Fall in North Carolina, part 2

Fall has always been my favorite season. I love the cooler days, crisp evenings and brilliant colors. It makes me want to spend my time outdoors, walking through the woods, even on cloudy rainy days. I was a little worried that we would not get to enjoy the seasons as much as full time RVers, since we travel with the weather; trying to always stay somewhat warm.

While we avoid cold winters and snow with the RV, we have been fairly successful experiencing spring, summer and fall. This year has been the best fall so far in our RV journey and North Carolina’s Piedmont region was a perfect place to spend it. I really liked Forest Lake, the Thousand Trails Campground where we stayed. It is a fairly wooded campground so felt more like a state park. I highly enjoyed the daily walks around the campground and lake. The only drawback was the weekend crowds were a bit noisy. Luckily the campground was quiet and serene during the week. We enjoyed sitting outside at campfires in the evenings and watching the stars on those peaceful nights.

During our last week at Forest Lake, we continued to enjoy the local countryside and wineries. I mentioned in the last post that there were 6 wineries in the area. We managed to visit 5 of them during our 3 week stay. The best part about the wineries was the weekend entertainment. On a Friday night, we enjoyed a blues band at one of the wineries. What a perfect way to spend an evening, listening to blues music with a view of the vineyard. The guests scattered about in the cozy chairs around a really nice fire which kept everyone warm and toasty. Of course, the wine helped with that too.

One winery was on a lake and the property was set up with a large deck facing it, a huge lawn with adirondack chairs and a barn for weddings. We went on a Sunday afternoon since the website listed that they had local musicians every Sunday. Unfortunately, there was a wedding scheduled that day, so they didn’t have a band. We still enjoyed sitting on their deck by the lake and of course I had a wine flight so no complaints from me.

Perhaps I should have named this post, wine, wine and more wine. We did find a few other things to do in the area other than wine tasting. I always like to find parks near where we stay to do some hiking. On another Sunday, we headed to Boone’s Cave Park. Boone’s Cave had some interesting history; supposedly Daniel Boone moved there with his family when he was a teenager and he had explored the area and the cave. They don’t have proof that the park is located on the land where he lived other than word of mouth passed down through the generations. Even so, it was a pretty country drive to get to the park and a nice hike down to the small cave along the river. The cave didn’t look very big so not too impressive but the hike was enjoyable and the river view was pretty.

During our last couple of days in North Carolina, the weather started getting colder so definitely time to move further south. We are now in South Carolina for the next two weeks and even though we are at the southern end of the state, it isn’t much warmer. It is rainy and cold today, so I hope it warms up some while we are here. More about our stay in the next blog post.