Music Mad

8 Blog
16 May and in the Blue Ridge Mountains, (go on sing the song and get it out of your system before I get back to Spain)
We went to a local beauty spot just five miles from where we are camped. Very nice lakeside area. As we left to head for the Blue Ridge Parkway, we noted the sign directing us towards it and the sat nav agreed. The road was not on our map but we did not have one with much detail.
We set off following the sign post along a not very wide road in our very, very wide truck (8Ft 10in or 2mtrs 97). After a mile the road became narrower and started to climb but we did get past the 4x4 coming the other way. The tarmac turned to gravel but the road was still on the sat nav so it must be OK, yes? It was OK, just. It was only a little narrower now and not much steeper but then there were no houses along the road as it got even narrower and steeper.
I started to worry just a little when I noticed the hairpin bends appear on the screen of the sat nav and now the hairpins (there were several on the screen at a time) had big banks to my left and big drops to the right and I wondered how stable this gravel road was!
All the time the road was getting steeper.
We eventually arrived at the top of the mountain 8 miles (11Km) later at something close to 1100 meters (3400 Ft) altitude but not without being very glad that we had four wheel drive. The views were spectacular (frightening) and at the top we found a notice board declaring this to be a “wilderness area”, well you could have fooled us! It was with relief that we then arrived 100m later at the tarmac road.
WILDLIFE
We have seen an amazing amount of wild life. Deer are more common here than foxes are in England and speaking of foxes, we have only seen one but it was an excellent specimen. Snakes have crossed our path with regularity, about one a week and the opossum is native to this area, usually lying in the road like a British hedgehog (squashed!) but seen just occasionally scampering through the undergrowth. There are NO alligators here, you need to go to Florida for those!
The weather in Spain is reasonably predictable. If its 29c today, it will be similar tomorrow. Not so in the USA. Temperatures this week will vary from 18c to 29c, what will happen to night temps is a similar lottery (22 May 6 centigrade at 7 am!) but if you look at the weather stats, the rainfall is spread evenly throuout the year. You may like to know that you can always check YOUR weather at www.weather.com
Yeeehaaa! Let’s mosey on down town for a little country music. We are in Bristol, Tennessee, where country music originated (not Nashville).
We went to town last night for some good ‘ol country sounds and tonight we will go back for a little “Blue Grass”.
Last night there was a free performance on the open air stage and we left it for a little walk and went for a coffee break where we found a group of six inside the cafe playing their kind of country music, very nice.
Bristol NASCAR (stock car) track is on the agenda today and we have to practice for the weekend’s games on site when we will be throwing horse shoes. Oh! Yes, we get to ride a horse as well and there will be a band to appear here too! Gosh, life’s tough but someone has to do it.
The Bristol Motor Speedway at $4 dollars a head for the tour was not going to break the bank so we did it! It’s quiet on the tour front so we had our guide and mini bus just for the two of us!
We got driven along the international drag strip and into the centre of the speedway. We had the opportunity to walk at the corners and walked from the inside of the track to the outside. Corners on these ovals are banked; the banking was so steep (33 degrees) that standing was positively dangerous and the best way down is to shuffle down on hands and knees! This ½ mile oval is the fastest race track in the world.
We got driven round the track for a few laps (500 laps at 130 mph would drive most mortals out of their skull) and we got taken to see the owners private box where the rich and famous watch from.
The owner is a multi BILLIONAIRE so his private box was a bit posh!! This is the fourth largest stadium in the world with seats for 160,000 bums.
We now have all the camp sites booked for the rest of the trip, most have cable TV but all have free Wi Fi. The internet is so useful, especially the ability to make phone calls over the net courtesy of Skype. Even calls to Spain or UK only cost less than 2 pence a minute and of course, some calls are free. I was able to give a friend the walk round video tour of our house this week, all for free. Good fun stuff.
We have a few more relaxing days here in the sunshine then it’s off to Nashville with a short break at Pigeon Forge on the way.
Below is the link to our photo album, Click on it to go there. Note, you may need to hold down the CTRL key at the same time.
http://picasaweb.google.com/arthur.croasdell/Blog8
Fri 23 May We had breakfast at a local restaurant called “Cracker Barrel”. The breakfast was certainly crackerjack in the best American tradition and then we moved along with the day’s schedule. We put our two mountain bikes into the truck and headed for the trails in the local state park The specially designated tracks were graded like ski runs, green for easy and black for the most difficult, so we set off down hill on a bone jarring ride on a green run. In the tradition of all past international rally car navigators, my wife saw what was obviously a short cut on the map and so we turned off the lumpy green run and after a while, a very difficult while, I discovered that we were on a “black” run. Neither of us are very good at turning back from a chosen path so we slogged onwards and we are proud to say that one of us has the bruises to prove it!
As compensation, I took Freda out to dinner in the evening to the “Texas Roadhouse;” it was exactly the same as the one we had been to near Philadelphia, and the food was just as good.
Friday night is music night and it was more Blue Grass, in the main street of nearby Kingsport. This event was far more fun than the one in Bristol a couple of days previously. We think most of the town’s population had turned out for the event. We were both amused at some of the local “old boys” wearing something similar to a “tap” shoe! Determined dancers to the end, good luck to them!
Sat 24th May. A little bonus this morning, the camp site were offering free pancakes to every camper. Free, yep that’s right! Sit in the restaurant and get eating, no catch! I never got that anywhere else that’s for sure.. We got the pancakes shaken down through the system later in the day with a horse ride. I haven’t sat on a horse for many a long year and when our guide set off into the trees on a very narrow path I was just a little nervous but only for a few seconds. It was fun to ride Western Style on American Quarter horses.
It’s Memorial weekend, a time when all Americans remember their countrymen fighting abroad and those who gave their lives in past wars. It also means they get the Monday off so they all go away for the weekend. The camp site was full almost to capacity this weekend with much entertainment laid on for adults and children alike.
26 May We’ve just arrived at Pigeon Forge, near the Smoky Mountains National Park - Bear country! No! I didn’t say bare country. We’ll tell you more later if we don’t get eaten.