Leaving NC (Finally)

As far as having crafts people, artwork and train memorabilia, the 10th Annual Mountain Craft Show in Bryson City, NC was a bust. There were fewer than a dozen artists and crafts people and no train memorabilia – except, of course, the trains, which for Grenville was enough.

We’ve seen more artists at local arts and craft shows in shows here at home. Several downtown store owners told complained to us that “the GSMRR didn’t advertise the event enough.” Our thoughts: WHY didn’t the business community take a proactive approach and do some advertising themselves.

This was the lone antique car at Railfest (sorry Elaine). It’s a 1929 Model A Ford Roadster pickup.Not sure if red was its original color, but it was a standout.

The Model A was the first Ford to use the standard set of driver controls with conventional clutch and brake pedals; throttle and gearshift. It was only in production for four model years – 1928 to 1931. The closed-cab pickup sold for $475; for $30 less, buyers could get a Ford Model A pickup with an open cab.

Last train images (promise) from this NC road trip. There are from the caboose train ride. There were 3 cabooses.They were pulled by a steam engine from PA. Hint: never ride in an open car behind a steam engine – there’s LOTS of smoke and soot.

The day-long photo excursion in a word few words – MUCH fun!

GSMRR Photo Excursion

Grenville posted about our photo excursion ride on the GSMRR from Bryson City to Andrews, NC.

These collages show more of the sights on our day trip.

Fontana Lake is a reservoir impounded by Fontana Dam on the Little Tennessee River in Graham and Swain counties in NC. The lake forms part of the southern border of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the northern border of part of the Nantahala National Forest. Depending on water levels, the lake is about 17 miles long.  

This lake is a favorite with house boaters and has many inlets into coves and many islands formed from former mountain peaks, especially near the eastern end. As with most dam-impounded lakes, the steep banks are visible when water levels are low.

The Nantahala River is considered western NC’s ,most scenic river for whitewater rafting. We saw rafters, kayakers and canoeists and most waved back, luckily without capsizing.The train ride provided beautiful vistas of the Great Smoky Mountains, often called the Smoky Mountains, shortened to the Smokies. These mountains are best known as the home of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most-visited U.S. national park

There were many old homes; Grenville claimed this one just needed a fresh coat of paint, also some windows and doors – but that roof looks pretty good.

There were lots of barns – a red one was my favorite.

Our destination was the town of Andrews, NC. which gave train riders a warm welcome, cake and refreshments.

Kudzu Kountry

Yup, that’s what we were in during our road trip to North Carolina. And, it’s where we saw . . .

The vine that’s eating the south OR kudzu.

Kudzu is a climbing, coiling and trailing vine that takes over anything in comes in contact with – fields, mountainsides, trees, utility poles – even the remains of a building.Its name comes from the Japanese name for the plant, Kuzu. It spreads by vegetative expansion, via stolons (runners) that root at the nodes to form new plants and by rhizomes.

Kudzu was introduced into the U.S. in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. It was promoted as an ornamental and forage crop. In the 1930s during the Great Depression, the Soil Conservation Service promoted kudzu for erosion control. Southern farmers were paid up to $8/acre to plant fields of the vines to reduce soil erosion.

Its flourishing in too well it and covers over seven million acres of the deep South and the climate of the southeastern U.S. is perfect. The vines grow as much as a foot per day during summer months, climbing trees, power poles, and anything else they contact. Under ideal conditions kudzu vines can grow 60 feet annually.

Because of its out of control growth in the southeastern U.S. kudzu is known by several names. . . foot-a-night vine, mile-a-minute vine, and the ever-popular vine that ate the South.The U.S. government stopped promoting kudzu in 1953, declaring it a weed in 1972 and a noxious weed in 1998. It has also been banned in 31 states.

The USDA National Invasive Species Information Center has an informative and entertaining video here.
However, the news about kudzu isn’t all negative:

• Its shown promise for treating Alzheimer’s' disease and may help diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
• Harvard Medical School is studying it as a possible  treatment for alcoholism by turning an extracted compound from kudzu into a medical drug.
• In traditional Chinese medicine, kudzu is considered is used to treat tinnitus and vertigo.
• Vines have been used to create basketry and clothing.

WE ARE UP!!!!!

Well this morning we are up on the Frontier of the Smoky Mountains. So we are making the best of it before we head back to the shore. If the entries seem out of order i apologize.

Grenville (heading for coffee).

A little ride to Andrews

So where is Andrews???? About 35 West of Bryson City. On  a railroad with a speed limit of just 15 it was a long trip, BUT a very scenic trip. Maybe that is why it was called a “Photo Excursion.” You may remember back last May when we rode the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad and i rode in the cab with Engineer Dale…. well Dale was our engineer again today and gave us a wonderful smooth ride. Part of the trip involved climbing a mountain which has a 5% grade. (The max grade on a railroad is 6%.)  We stopped twice and got off to photo and video the train coming through. The videos will get posted after i edit them. For now here are some stills of the trip.

Most of the turns on the GSMR are really tight. One has a 5 mph speed limit due to limited sight distance (about 100 ft).

  The mountain scenes get better and better around every turn.

 

 

 

 

These are a few of the barns seen along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

These are house boats on Lake Fontana. They are permanently anchored and moored. The owners get to them by boat. If you are wondering what happens when you flush,,,, well you call for the ‘pump-out boat’. This is part of the fees a houseboat owner would pay yearly. Not advised for sleepwalkers though!!!!

Grenville

THe Lil Engine that could…

Sure you’ve all heard this story, many have even read it to your kids….. Well today we rode that engine.

This little engine was originally used to move coal cars around at the mines and make up the long coal trains coming out of the Pennsylvania coal mines. But today there were no coal cars. Instead a string of cabooses and an open car.

Today’s trip was eastbound to Wittier, a small depot town, where 126 did a run around and pulled us back to Bryson City. The reason i call this the “Little Engine that Could” was the 2.5% grades we had to negotiate. Going up grade you could hear 126 straining and see the smoke going from gray to dark black. The scenery on this part of the line is more open.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And of course there were the tight curves. We will see more of these tomorrow as we head west to Andrews NC.

The finish of the day was a ride on one of the track maintenance cars. We only went about a mile (with no springs on the car that was enough) since there was a train coming at us from both directions.

Grenville

On the Frontier

So why was there no post on Saturday or Sunday???? Being here in Bryson City, deep in the Smokey Mountains, is sort of like being on the Frontier. In fact that is what the internet provider is named out here, Frontier. Now where is this all leading???? Last night i was just finishing my post when Beatrice said that she had lost the internet connection. Some research showed that the whole building was out. The front desk tried resetting, rebooting, and renetting, but we were DISCONNECTED!!!!!!! Cut off from the world and its wide web!!!!!! We were forced to watch TV. Could things get worse that this?????

Well yes it could since Sunday morning we were still out, as was the local library and almost every business in town with Wi-Fi. In fact most of western North Carolina is disconnected tonight.

And this is where we are tonight, Sunday. Still disconnected, but writing our blog which we will post as soon as we can.

If you are reading this we have reconnected>>>>

Grenville

Railfest at the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad

We’ve made it to Bryson City, NC home of one of the many Rail Fest’s held through out the country. YES there are others, and Rail Fans all over the country.

This afternoon we took a ride into town to look around. GSMR was getting ready to depart with the “Special Dinner Train” which was by invitation only. I’m sure there was a mix up. Maybe they lost our address since we didn’t get our invitation… I’m sure they will remember us next year.. :-)…

This is the “Guest” steam engine we will be riding tomorrow. 126 will be pulling a few cabooses with 15 folks in each. I talked to the owner, John, today and he said that 126 was restored this year and they are still working out some kinks. 126 hold about a ton of coal and can go about 15 miles before needing a reload. We are scheduled to ride at 12:30 pm so there will be more pics then.

These are the engineer controls and the view from the engineers seat.

There are supposed to be Maintenance Of Way cars (MOW’s) available for rides tomorrow. These two belong to GSMR.

Bryson City is in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. The town itself is in a gorge area on “Deep Creek”. We stay a little out of town, up the mountain some. This is the view from our room.

Its really cloudy here today so the mountains are a little hard to see other than a faint outline. Hopefully this will clear up some tomorrow.

NOTE TO LOIS & KJELL, we are planning on a re-visit to Anthony’s tomorrow night. Tonight was the Yumi-Yumi China Buffet. Only So-So.

Grenville

Friday Funnies

Cars have interesting ads . . .

Good service if you live in a southern state like SC, GA, Florida . . .

but gators in RI?

Heading to NC (Again)

We’re on the road gain, folks. OK, so you might be thinking, really, what a surprise.

Actually, it was a surprise to me until last weekend, when Grenville coyly asked, “What are we doing next weekend?”

A hesitant, Why? from myself (Beatrice).

“Let’s go to see and ride trains and go to a craft fair. It’s only a 10-hour trip. And, did I mention we get to ride a steam train?” Grenville replied, adding “we can stay for free, cause we have enough points on our Wyndham Rewards credit card.”

SO, today, we’re heading back to Bryson City, NC home of the Great Smokey Mountain RR which we visited and posted about in mid-May. Grenville rode in the engineer’s cab and posted about that ride.

This time we’re going to the 10th Annual Mountain Craft and Railfest celebration in Bryson City, NC with lots of crafts, artwork, train memorabilia and, of course, Grenville’s favorite, TRAIN RIDES. We’ll skip seeing the train wreck from the Fugitive movie this trip.  Downtown Bryson City will probably be a lot busier than when we strolled the streets in May. We’ll make another pizza stop at Anthony’s Restaurant recommended by fellow bloggers Lois and Kjell.

This is a long trip from the Frog & PenguINN on the VA eastern shore. There’s an overnight stay in Greensboro, NC going and coming home.

Sorry for not blogging earlier about this NC road trip, but there were several things going on this week and we forgot. Several blogging friends live in NC and just maybe we can meet somewhere for a face-to-face over a cup of coffee We’ll be checking email enroute – anywhere there’s a free wi-fi stop.  If you live near or along our route or overnight destinations (Greensboro, NC and Bryson City, NC) please post a comment and maybe we’ll get to meet.

That would be FUN !