nearby Pigeon Forge. We were able to stop at a candy shop without having to pay to park, so I treated the kids to a couple of pieces of homemade taffy and I had a homemade peanut butter meltaway. It was all delicious!

More from this day in the next post.