from Asheville NC

we have WiFi tonight! means i can post in a more complete way via a complete keyboard on the lap top. trying to be wordy from my Droid is a bit more difficult for sure.

last eve the girls watched a movie while i tried to listen to the Sox game. Too little signal to get the game but the Sox won again. we agreed before the movie to get an earlier start today but left about 1/2 later than yesterday AM. my body still wakes up at 5:30a and i try to go back to sleep for an hour. then i lie in bed for a while and let the girls sleep until i have to get up and get moving.

after a quick breakfast we hit the road and headed for the blue ridge parkway. we climbed (and i mean climbed!) out of Lenoir to Blowing Rock to get onto the parkway. at first the girls were disappointed by the tree lined paved road in the woods. soon we climbed and the trees opened up with some fantastic views and all was well. the elevation climbed to over 5000' before the day was over. i was glad that it was cool day in the mountains so the RV didn't want to overheat. i used the lower gears to help stay off the breaks some to keep from heating up the breaks too much. there were 5 or 6 tunnels right thru the mountain sides in places that were fun to go through.

Lucy & I took a quick .7 mile hike from a parking lot to the summit of Craggy Dome which was over 6,000'. The summit had benches within a stone walled area. funny to find such structures and man-made objects on a summit.

Mollie & Lucy noticed quickly that there were a number of things different about these mountains from our Adirondacks: there was development on many mountain tops here, fields at high elevations and along ridge and near peaks, sharper mountain tops than the Adirondacks and all the summits had vegetation unlike most Adk peaks that are rounded off rocks.

we traveled almost 100 miles on the parkway between Blowing Rock and Asheville. near the end of our time on the parkway the girls visited the Folk Art Center while i napped.

the girls worked me over hard to talk me in to eating at the Panera Bread we came across just into Asheville. they said it was healthy and oh so good tasting. and i wouldn’t have to cook dinner and they wouldn’t have to do dishes. i resisted buying food at a restaurant but finally gave in under heavy pressure.

after dinner we found a store called Earth Wise, a healthy food store and bought lots! luckily it was after dinner or we probably would have spent even more. the selection was great and we found things that were on our list and many that weren’t.

we didn’t make it to the Biltmore as planned. everything seems to take a bit longer than planned these days. hope we make it back to jay before the end of August! :-)

we are at a campground in Asheville for the night. Lucy swam, we all rode bikes at least once, Lucy and i did the paddle boats on the pond, Lucy fed the catfish, we skyped with Julie for the first time (that was a great treat!).
sox beat the brewers 10-4 and are now up on the yanks by 2.5 games in the AL East.

the plan (subject to change as always) is to get started early (on the road before 8a??) and head for the Biltmore for the morning then head to Atlanta to visit Mollie & Lucy's friend Will who graduated from NCS last year. we'll stay in Atlanta for the weekend (sat and sun nights) and head for Blountsville, AL on Monday. after that New Orleans here we come!

PS we have a compost problem, we have not found a way to dispose of our compost and the first bag is starting to ferment. we'll need to get creative tomorrow before we get to the Biltmore!

Jay