North Carolina was one of my favorite places to visit because of the friendly, welcoming nature of the people. It was unusual for us to encounter so many people who genuinely enjoy talking to strangers. We are used to people walking past one another with their heads down, trying to avoid eye contact so that socializing is not expected. The sociable personality of the locals was a very pleasant and surprising experience.

As we continued our way down the Blue Ridge Parkway, moving south, we stayed at various places in North Carolina. We signed up for a membership with Harvest Hosts, which allows for nice, inexpensive places to stay overnight, including wineries, breweries, farms and museums. 

The first night we stayed at Serre Vineyard in Mount Airy, NC. We had a mini wine tasting, purchased 2 bottles of wine and sat outside enjoying the warm weather and beautiful scenery. The people who worked there went above and beyond to make our stay there enjoyable. They even included 2 wineglasses with our purchase!

It had down poured that night at the vineyard. The rain hitting the roof of the RV startled the kitties. And apparently, I forgot to put the driver side window up on the truck, which we didn’t notice until the next morning, so that was awesome. Whoops!

That morning, after drying off the driver’s seat, we continued our trip through North Carolina. We decided to continue on the Blue Ridge Parkway since the rain cleared up and no further rain was to be expected that day. Once we got on the Parkway, we realized it was not going to be a fun drive. 

Because of the rain from the previous night, it was an exceptionally cloudy day. We didn’t think much of the clouds when deciding on the route to take. We just didn’t give it much thought as to how the clouds could affect the drive, so we decided to stick with our original plan to take the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We quickly connected the obvious dots that the Blue Ridge Parkway travels through the mountains and the higher the elevation is the more clouds we would literally drive into. It was a terrifying drive as the visibility was significantly diminished in certain areas. And being in the mountains, we had poor cell signal, which hindered our ability to find an alternative route around the foggy mountains. So, we were stuck driving through the limited visibility for quite a while.

Along the route, we drove over a bridge and I remember only seeing white everywhere I looked. It was terrifying knowing that we were essentially driving blind over the crossing. For a split second, I caught a glimpse of the top of a tree through the fog. It made the terrifying feeling even worse because I had seen how tall the trees were prior to driving over the bridge so if I was at eye level with the top of one of them, I knew it would be a long drop down.

Ryan had been attempting to work during this drive. He was in a meeting so he wasn’t paying attention the whole time. When we first entered the Parkway, he had seen it was foggy, but the visibility was not too bad.

At the point of crossing over the bridge, he looked up. It took him by surprise to see the whiteout-like condition. He quickly put his work away to be a second set of eyes. We had to look out for deer as it was obviously much more challenging to see them as we drove in and out of patches of fog. Of course, we had 1 deer run out in front of us, but it was far enough away for us to slow down and safely drive by.

Eventually, we came across an adjoining road that gave us the choice to continue down the Parkway or take the exit and get on the highway. Ryan had enough cell signal at this point to find an alternative route, so we opted for getting off the Parkway. We hoped that the highway would be less foggy and the safer option. 

We finally made it to our next overnight location in Linville, NC. We were staying at a site we booked through Boondocker’s Welcome. It seemed like a nice site that came with a porch, picnic table and grill, but the site for the RV was extremely difficult to back into. 

This location was so aggravating, I don’t even want to write about it so I will let Ryan explain the unpleasant situation we encountered.

When we drove into the development, we thought it looked like a nice place. It had a fancy pond in the front and the area looked well maintained and nice. As we drove through however, we realized that the road was incredibly tight and windy. We were able to maneuver through it, but it took forever.

Then we finally arrived at the spot we’d be staying at. It was basically just the driveway of someone's vacation cabin that they would let people use when they weren’t there. We had a lot of issues getting into the spot, it was really tight and at an awkward angle. The people across the street came out and told us to be careful of the rock wall on their property as people staying here would often hit the wall. I was annoyed, thinking “Why even have the rock wall there if people keep hitting it!” It turns out they put the wall there so people wouldn’t hit their sewer hose instead. So, I guess that makes sense. 

When we finally got into our spot, the neighbor congratulated us and even gave us a bottle of wine! Even though we were driving on her property and nearly hitting stuff she was still very friendly, it was a great surprise. 

The next surprise however was not so great. It turns out that the spot was so incredibly tight that we couldn’t even put our stairs out because they would just hit the deck on the side. When the stairs aren’t down all the way, they get in the way of the door so we couldn’t even close the door. I had to reach down and pull the stairs back into the RV in order to close the door. 

Annoyed, we just went to bed and tried to get out of there as soon as possible. Other than time spent sleeping, we spent more time driving in and parking then we did actually being there at the site, what a waste of time! We took off early the next morning to get back to our drive.

Back to the fun parts of the trip!

We completed our drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had to get off a little earlier than where the end of the Parkway is located because the last 3 tunnels were under 12 feet and we would not fit through them. 

Despite skipping the end, this section of the Parkway was our favorite. We saw Pisgah National Forest, which had incredible views. The mountains went for miles, making us want to stay there all day just staring at the peacefulness of them. We decided that someday, we will definitely have to come back to the area to stay for a while. We would love to spend some time hiking there. 

Once we got off the Blue Ridge Parkway, we continued driving through North Carolina to get to our last stop in the state. We had planned to stay at Walnut Hollow RV Ranch in Hayesville, NC for 3 nights, but after the first 2 nights there we decided to add an extra night. We were enjoying the area so much, we didn’t want to leave.

We had parked our RV in the stables next to our temporary neighbors: a donkey named JV and a horse named Binley. Or as I like to call them, our naayyy-bors. (If you’re not laughing, you should be. I don’t care what Ryan says, that joke is funny!)

Across the way from where our RV was parked, there were cattle in a large field. They were very active, running all over the field. It was an entertaining sight to watch them run. It was something I have never seen before. One of the cows, Bob, was very loud. He liked to grunt when they fed him.

We enjoyed our spot at the ranch. It was amusing watching the animals and when we sat inside, we could hear the horse nay  and the cow grunt. The cats sat at the window watching Binely and JV. They had never seen a horse or donkey before, but I don’t think Sammie was impressed by them. She watched them for a few minutes and then turned around and ignored them.

We spent one of our days at the ranch going for a hike around the ranch property. There were 5 hiking trails, but we didn’t have a map of where they were located so we just wandered around aimlessly, going wherever looked interesting. 

We ended up climbing a really steep hill in the woods, that presented us with a wonderful view of the whole ranch. If you look closely at the picture below, you can even see our RV in the distance. It was an enjoyable hike that gave us a good workout.

The rest of the time we were in this area, we went hiking in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia. Our location in North Carolina was near the border to Georgia so it was a quick and easy drive into the state.

The roads in the area were a lot of fun. They were windy with lots of twists and turns and switchbacks, which made for a fun trip. As we were crossing over the border from NC to GA, the roads winded their way back and forth from state to state so every few seconds we would be in GA and then back in NC. This happened several times, which we found to be very entertaining. It’s the little things like that, that can create a lot of fun memories.

The mountains we explored in Georgia were Rabun Bald and Ramrock via the Appalachian Trail. The views were great. As we sat at the peak of Rabun Bald Mountain on that cloudy day, the neighboring mountains appeared to go on forever. The blue and grey of the sky made the peaks and valleys out in the distance looked like waves frozen in time in the ocean. It provided me with a sense of stillness and tranquility. We enjoyed sitting here and taking a moment to appreciate the beauty.

On our way back to the ranch, we took a detour through Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina. These were also very windy roads that were incredibly entertaining to drive through. I have never had to turn the steering wheel left and right so often while driving. I felt like a kid pretending to drive. 

The drive required a lot of attention because of all the twists and turns of the narrow, unfamiliar roads, but it was not a challenging drive. What I found to be the most difficult part was keeping my focus on the roads while feeling an inevitable pull to stare out at the incredible view of the mountains.

We loved this area and everything it had to offer. We have already talked about plans to return. We even discussed the possibility of moving to the area as it would give us a wonderful place to enjoy the outdoors.