| |
Subject |
Author |
Date Posted |
Forum
|
 |
RE: North Carolina Mountains
Update on the colors----we are having lots of beautiful colors now. While driving around you can see a red or orange tree sprinkled with the still green trees. Anyone coming this month will get a real treat---I thought with the drought the leaves would just turn brown and fall off--not so!
|
99Prowler
|
10/07/08 07:54am |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: Thoughts on 2 weeks of RV'ing in New Zealand
We lived in New Zealand (Devonport across the water from Auckland) for 2 years while my husband worked there. We lived there from 1995-1997. There was little to no crime there and the Kiwi's were very proud of that. Once you got used to driving on "the other side of the road" you were fine. The only thing that still got me confused was when I was backing out of someone's driveway onto the road. I had to remind myself to put the steering wheel side of the car on the middle line. Speed limits there, even on their highways are slower than what you would expect here. Also, they have traffic cameras that take pictures of offenders running lights, speeding, etc. I was still trying to get used to the kilometers/mph thing and had my picture taken speeding. It was sent to our house along with a fine---you can't just say it was someone borrowing your car---the photo really shows who is driving. If you get on the back roads you may encounter herds of sheep or cows being herded somewhere and that will slow you down. It is a different way of life than in the U.S., but when you travel outside of the U.S., you have to adapt to another country's way of living if you are going to enjoy it to it's fullest. The Kiwi's are very outdoorsy people and a lot of them don't have interests in huge t.v.'s, hot tubs and things like that. They are very family oriented and take pride in their country. We did encounter a few people who were negative towards Americans, but that was to be expected. Grocery shopping was an experience there as well because the food was priced so much higher than here. The milk tastes different, the orange juice tastes different and I couldn't find hot dogs and macaroni and cheese that my kids would eat. It took lots of trying different brands and styles to find something they would eventually eat. At that time New Zealand wasn't big on frozen dinners and lunch meat and most meals were home-cooked meals. We brought back many beautiful pieces of furniture and pottery and a baby girl when we came back. Our only daughter was born there---and for those of you who gave birth in an American hospital---consider yourself lucky! After having a C-section for my premature daughter and having her sent by ambulance to the Woman and Childrens hospital in Auckland, I was transferred as well and had a room to myself. A room with a bed, side table and a window. I had no assistance getting up to use the bathroom and if you wanted a snack, you didn't press the button and have a grape juice and yogurt brought to you----you went to the kitchen and made yourself tea and toast and when you were done, you cleaned up the dishes yourself. If you delivered "naturally", you were shared a room with 3 other mothers. Since my daughter was born premature, I was allowed to stay at the hospital until my daughter was discharged. Anyway, the greatest thing I brought back from N.Z. was my daughter, but the country is beautiful and the people were very sweet. Sad they are having crime, but as more and more people have financial problems, that will increase everywhere. If I had the money, we would go back. You need at least 2 weeks there---the jet lag will absolutely kill you--both ways--coming and going--when we came back, my older boys didn't want to go to sleep until at least 3:00 a/m, E.S.T.--it took 2 weeks to slowly turn back their bed time and get them used to the new time zone. N.Z is a beautiful place!
|
99Prowler
|
10/07/08 07:50am |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: North Carolina Mountains
Maggie Valley is starting to turn colors. A few trees have completely, others are starting to turn and some haven't started yet. It's very patchy, but is still another week before you arrive, so there will be more colors by then. The nights are in the 30's to 40's now with daytime highs in the 60's and 70's. The tourists have started to arrive to leaf peep.
|
99Prowler
|
10/05/08 12:17pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: Campgrounds near Ashville NC
You always get the same answer from me---Rutledge Lake in Fletcher. About 80 sites, fishing, very clean laundry facilities, clean, safe and quiet. We will be there the weekend of the 17-19th and the 24-26th. That is our home away from home and our family loves it there. We spent a month there this summer while our house was undergoing some remodeling and we drove back and forth to our house every day from the campground and drove back every night. It got us out of the paint and carpet smell and we had a place to sleep and the kids were able to still enjoy some of their summer by swimming, playing in the creek, riding bikes and playing at the playground. I know it has just changed hands---back the spring it became a Jellystone park, but nothing changed except to have some more kids activities on the weekends and but now it has new owners and that happened sometime in August. We haven't been there yet with the new owners, but I can't imagine that it has changed.
|
99Prowler
|
10/04/08 01:44pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: Great Smoky Mountains Railroad
The GSMR does not start at Dillsboro anymore and hasn't for awhile due to some kind of conflict. You have to get on the train at Bryson City. Don't know anything about the halloween trip, but had 2 kids do the Polar Express trip at Christmas time with their local elementary school and they loved it---but they got to see Santa Claus, have hot chocolate and cookies as well!
|
99Prowler
|
10/04/08 01:38pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: fyi for leaf lookers coming to waynesville area
Maggie's Galley is still open! The leaves are starting to turn here, even at 3,500 elevation. I have some reds, yellows and oranges in my yard. My silver maple has green, purplish and red leaves on it---it's really pretty.
|
99Prowler
|
10/01/08 01:17pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
fyi for leaf lookers coming to waynesville area
We now have a brand new Wal-Mart SuperCenter. Our old one is now closed. If you used that store to shop, you won't be able to. You probably can still park there overnight, but the store is closed up. Our new store is located on that same hwy---23/74, but down several exits at exit 98. The new store opened today and it is really nice. I didn't get a chance to check out the camping area but I will next time I go. With leaf season coming up soon, I know we get a lot of RV'ers coming through here to "leaf peep" and wanted to make sure you didn't try to go to the old Wal-Mart.
|
99Prowler
|
10/01/08 08:23am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Gas Avilablility in GA
Asheville and all of Western North Carolina still continue to see outages and shortages and long lines. Today the news is reporting that this crisis will ease up this week. Today all 7 gas stations in my small tiny town have gas. They may run out soon, but right now they have gas with no lines. Some stations have been only having premium, or regular unleaded and mostly all have diesel. The Atlanta area is having problems as well as the Charlotte, NC area.
|
99Prowler
|
09/29/08 02:05pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: gas availabilty
Took a look at your route again---i don't think you'll have any problem with shortages. It's mostly western north carolina, South Carolina and Atlanta.
|
99Prowler
|
09/29/08 01:59pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: gas availabilty
Outages are still in Western North Carolina, South Carolina, Nashville, Tn and Atlanta. We are slowly getting more. Some stations are out for longer than others. Just don't plan on getting gas in those areas and you'll be fine. By Friday, October 3rd, our supplies should be almost to normal. All the 7 stations near me in our small town of population 600 permanent residents (that doesn't include all the people that come from april-october) have gas today.
|
99Prowler
|
09/29/08 01:58pm |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Made it thru IKE
Glad you are okay. I can't imagine having to live through a hurricane.Glad the TT is safe---can't believe it didn't even have a scratch---someone knew you would be needing it for a few days!
|
99Prowler
|
09/16/08 07:05am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Ike prompted shutdowns of 14 Texas refineries
Lawman5383----my prayers are with you and all of Houston, Galveston and all others affected by Ike. The pictures shown on tv look absolutely devastating. I just can't imagine what it must be like for all of you.
|
99Prowler
|
09/15/08 08:35am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Halloween decorations at your campsite
Last year I bought a rope ladder with a pumpkin, witch and frankenstein climbing up it off of ebay----and we put that at the front of the camper near our bedroom window as if the halloween figures were climbing up into our window---that got lots of compliments. There was a site that won the decorating contest and they had what looked like a million pumpkins off all shapes and sizes all over their campsite. Check out ebay, target, Wal-Mart, Kmart. We are in the same boat--last halloween was our first year camping so we don't have a lot of stuff. And always get some halloween lights to hang from the awning---we found some ghosts at Wal-Mart, but unless you are under the awning you really can't see them.
|
99Prowler
|
09/14/08 09:56am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: Ike prompted shutdowns of 14 Texas refineries
On Thursday Western North Carolina went into a panic stricken state and people started running out and filling up every vehicle they own and were bringing as many red gas cans as they could to fill up them up. Lines were so long at some gas stations the police had to be called in. Gas was $3.63 (give or take a few cents) around here and Friday morning it went to $3.75 and by the time school let out it was $3.29 and some stations were $4.29 and people were talking about a shortage coming. The shortage is going to occur because everyone panicked and bought every drop of fuel from the gas stations that normally don't sell that much gas in one day and can't keep up with the demand. Knoxville TN and Atlanta were having the same issues. Yesterday the price was still holding at $3.99 and all our local gas stations (in my area) were still open and pumping gas and had no lines. The Asheville news paper had an article stating gas prices would go up, but we should see no more a jump than .20 in price. Well, it's already jumped past that. The supply is going to be a bit more limited due to the refineries being shut down but people need to stop the panicking and filling up everything they own even the vehicles they haven't used in a year!It will all work out eventually.
|
99Prowler
|
09/14/08 09:46am |
General RVing Issues
|
|
RE: hook-ups at the house?
ARcamper----now that's what I'm talking about for setting up the camper! And also, every man needs a bathroom in a garage---no explanation needed on that one! Thanks everyone for the great suggestions----I learn more and more on this site everyday---hopefully we move sooner than later---don't really want to move, but it's going to happen and I'd rather not drag it out for forever!
|
99Prowler
|
07/16/08 08:32pm |
Fifth-Wheels
|
|
RE: hook-ups at the house?
Thanks----I will keep these suggestions in mind when we go house hunting---I would rather have a house built, but we will be on a very limited time schedule once our current house goes under contract----we have 3 kids that attend public school and we will need to find a place to live to get them enrolled in school and to keep them in school without a big gap in their attendance.
|
99Prowler
|
07/16/08 05:34am |
Fifth-Wheels
|
|
RE: hook-ups at the house?
how did you get the water and sewer hook up in your garage? Was it expensive? If it is going to cost a lot of money to get hook-ups installed for sewer and water, I can't imagine my husband wanting to do it---he is under the impression it won't take much to get it done and since he doesn't know how to do it himself, we will have to hire someone.
|
99Prowler
|
07/15/08 08:02pm |
Fifth-Wheels
|
|
RE: hook-ups at the house?
That is what we want to use it for----a guest house----either put the family in the kids rooms or put the family in the camper----maybe after they have been there for awhile I will want to sleep in the camper! Can we do some kind of sewer hook-up directly to the septic tank or is it another hook-up that is installed next to the septic tank that dumps into the septic tank? I really hope we can get a house with some property to do this. I hate having the camper always in storage--makes for a lot of problems when we go camping.
|
99Prowler
|
07/15/08 06:31pm |
Fifth-Wheels
|
|
RE: Creekwood Farms RV Park Waynesville(Maggie Valley), NC
Creekwood and Pride Resort always seem to get great reviews here---they both are nice places. Stonebridge looks nice, but the sites look way too close together for my personal preference. There is also Winngray Family Campground down the road from Creekwood that looks nice but I don't know much about them.
|
99Prowler
|
07/15/08 06:25pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
|
RE: Your favorite camp ground
We've only been to two campgrounds in the year that we have owned our camper. Ft. Wilderness at Disney-----love it---great place, friendly and it's Disney---can't go wrong! Also Rutledge Lake RV Park in Fletcher, N.C.---right outside of Asheville----clean, safe,pretty good size sites (not on top of each other) nice pool---great fireworks on the 4th of July---for us it is close to home and the kids have a great time fishing, riding bikes and swimming. We camp there a lot!
|
99Prowler
|
07/15/08 06:21pm |
Campgrounds, Resorts and Attractions
|
