Update 45: Selma, NC

Update 45: Selma, NC    November 29-December 3, 2010

Southeast of Raleigh, NC, in the middle of tobacco country sits the little town of Selma. For the first time, our RV Park escort led us to our space while riding a bicycle! Our space sat only one row away from I-95. The big trucks roared through constantly day and night. The train whistle blew its mournful call at several nearby crossing. However, the noise never bothers us once we are set up.

This campground gave us a view of a lake with very friendly ducks and geese.

The Assembly of God Regional Center owned the lake and surrounding property. For all we know, they may have owned the campground.

I took this great sunset photo. Enjoy!

When your home has a metal roof, it is not uncommon to hear rain pitter patter on the top, a bird walking across the top with clicking talons, or part of the tree brushing the top.  In some places squirrels drop nuts down.  Here we heard the sound of nuts, lots of nuts....like someone decided to dump small pails of nuts when the wind blew. The small nuts, a little less than one inch long, have an oval shape. The lower part is dark brown to black. The top usually showed a lighter brown. The shell is hard like a hazelnut, but shaped long and skinny.  I had to ask!  The large beautiful tree right next to us and raining nuts, is a Live Oak tree.

These nuts are acorns!  The Live Oak wood was sandwiched between regular oak to form the hull of the USS Constitution, giving it the nickname "Old Ironsides".  (Remember that from the Boston update?)

In another nearby tree I spotted the parasite plants of mistletoe hanging from several parts of the tree. A man at Duke University pointed the mistletoe out to me there.  Merry Christmas!

The Tobacco Farm Life Museum in Kently, NC was just a few miles from our RV Park. The introductory film explained how tobacco is farmed today. Derrille and I were amazed at the amount of chemicals used in the growing process. Tobacco seeds are so small that a coating is needed to increase their size 50 times bigger.  One seed is planted in each dimpled planting tray. Then the trays are floated in water troughs stored in the plastic Quonset hut shaped nursery greenhouses. The seedlings are mowed three times to increase stalk size before they are ready for transplanting. A lot of work goes into preparing the fields. Workers pull each plant from the tray and drop them in the planter machine as it moves across the field. When harvesting time arrives, the plants are cut three times: lower leaves are cut first, then the middle and finally the top. Flowers that form are handpicked off to stimulate growth too.

The leaves are cured with heat and then graded. This metal huts are modern drying ovens.  Piles of leaves then go to the auction house for selling, or they may go directly to the cigarette manufacturers. Tobacco was called "Carolina Gold".

The museum showed us tobacco farm life in the early 1900's without the help of modern machinery.  Derrille and I watched the video in the tobacco warehouse exhibit several times trying to understand the auction and marveling at how the people involved knew exactly what was happening. Tobacco stacks are lined up in rows. Each stack has a tag placed on top of the stack indicating grower and grade. The warehouse owner, the auctioneer, a ticket handler and a recorder move down one side of the tobacco row. A group of buyers, 5 or 6, move down the other side. Tobacco is sold in numbers ending with 0, 2, or 8.  Buyers use a fist or two fingers pointing up or down to bid. The process moves so quickly we couldn't follow the action, or hear "sold". The ticket handler hands the ticket to the recorder who quickly marks the sold price, and buyer on the tag and drops it back on the stack. He also records the buy on a clipboard. AND he works at the same pace as the auctioneer. WOW!  Today some tobacco sells at auction, but most goes directly to the cigarette manufacturers.

When the state went for the cash crops of cotton and tobacco, they discovered prices dropped. So they begin to diversity the crops. North Carolina leads the south in production of corn. It is fourth in the country in production of peanuts. It grows more sweet potatoes than any other state. Soybeans rotate with cotton and wheat to help the fields. Although wheat is usually a winter cover crop for the tobacco field to help prevent erosion.

Farm life from the late 1800 up to the mid 1900's makes up the remaining displays.  One section shows how kitchen stoves developed.

One section shows a variety of ways water was brought into the house before plumbing.

A section on religion was interesting. Apparently Quakers and Church of England faithful first came to the area. They were followed by Catholics and Jewish groups. Episcopalian and Methodist churches were next. Baptists came last.  I found this interesting because Baptist, Methodist, and some Episcopalian churches are most visible today. In fact a variety of Baptist churches exist here. Some congregations include: City name Baptist, Free Will Baptist, First Baptist, Zion Baptist, Missionary Baptist, and Memorial Baptist to name some.  Most are very large structures that show a large membership. Other kinds of Christian, Congregational, Pentecostal churches and one church called Pentecostal Holiness occupy visible sites also. However other denominations common in other places are difficult to find in this area.

A school section told of the development of the public school system, including the area's reluctance to integrate the schools until forced by the federal government. Apparently the Civil War debts made schools suffer from lack of funds. At the turn of the century, education became a major political concern.Other  sections described the medical community growth; the styles of clothing, and a child's play area. I found it interesting that in the wedding section weddings happened at home. The bride wore a new but usable dress. According to the blurb, the white dress and formal weddings became popular following Queen Victoria's wedding in 1840. We also discovered that Washington Duke invented the cigarette rolling machine and made his fortune. He then founded Duke University.

This blanket/throw was made of string used to tie the tobacco bales.

We exited through the Gift Shop...no surprise there. Derrille wanted to know if I'd buy a T-shirt with the museum logo or the one that says "I'm a tobacco grower daughter". He thought it would be a hoot for someone so stricken by smoke to where a tobacco shirt. I passed. Although the museum was smoke free it had a plug-in air freshener that set off my Multiple Chemical Sensitivity shortly after leaving the museum.

Next we toured the grounds of the farm. The forge building was open on three sides with lots of informative signs.

The barn held tools needed to grow tobacco.

A grading bench and drying racks were there. The bed was for a worker to keep the fire/heat at a constant temperature.

Tobacco plants grew outside the barn.

The kitchen building probably served as living quarters of the farm owners until the main house was built.

The main house appeared to house mostly bedrooms while cooking and eating took place in the kitchen house. I found it interesting to see the quilting frame hung from the ceiling. We had read about the frames being  lowered to work on the quilt, and raised to get it out of the way.

 The curing barn showed how heat was put into the barn to cure the three levels of tobacco leaves. A couple of other buildings were on the property too.

We drove through a few local towns and headed home.

With the one way streets in Raleigh we made several trips around the capitol building. That gave us a good view of the bronze statues honoring Women of the Confederacy. One statue of Governor Aycock and another of Zebulon B.Vancewere on the grounds.  Another statue shows Andrew Jackson, Stonewall Jackson and Polk all together.  A tall granite monument honors the Confederate dead.

The original capitol building was built in 1796 and burned down in  1831 and the current  granite block style building took its place.  All government buildings in the area are designed in the same granite block style. Raleigh appeared to be a very clean and business oriented.

Churches occupied several of the corners around the capitol. The large structures looked impressive.

We continued driving around and found ourselves at North Carolina State University.

The university was on the left side of the street and retail shops lined the right side. The retail stores offered coffee shops, Hoagie shops, nice restaurants, clothes stores, book stores, pizza places, etc.  Students can obtain most anything they may need or want from theses shops.

Historic Oak View County Park belongs to the Wade County Park system.  Another farm setting, we started in the Farm History Center. A full wall mural showed the progress of the farming over the years. Tenant farmers and sharecroppers were defined. The Tenant farmer owns his animals and equipment, but the land belongs to the owner. The Tenant farmer gives only a small percentage of this harvest to the owner. Sharecroppers use the owner's equipment and animals, but give back 50 % of his harvest.

An interesting fact we learned is that the tractor did not become a standard farm machine until after 1950. Up to that time tractors were not reliable and they were too expensive for most farmers. They also represented the industrial north and for southern farmers, that was a good reason not to buy one, even if you could afford it.

I found the section on collecting tree sap interesting. The Naval Stores industry provides things needed on ships. The Longleaf Pine provides some of those products. By making chevron cuts in the tree, the sap drains down and can be collected in pails.  The sap is then processed. The temperature of processing determines whether tar, pitch or turpentine is produced.  Boiling pots of the sticky sap created a mess. Poor whites or slaves did the work. Since they couldn't afford shoes, they did this job barefoot, often getting tar stuck to the heels of their feet....thus Tar Heels...the mascot of the University of North Carolina.

We followed the path from the History Center that led by the fenced garden and the family cemetery.  Small graveyards are a common site on rural property. A small sample cotton field grows outside the Cotton Museum building.

The first floor of the building describes the process of growing cotton. 

The second floor has the cotton gin machine. This invention put spikes on a cylinder that combs through the cotton balls. The comb holds back all debris. Air currents created by the process blows the light, wispy cotton out of the machine, where it is collected for baling. The cotton is gathered into bales which are secured and dropped through an opening in the floor to a wagon below.

The path took us to the Plank Kitchen located just behind the main house.

Over the years the main house has had a variety of owners. Each remodeled the house a bit. A kitchen was added inside the house at some time too. Each room had a touch of Christmas past in it.

The Carriage House and barn completed the farm buildings.  A pecan orchard on the property also had a reader board.

Some people like to visit the old houses and estates.  Some like historical or art museums. Derrille likes sports and decided since we saw the NCSU campus it would be great to see Duke and the University of North Carolina. So off we went to Durham, NC the home of Duke University. The Blue Devils had a big game with Michigan, so parking was restricted all around the campus. Just like at NC State the campus and a retail area designed for students were separated just by the main street. We ventured further into the campus looking for Cameron Indoor Arena.

What we found was the Duke University Chapel.

The chapel ranks as a GEM in the AAA tour book. The interdenominational church houses a 50 bell carillon with bells ranging from 10 to 11,200 pounds.  The Flentrop organ has five keyboards and rises 40 feet above the main floor. This campus formerly was home to Trinity College. Duke purchased it and  made this Duke's East Campus. Many building here use the Georgian style of architecture. The West Campus has a Gothic design according to the tour book.  We didn't go there.

Realizing we would never get close to the arena for a photo op, we quickly parked (illegally) in a booster parking spot and ran to the brick entry post for the photo.  As we hurried back to the car, this nice young man with the Duke name on his hoody passed us. We stopped him and had him pose with Derrille. Bless that student! He was so gracious with this crazy old couple in the parking lot.  (grins)

Darkness was beginning to descend as we traveled the ten miles of road that directly connects Duke with the University of North Carolina. We found the area with the retail stores, but the Dean Smith Center was located on the opposite side of campus. It was dark by the time we found the center and pulled into the loading zone. We dashed up the steps for the photo, but unfortunately my camera was on the wrong setting to get the Center behind Derrille.  I did get the directory sign and Derrille. Then we rushed to vacate the loading zone, as the girls swim team members were getting dropped off for practice.

We did notices lovely homes around each university. Rush hour traffic, which doesn't rush, clogged the freeways as we traveled home, but we didn't mind. We felt a certain amount of exhilaration from our dash around the campuses.

Next: Rodanthe, NC

Update 44: Asheville, NC

Update 44: Asheville, NC  Nov. 24-29

Darkness fell before we reached Asheville, NC. The day exhausted us. We parked the RV per the Park's after dark directions, and then went to Cracker Barrel for dinner. It felt like old times when we got up the next morning and look at our surroundings and check out our parking job.  This park is located on a triangle between several freeways. Our site sat perched on a hill with a wonderful view of west Asheville. The rigs across the road sat nearer to the cliff with I-40 down below. 

This part of the park had mostly big RVs: motorhomes and 5th wheels.

Thanksgiving Day came with a brisk breeze and a bright sun shining in a blue sky. Since dinner for two doesn't take all day we decided to explore Chimney Rock. The drive took us SE of Asheville several miles. The road signs indicated that we were traveling toward Bat Cave.  I thought that was an attraction. However, Bat Cave is a little town along the way.  We also passed the Eastern Continental Divide.

We followed the river through the gorge. Near Bat Cave large granite boulders appeared in the stream. They tend to draw people toward them, which is why  lots of No Parking signs are posted along the side of the road.

Also along this route we noticed the devastation caused by the Kudzu vine. We saw it growing in Mississippi and Louisiana on our 2006 trip.  Kudzo, a member of the pea family, climbs anything it comes to, shrubs, trees, fences, telephone poles, guide wires, etc. Eventually Kudzo covers the area with rounded mounds of vegetation that kills the plants underneath it. An article I read says you either love it or hate it.  We are in the "hate" group. Currently the vine covers over 7 million acres of the South. It came into the states with the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The large leaves and sweet smelling blooms in the Japanese garden captured American imagination. During the Great Depression the CCC planted it for conservation of soil. Farmers were paid incentives to plant it in 1940. The government stopped advocating its use in 1953. The problem is Kudzu loves the South! 

It can grow a foot each day and 60 feet each year. It kills the plants under it by blocking all the sunlight.  One herbicide even makes it grow better! One scientist recommends repeated herbicide treatments for four years. It may take as much as ten years to kill it.  Although Kudzu came from Japan, its natural insect enemies were not brought to the U.S. with it.

On the plus side, goats can keep it from spreading.  Some people use the vines to make baskets. One lady makes paper.  Another lady uses the blossoms to make jelly and syrup. One farmer uses it as a hay.Yet another lady makes deep fried Kudzu leaves, kudzu quiche and other dishes. Research houses are looking into its medicinal uses.  Apparently the drug is based on 2000 year old Chinese herbal medicine. Kudzu root has been a common ingredient for food and medicine in both China and Japan.

At the rate Kudzu grows, it can destroy the beautiful wooded lands of North Carolina. Derrille and I find that a sad event.  So far we only see Kudzu in large patches here and there.

As we entered the higher elevations the fog thickened. Then it drifted up and nearly disappeared by the time we reached Chimney Rock.  However...Chimney Rock was closed for Thanksgiving! So we kept going south to the town of Tryon. When we hit the South Carolina border we turned around and headed home in time for me to prepare our little feast.

Not everyone partook of the Black Friday shopping sales.  Several thousand people were with us at the Biltmore Estate where George Vanderbilt built his 250 room getaway house here in Asheville, N.C. He opened the house on Christmas Eve 1895 as a 33 year old bachelor. Three years later in 1898 he brought his bride, Edith here.  Vanderbilt died in 1914. Edith and their daughter Cornelia continued to live at Biltmore.  In 1924 Cornelia married John Francis Amhearst Cecil and they lived in the house. During the Depression in a response to increase tourism for the area, the Cecils opened the house to the public in 1930. This act also brought in money to preserve the estate. Today, the Biltmore is still run by family, making it the largest privately owned home in the United States. The house has 1800 employees that help the family preserve this national treasure.

We had purchased our entry tickets from the RV Park. So we were checked through the entry security and directed to the parking lot "C". The main house is several houses from the entry gate. Once the car was parked we hopped on the shuttle which delivered us to the Biltmore front door. There we exchanged our tickets for ones with a hour entry printed on them. The ticket seller encouraged us to each purchase an audio tour which we found to be an excellent suggestion.

At your assigned time you enter the mansion with a group and follow the predetermined path through the house. A brochure and the audio tour help explain the various features. Although you are free to move at your own pace, that pace is determined in part by how the group is moving. The tour is generally considered to take about 1 1/2 hours.  Because of the large number of people it took us longer.

As usual photos inside the house were prohibited.  Drats! The mansion has four floors (I think) and two basements. The fourth floor provided servant quarters. 

The first floor includes the entrance hall, the billiard room, banquet hall, a breakfast room, the library, a salon, a tapestry gallery area where tea was served each afternoon and the music room.  Just inside the entry marble steps lead down to the Winter Garden, my favorite area. With a high domed glass ceiling for letting in lots of light. Plants fill  some of the area. A baby grand looks small where it sits in this room. At this time of year the area was filled with bright red poinsettias. The Winter Garden also provided the backdrop for the photo shots taken of each group. (We did like our photo and purchased it.)

On the second floor the tour took us to the bedrooms and sitting rooms of the Vanderbilt's. The third floor showed four guests bedrooms and the guests sitting room. It also shows one of the many bathrooms.  I think the mansion had 40-some bathrooms when local homes of the day rarely had indoor plumbing.

The first basement included a party room, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, a gym and dressing rooms for both men and women.  The main kitchen, pastry kitchen, vegetable pantry, kitchen pantry, walk-in refrigeration, a rotisserie kitchen and kitchen servants quarters are here too. The main laundry facilities also are housed on this floor.  There seemed to be little rooms for all kinds of individual storage. The tour returns visitors to the first floor and the bachelors' wing which includes a smoking room and a gun room. When we exited house the already cold weather felt colder with the wind chill and the light rain.

What used to be the stables now houses The Stable Cafe, where we ate lunch.

The Carriage House is appropriately the Carriage House Gift shop that does a booming business, especially in the wine section. The rest of the stable rooms contain a bookstore, a toy store, a Christmas shop this time of year, an ice cream store and a coffee stand.

We walked to view a part of the garden before boarding the shuttle back to the parking lot.

The parking lot held just a few cars this late in the day.  However, as we approached our car it was obvious that someone had turned in next to us too close and left us with a banged up back quarter panel.  Oh well..stuff happens.

The exit from the estate includes a drive past the garden area and other parts of the 8000 acres of grounds. The road passes by Antler Village in hopes that visitors will stop and shop. Deerpark, also on the estate, offers trail rides and another restaurant. 

Other outdoor activities and tours can be experienced if desired.  Outside the gates  the Biltmore Village constructed like an English Village of old offers more shopping delights.

We passed on all that and headed into Asheville for a look at downtown. Asheville seemed full of unique shops not usually found in a downtown. Coffee and book shops seem to abound. The Grove Arcade In 1915 E.W, Grove conceived of a new type of shopping mall to enliven downtown Asheville, a five story base and a fourteen story tower filled with shops, restaurants and living spaces.  He died before the project was complete. Only the base had been done. It was the largest building in the region when it open in 1929. The building was closed in WWII when the building was taken over by the Government. The people began to petition for a return of Grover Arcade to the city. In 1997 the city regained title to the property and started renovation. In 2002 The Grover Arcade was returned to its original intent and includes restaurants, shops, offices and 42 luxury apartments..

WeatherUndeground.com forecasted sun on the day we set out for Chimney Rock. We stopped first at the Blue Ridge Parkway Visitor Center. Several exhibits and hands-on displays demonstrate features of the region. The film reminded us that the Appalachian Mountains are the oldest in the world. They are older than the Himalayas and the Alps. Several construction companies, hiring CCC workers for manual labor, started the parkway in 1930. Skilled masons contributed to the construction of tunnels and bridges along the route. Completion of the 469 miles of road took until 1980. The Blue Ridge Parkway includes 151 bridges, 275 vistas and acres of outstanding scenery. The film also spoke to the people of the region. It mentioned that the banjo actually came from Africa, and the fiddle from Europe. We learned this at the Museum of the Appalachia too. What the film added was how those instruments and the people made a sound all their own.

Next we drove to Chimney Rock. The town so deserted on Thanksgiving was bustling with people this day. We paid our fee and entered the park. A road took us to the entry level.and gift shop.

I was delighted to discover an elevator took us up to a walkway leaving only about 44 stairs up to Chimney Rock. The entrance to the elevator is a long rock tunnel. We lined up next to a sign that said it was a 30 minute wait for the elevator and walking up the stairs around the rock should take 20 minutes.  We waited.

The elevator took eight people at a time up the 250 feet and let the group out in a second gift shop. Amazingly the doors out were at the far end of the gift shop and food booth. Hmmm. 

 We took a direct line outside and along the walkway. Then we climbed the stairs. The wind blew sharp and cold. The view was beautiful. It looked over the length of Lake Lure, a manmade lake with lovely homes around it. From this height, our car looked tiny in the parking lot below.

After we stayed as long as we could, we decided to skip the elevator and walk down the staircase. We met several people coming up the steep mountainside and angled staircases that let me know without a doubt that we made an excellent choice in riding up and walking down.

On the way down we peeked into a cave that could have been used by moonshiners to hide their stash.

We warmed ourselves up on the way to Wal-Mart too develop photos. We also added a day to our Asheville stay to run errands. Then a decision needed to be made regarding the itinerary. We opted to skip the next stop and drive directly to Selma which is SE of Raleigh.

Next: Selma, NC