What a wonderful place!

I am so very impressed with Natural Falls State Park. It is small, more like a large city park, but wow, is it ever well-kept, peaceful (on this Thursday morning in April), and scenic! I’ve decided it will be fun to start keeping notes about our various camping and biking locations, and here’s what I wrote about this park this morning – even before seeing the falls or walking the wonderful accessible paths around them.

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Natural Falls State Park
West Siloam Springs, OK

2024, April 3-6

Drive time from home was 3 hours. The drive on 412 from Alpena to Huntsville is so lovely and one of my favorites.

This is a very small state park, but quite nice. We camped in RV 013. There are 45 RV sites and 17 tent sites. The best RV sites are those around the edges. 14, 15, 16 are prime, but 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 would also be good.

Park map

Amenities include…

Paved walking/biking paths (short)
Disc golf
Small waterfall
Volleyball court
2 playgrounds
Large pavilion (paid reservation only)
Short hiking trails
Views from the bluff for some RV sites

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We arrived at 5:45 PM and the office was closed. This was no problem as we had a reservation. All RV sites are reserve-only. Oklahoma has instituted a fund-raising plan of charging $10 per vehicle for entrance to its state parks, whether you are coming for ten minutes to use the bathroom or fill your water bottle, a couple hours to picnic and hike, or a couple days or a week to camp. And they are adamant about the every vehicle thing. Evidently fines will be issued. Fortunately for us, whenever you reserve and pay for a campsite your parking pass charge is included.

RVs (campers that have water going to and from them) have to be winterized so that water in the lines and equipment doesn’t freeze and expand, potentially damaging things. The first year we had the camper, 2022, one of our expert camping friends helped Scott winterize the camper by thoroughly draining and drying it. I didn’t witness that process, so I can’t describe it for you.

Unfortunately – and probably unrelated to that winterization – when we took the camper out in early 2023, the water pump didn’t work. Aarrggh. I think it had to be replaced, and again, I am thankful that someone else did that repair with/for Scott, and I was spared!

This past winter (2023), our friend helped Scott winterize it with hot pink, marine/RV antifreeze. I know it’s hot pink because when I went in there to inventory and re-stock items, there was a small, circular hot pink stain on the counter where the faucet had evidently dripped. = { Scott had been instructed that we should take the camper to a dump station first thing this season and run water through it, opening all the taps till the pink water ran clear. We did when we pulled into the park, and everything worked fine. The water heater worked, and the heat heater worked, which was wonderful because the forecast low was 33 degrees.

Our campsite, #13, has a nice, long concrete pad. Using just one set of orange levelers we got our Grey Wolf right on the nose level side-to-side, and then also front-to-back. Being perfectly level all the way around is rare, and I like it because it lets the doors close correctly without slamming, which is nice.

We had already decided that this trip would be our shake-down 2024 maiden voyage and that we’d use the Asch Principle whenever possible. That meant eating out our first night because there was a chance we’d get in late (we didn’t), there might be issues with the flushing of the antifreeze (there weren’t), something might malfunction in set-up (nothing did), or some essential item could be damaged or missing (nothing was), and any of those situations could result in humans who were hungry, frustrated, and/or tired, and who’d want to try to cook a meal then? Not me!

Scott had found a Mexican restaurant with good ratings, but when we left our fully set-up campsite at 7:21 PM to drive there, they were closed. BUMMER. So we ended up going to a different Mexican restaurant all of five miles away that was open till 9:00, and La Hacienda #2 De Los Reyes was SUPERB! Great service, great atmosphere, great food, great prices. I ate too much (chips and salsa, grilled chicken chimichanga, rice, beans, guacamole, pico de gallo) and it was all delicious. Reminded me of Brownings in the Heights in Little Rock in the early days of our marriage. So good.

This morning, Scott and I took a short walk on one of the boardwalks up around the waterfall. It comes from nowhere and falls in a ribbon to a pool that’s in front of one of those “Indian cave” looking landforms. The scenery, the walkways, the bridges, the cliffs, the stream, they are all very lovely and peaceful. We will do more exploring later.

I’m sitting outside in jeans, t-shirt, hoodie, and beanie cap at our concrete picnic table while Scott holds a Zoom meeting with his TTC Kenya leadership team at the table in the camper. Because of his back issues, at home he usually works at a standing desk and stands for these meetings. In the camper, he was looking around for places he could put his computer up high enough to stand at it. He tried the kitchen cabinet above the sink where all our dry food is stored (a little too high) and the cabinet above the toilet where the toilet tissue and paper towels are stored (not quite deep enough to balance his laptop well). Since neither of those would work well, he ended up standing two rolls of paper towels on the kitchen table (I say “kitchen” table, but it’s actually our game table, work table, AND kitchen table) and setting his computer on top of them.

My KY3 weather app now says it’s 59 degrees with a wind speed of 13 mph, which explains why I’m getting chilly. I just put on my magic gloves; I’m surprised that I can actually type fairly well in them. But the weather is beautiful: sunny with an absolutely clear blue sky.

A couple of bigger RVs just circled around, landed in sites across the way, and are now getting themselves set up. Birds are singing, and I think I’ll stop here, drink some water, and go find a bathroom is that is not 2.5 feet from Scott’s Zoom meeting. = )

Over the river and through the woods…

… to NFSP we go!

That would be Natural Falls State Park in West Siloam Springs, Oklahoma, and this would be our first camping trip of the year. It’s a short, three-night excursion to bike the new-to us Dogwood Springs Trail, a previous favorite, the Blowing Springs Greenway, and possibly some other section(s) of the massive Razorback Regional Greenway.

I was very proud of myself yesterday. Our plan was for me to drive while Scott worked, as he has a number of upcoming ministry meetings, presentations, and events to prepare for. He is a better driver than I am, especially in heavy traffic, but I do fine on the open road and even when pulling the camper.

Google said our drive would take about 2.5 hours, most of it on Highway 412. I must say — and have probably mentioned in the past — that that run from Alpena to Huntsville is one of my very favorite stretches of pavement anywhere. The scenery is just SO gorgeous!

A friend of ours was surprised recently to hear that I was planning to pull the camper. He and his wife have a camper much like ours and their tow vehicle is quite similar to Thomas, but he said his wife would NEVER pull their camper. Well, Scott’s wife will. = ) There are a number of things I can’t or won’t do, but I can pull the camper, and in general, I’d rather be a driver than a passenger. Unless, of course, we’re going through Cowell, but that’s another story.

We’d planned to leave home around 2:30 PM, after Scott’s 12:00-1:30 Zoom meeting and lunch. Following a bit of frustration and delay around our misplaced brake controller… (NOTE: I refuse to pull the camper without it, it wasn’t in Thomas’ console where my “Where is it?” list said it was, and when Scott finally found it on his shelf in the dining room(?!?), I realized that I was the only one who could have put it there. [insert embarrassed sigh]). Anyway, we got under way at 2:47 PM, which was commendable.

As we approached Springdale, Scott said he thought it would be best if we switched drivers. He said it nicely, but given that we were pulling a 30-foot trailer and didn’t have any wide-angle mirrors (that’s also another story), he basically said he preferred to drive through town, given that there would be curbs, stoplights, and heavier stop-and-go traffic. He was right, of course, and I acquiesced. But in order to change drivers, I’d need to find a place to stop; ideally some place:

– that was on the right side of the road,

– had with a pull-through that didn’t involve tight turning,

– provided good visibility for oncoming traffic (i.e., not on a curve or partway up or down a hill),

– and had a long enough shoulder for us to get back up to speed and merge into traffic.

Well, places like that are usually called churches or empty parking lots, so that’s what I was looking for. We were also almost down to a quarter of a tank of gas, my standard fill-up point, so in lieu of a church or empty parking lot, a large gas station or truck stop (Buc-ee’s anyone?) would also be a fine possibility.

I wasn’t seeing anything. Now, there may have been something and my proud desire to drive the whole thing myself may have come into play, but for purposes of this blog post, we’ll just say that I didn’t see any ideal spot to pull over. Which was true.

So in the end, I ended up driving through Springdale with its 47 stoplights, 80% of which were red, and I think it took over 30 minutes to go some 10 miles. But we DID it, and I felt very competent and proud of myself. And when I next see our friend, I may even mention that I pulled the camper for three hours, including through metropolitan Springdale, and at rush hour, no less!

Or I may not.

There is Proverbs 16:18 to contend with.

Arrival

I’m now writing this eight days after the fact, using notes I made a day or two after we landed in Hong Kong. Much has happened since then, and as always when traveling, I’m finding that just living the experience leaves me very little time and mental space to write about it, but since I do want to remember as much about this amazing trip as I can, here goes!

The Boeing 787 is a huge plane, and ours appeared to be brand new. Everything was sparkling clean and fresh. Nothing looked worn or dingy. I was duly impressed. Just threading in through the first class section was an experience. There were little one- and two-person “cubicles” with seats that actually reclined and I think may have made out flat into beds! Each seat had a nice pillow, blanket, and slippers, all very cushy. Flight attendants were serving those well-heeled passengers drinks in what appeared to be real glass glasses on trays like in restaurants. I was impressed.

Of course, things got smaller and tighter as I made my way back to our seats near the rear of the plane, but still, the set-up was quite nice, with conveniently located light and fan controls, charging ports and outlets, and a touch screen for each seat that did all kinds of amazing things. For example, once I had watched our seatmate use his and figured out what to press to get what, I could see a map that showed our location, airspeed, and altitude and, most importantly, the time remaining on our flight. (Dad, you would love it!) There were also many, many “entertainment” options – movies, TV series, and games. If a person wanted to stay awake, he could surely occupy himself for 14+ hours.

Another amazing thing: on one of my trips to the bathroom at the back of the plane, I saw one of the flight attendants, looking rather frowsy, step out of a door I hadn’t noticed before. I think this plane has an upstairs(!) and the door was labeled something like “Staff Only,” so I’m guessing they get to go up and lie down and nap during the flight. Wow.

We’d passed over all the lights of Taipei a few hours before landing, which was fun because Josiah used to live there. And eventually, after some circling about (which I followed on my screen), we did at last LAND in Hong Kong!

Katie had been in contact with Jessica via WhatsApp during the final hours of our flight, and as she’d had a rugged night, she gave Katie detailed instructions on where to go to get out of the airport and how to take a cab to their house. That’s what I thought we were going to do, but then Jess told us that she was going to pick us up instead! I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was a long drive to the airport, which is on a different man-made island from the part of Hong Kong where they live, and how on earth could she do that?!?

Even with using two exit doors, it took quite a while for all those passengers to de-plane, and we were so far back that we just sat and waited. We knew that we’d still have to go through immigration, get our luggage, go through customs, and even then Jess probably would still be on her way, so there was no rush. By the time we collected all our stuff, we ended up being The. Very. Last. passengers off the plane.

A man was waiting with a standard, foldable wheelchair (the ones in Denver and San Francisco had been smaller ones with hard seats and backs), and at the end of the hallway another man in a uniform of some kind asked for my passport and boarding pass. This seemed strange. I even hadn’t needed my boarding pass to get on the plane in San Francisco; I had both a paper one and one on my phone, but nobody even asked for it. All the gate attendant there did was hold and look at my passport while I stood on some footprints on the floor and had my picture taken. Now, in order to get off the plane in Hong Kong, I had to present my boarding pass. Interesting. The uniformed man looked at me and said without smiling, “Welcome to Hong Kong,” and waved us on our way.

The man pushing my wheelchair took us to immigration. He spoke only a few words of English, and Katie and I together speak a total of zero words of Cantonese (“Chinese”), so there was some confusion about what line to get in. Some of the lines were quite long and he initially put us in one of them. That would’ve been fine with us, but then he decided that we should go to the disabled line, which we’d already passed. He wheeled us back there, past a long line of people who were waiting (awkward for me), and deposited us in the very short “Disabled” line, where we only had to wait two minutes. We had no problems, and then it was off to retrieve our luggage.

I feel compelled to pause here and mention the glories of the luggage carts at the HK airport. I don’t fly much, and when I do it’s usually with only a carry-on as per KROAT (“Katie’s Rules of Air Travel”) or sometimes one checked bag, neither of which have ever required a luggage cart. However, I have in years past seen luggage cart dispenser-things at airports. You have to pay for them, and since Robertses are disinclined to pay money for non-essential items, I don’t think we ever have; well, maybe once. But in Hong Kong, luggage carts are FREE, there are hundreds of them, and everyone uses them. It’s like shopping carts at Walmart. What a concept. We grabbed one, I gladly pushed it, and although our progress was somewhat slower with me walking than being wheeled, we made it to baggage claim, where we stood at carousel #16, eagerly scanning the conveyor for our three bags (my big red w/ neon green strap, her big tan hard-side, and her orange and black carry-on).

It seemed really odd that after a long wait, not one of them had appeared. Why would our three bags have been singled out to be lost or delayed?

Then the Brillliant One looked up at the display board and said, laughing, “Hey! This is an American flight!” We’d flown United (also a well-known KROAT violation), and located our bags on spinning around on carousel #12, right where they should have been. Somewhat slap-happy after nearly 20 hours in transit together, we found our error hilariously funny.

We wheeled our well-stacked luggage cart (sporting our three above-mentioned checked bags, Katie’s backpack, my tan tweed carry-on, and my purple computer bag) toward the exit, without ever even realizing we’d gone through customs, and then experienced some additional confusion in trying to leave the airport building through the appropriate door to connect with Jessica. The problem simply ended up being our misinterpretation of her directions, which we thought were taking us to the “Limousine Lounge.” A phone call cleared everything up, and in two minutes we stepped outside, and there was JESSICA(!!!), standing beside their van and waving! I was overwhelmed; she came!!! That’s what moms do, you know. They stand on driveways (or in airport parking lots) and keep watching and waiting, eager to see their kids (or sibs or parents) arrive. We hugged so hard. We looked at each other and cried. That’s what we do. It was so good to be with her.

And then there was Nate. In his car seat and absolutely adorable. Wow!

It was 7:30 AM, the weather was hot (cool for Hong Kong) and very humid, the traffic was light (for Hong Kong), and the drive home (on the left; how odd!) was full of amazing sights and included a tunnel under part of the South China Sea.

Ezekiel and Ellie were very glad to see both of us, and the feeling was definitely mutual. = )

We had arrived in Hong Kong!

– Many free luggage carts. Went to baggage claim. Waited a long time for our three bags (my big red w/ neon green strap, her big tan hard-side, her orange and black carry-on), but none of them appeared. We were at AMERICAN flight from SFO, not UNITED!

– Got luggage, wheeled through customs (unknowingly) and tried to find Jess. Were going to take cab, but she decided to come. Found restroom, some door confusion, but there she was!!! We both cried!

– About 7:30 AM, lovely coolish weather. Crazy traffic.

– At home, Matthias unloaded luggage and dragged it to their house. Kids were happy to see us.

Departure

I was stressed at the Springfield airport, mainly because I don’t fly much and am not familiar with the specifics of what to do. I didn’t know what to expect and was concerned that I’d hold up the folks in line behind me, but security went fine. I didn’t even have to take out my computer or my quart bag of carry-on liquids.

Lessons learned:

– It’s harder to pull a carry-on on carpet than on tile.

– Using a cane requires one hand and arm and makes everything slower.

– If you drag all your stuff to the bathroom, then drag it all to the gate, and then realize that you forgot to fill your water bottle at the bathroom, you will have to drag it all back to the bathroom and then back to the gate again. = )

– If, like most humans, you were born with only two hands, and if one of them involves a cane, you will not be able to drag all your stuff AND carry a water bottle in your free hand. You can then opt to put on your hoodie, which has a front pouch into which you can shove your water bottle, but then you will sweat, and you really don’t want to be sweating before you even take off on your first of three flights.

My carry-on bag had to be gate checked. No surprises there, and although I was quite sure I’d recognize my tan tweed carry-on anywhere, I put the tiny green claim stub in my wallet. I was very pleased to have the sweet, solitary “A” aisle seat, and my flight to Denver was short and good. I tried and failed to do an “Easy” sudoku puzzle. I will not be doing that again!

As I deplaned down the outdoor ramp in Denver, I saw a man standing with a wheelchair that had my name on it. Way to go, United! Another man was holding up a sign that said “Checked Bags,” but since my bag had been checked through to Hong Kong, I disregarded that. I sat down in the wheelchair, piled my purple computer bag (“personal item”) and cane on my lap, and the man started wheeling me toward the building. He spoke very little English, but that was fine. I looked at my boarding pass and he mentioned the same gate number that was on it, so we were tracking.

As he wheeled me up the interior gate hallway, I asked him where I’d get my gate-checked bag.

“It check through. You pick at final destination.”

WHAT?!?

This was a problem. My tan tweed carry-on had all my really essential essentials: three weeks of meds, A/C converter and outlet adapters, a change of clothes if my checked bag was delayed, etc. My carry-on needed to travel with me at each step — or flight — of the way!

I told him I needed it with me now, and he reiterated his earlier statement.

Not only did it have my necessaries, that’s the bag we were going to put Katie’s two laptops in to travel from Denver to Hong Kong. I stood my ground on getting my carry-on now.

He eventually sighed and turned me around, but when he got us back to the door, a United lady insisted that we couldn’t go back outside. Some strong discussion ensued between the two of them in… Spanish?, and then she said he could go outside but I could not. He asked me how he could find my bag. I rarely think fast on my feet. My mind raced. What was unique about my bag? I told him it was tan, and then I (victoriously!) dug out my tiny green claim ticket and handed it to him. He still didn’t know what to do, and the lady told him to match the numbers. He was displeased, but sighed and went outside.

Where he’d left me sitting, I couldn’t see out the open door, and I was partially blocking the flow of the second wave of incoming passengers who were now pulling their gate-checked bags into the terminal. (Oh, maybe that why that man had been standing out there holding a “Checked Bags” sign?) When I stood up to walk over and look, the lady about came out of her chair, quickly and loudly. NO! I could NOT go out that door!

I told her I didn’t want to go out; that I just wanted to see that he got my bag. She glared at me and firmly motioned for me to sit in the wheelchair where I was, so I did. Eventually the man came back in pulling my carry-on, which I now assumed I had been expected to retrieve from the “Checked Bags” man at the foot of the ramp. I thanked him fervently, he shoved my carry-on under my wheelchair, and we headed off toward my next gate.

It was a long and mostly silent journey. I’m pretty sure he wheeled me close to a quarter of a mile, almost all on carpet. It couldn’t have been easy. We didn’t talk much at all, but he did say that he was really tired and had had a lot of long hauls that day. He pushed my heavy self and all my heavy stuff from B 59 to B 24. I tipped him $10, went to find a bathroom, and yes, once again forgot to fill my water bottle at the bathroom.

Katie landed a bit after me at A terminal and had to take a train to B. I was hungry and had looked around for a food court, but the nearest stuff that appealed at all was ten gates away, and I sure wasn’t doing that. We met at B 24, and after her bathroom break, it was time to board, so snacks would have to do. Moving the computers from her backpack to my carry-on and getting real food would have to wait till San Francisco. She had just hauled her backpack with three laptops in it (her personal, her work, and a new one Jess had ordered) all the way from A 14 to B 24, probably about the same distance the man had pushed me. And she’d been walking pretty steadily too. She was hot.

We saw that we were in two different boarding groups for our flight to SFO – Katie in group 2 and me in group 4 – but she said she’d stay with me and board later. I was thankful that Katie was looking out for my comfort and peace, but then as we queued with my fellow group 4 passengers, the gate agent announced over the loudspeaker that if anyone had a large carry-on bag (I did) or a bag with wheels (mine does), it would have to be gate-checked. Sigh. I’d really wanted to keep it with me, but evidently that would not be possible.

When we got to the counter, Katie, with her 50 lb backpack that would fit under the seat front of her, was waved forward, while I, with my purple computer bag that would with great effort fit under the seat in front of me and my tan tweed, wheeled carry-on that would not, was stopped. Katie, of course, stopped with me, and the gate agent told us that my carry-on would have to be checked. I’m working on trusting God and being more acceptable of and flexible with unchangeable circumstances. This was not what I wanted, but I’d grab it in San Francisco, where we’d have to do the laptop transfer anyway, and I’d have it with me on the long flight where it really mattered. I said, “OK.”

Then, perhaps assuming that I was old or hard of hearing and wanting to make sure I had a clear grasp of the situation, the agent said, “Do you understand that it will be checked through to your final destination and you’ll pick it up in Hong Kong?”

WHAT?!?!

I said it had food for my trip and I needed access to it in San Francisco! I think Katie may have mentioned something about medicines.

He responded that no, my only option was to check it. Or I could take my chances with the flight attendant and see if they could squeeze it in, but if not it would have to be checked.

Katie said firmly, “My mom needs this stuff. We’ll take our chances with it.”

The man reluctantly acquiesced and sent us on our way.

Turns out Katie was right; she found an overhead space for it near our seats, which were something like 36 A and C. Someone had taken B, but traded so she could have A (window) and I had B (middle). It was a short flight (2.5 hrs,) so climbing over our C seatmate to access the bathroom wasn’t an issue. We ate junk food and grapes, talked, and learned about tech and entertainment features of the plane. It was a fun flight.

We landed in San Francisco around 9:00 PM and a cheery lady named “E” (Edith) met us off the plane with a wheelchair. Katie had looked up the airport map, so we knew that although we would have to change from E terminal (incoming ) to G terminal (outgoing), it would be a short walk. (This turned put to be the untruth of the decade.) E was friendly and chatty and she pushed my chair at a significant pace. Katie walked beside us, hauling her three-laptop backpack on her back while pushing my computer bag-topped carry-on. Yes, the carry-on could have gone under and the purple on my lap, but she insisted. She definitely got a work-out!

At nearly empty gate G5, after thanking and tipping E, we offloaded two of the laptops into my carry-on and went to look for real food. Katie wore her thankfully MUCH lighter backpack and pulled my carry-on, while I caned with my left hand, carried my water bottle in my right (too hot for hoodie), and lugged my purple on my right shoulder.

Again, there was no food court nearby, and regular restaurants were closing, but we really wanted real food and chose Mustards Bar and Grill, a nice sit-down place where we paid top dollar (including tip, $35ish each!) for 1/2 lb burgers and fries. Then it was a haul back to bathrooms and gate G5, which was now packed with people. Again, Katie was in boarding group 2 and I was in 4. Since we definitely did not want those laptops checked, I suggested she take my carry-on and board with her group, hopefully before all the overhead bins filled up. She agreed, and that decision ended up being a good one, as we group 4 passengers waited for a very long time; I boarded 30 minutes after her, finally arriving at seats 54 A and C.

I’ll just say that 14.5 hours is a long time to be anywhere, and especially on a plane. The gentleman in seat B moved to the aisle and was most gracious when one of us needed to get out. After our huge dinner at Mustards, we were both getting sleepy soon after take-off. They brought “dinner,” which we both declined, and Katie fell asleep. I watched an interesting documentary about Air Force One, took Ambien, took off my hoodie, was still hot, turned on my fan, heaved my very heavy purple computer bag up onto my lap so I could STRETCH OUT MY LEGS(!!!), draped my hoodie over my head, arms, and torso, and dozed/slept for about five hours.

I noted in my phone, “This has been the longest night. It was dark when we left SFO, and some 13 hours later it’s still dark. When we woke up, they brought us turkey sandwiches, which we saved for a few hours till we got hungry. I got a chance to brush my teeth, we did some puzzle book stuff and I don’t remember what all else, played some Bookworm, and now, about 1.5 hours before landing, when they’re serving breakfast, I am SO SLEEPY!”

By the water

Monday, 5/29/23

Hiking is not in my current repertoire of outdoor activities, so after nabbing our 12-person group shot and saying goodbye to 5/8ths of the Joneses, Milt, Becky, Isabel, Scott, Katie, and Andrew hiked the Noland Creek Trail.

Correction: They hiked part of the Noland Creek Trail.

A bit of background info: During our trip, I made notes in my phone each day in order to trigger my memory so I could write these blog posts after the fact. But the only thing my notes say about midday on Monday is, “They hiked the Noland Creek Trail.” That sentence is not particularly helpful. And then there are the pictures.

See, Katie created a shared folder for all four of us to put our pictures from our days together at Deep Creek. I’ve been pulling pictures from that folder to put in these blog posts. Many of those pictures instantly bring back memories, but some of them have been a complete mystery to me, and this evening I figured out why. I’m writing this post on July 3. “Their” Noland Creek Trail hike happened on May 29, and much has happened in my life over the past five weeks.

Since I didn’t remember the hike or recognize a bunch of “our” pictures, I googled “Noland Creek Trail” and learned that it’s 18.5 miles long! They clearly didn’t hike that far, but ah… yes; it’s all coming back to me now as I type. I remember that we drove to the trailhead parking lot, which is located at around mile 5 of Lakeview Drive (a.k.a. “The Road to Nowhere”), and when I realized that the short trail down to the main trail was steeper than I could comfortably navigate, I set up a chair in the shade near Thomas, pulled out my computer, and spent a most peaceful hour or so enjoying the interplay of sunlight and breeze through a green leafy canopy while reviewing an important document for a friend.

Overhead view

And now, back to my google search. Today I read the following on explorebrysoncity.com.

“The Noland Creek Trail can be traveled from the trailhead either north or south. Noland Creek Trail North: 8.4 miles total in and out, easy to moderate. Elevation change: 707 feet… ” (This is clearly NOT what our family did!)

“Noland Creek Trail South: 2 miles total in and out, easy. Elevations change: 143 feet. This 1-mile trail follows Noland Creek south to Fontana Lake. You can access the trail from either the viaduct area north of the parking lot, or the 190-yard long access path just south of the parking lot. Much of the trail is soft, sandy and occasionally wet, with driftwood litter near the lake.” (This is the section they hiked.)

So, what happened on Monday is that while I relaxed, the rest of our gang soldiered on, hiking nearly to the lake and then back, with our resident photographer, AAJDR, taking lots of great pictures along the way.

Photographer at work… or play? = )

Here are some of those photos.

Brothers-in-law, Milt & Scott

I do like a collection of ferns!

Katie is fond of Mountain Laurel

Understory

Noland Creek from bridge

Over the ‘river’…

And through the woods…

To the mouth of Noland Creek, where it meets Fontana Lake
Andrew, Becky, Isabel, Scott, Milt, Katie

Three happy hikers

And more lovely Mountain Laurel,
of which you really can’t have too much!

Basic math

Due to two of our kids being overseas at the time, Team Roberts was not able to pull off the feat that the Jones family managed: For something like 42 hours, they actually had all four of their children with associated spouses all together in one two-bedroom cabin(!) at Deep Creek.

Our two families’ time windows were fairly tight – theirs even more than ours – so we hadn’t all spent a lot of time together. But we did want to capture the Memorial Day 2023 moment with a group shot of all 12 of us before two carloads of Jones kids headed out on Monday morning. With his phone carefully pre-positioned, Andrew advised each of us where to stand to get even lighting on everyone and which of us would need to sustain partial squats in order for all our faces to be seen. Then, from his Apple watch he told his phone to give us a count-down and take the picture. I was impressed. It only took two tries to produce this fine photo of us all.

For the record, and since I’ve learned the hard way that it’s always best to label (or at least caption) every picture, the subjects are as follows.

Ladies (L to R): Chloe, Katie, Rachelle, Becky, Amanda, Isabel, Patty

Gentlemen (L to R): Ian, Matt, Andrew, Milt, Scott

8 Joneses + 4 Robertses = 12 smiles

Even though some of us actually met for the first time that weekend, I believe I’m speaking for the whole gang when I say that a good time was had by all.

One through six

Some days are just rugged from the get-go. Such was Monday.

First, it was only 55 degrees, cloudy, and breezy, and you may recall that a tubing event was planned. Now, my idea of tubing weather is sunny and at least 80 degrees, but since I knew I would not be tubing, the rest of the gang would get to decide what to do on that.

Second, our blackwater tank needed to be dumped. Thankfully, in our family this is a totally Y-chromosome responsibility, and I have noticed in various campgrounds that this tendency seems to hold true among many other RV-ing couples. All of whom are in their 50s, 60, or 70s… Anyway, given our lovely, grassy, hillside campsite, gravity was not Scott’s friend, but he did the best he could and I was truly grateful. ‘Nuff said.

Third, Scott really likes to cook on his Blackstone — at any time, and especially when camping. I don’t like to cook under pressure at any time, so his cooking on camping trips is a huge gift to me. This particular Monday morning (after a thorough clean-up from the above) he was ready to crank out a tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs and hash browns to go with our French toast and strawberries. He cracked the first few eggs into a bowl and then said, “Uh-oh.”

“What?” I asked.

“This egg is frozen.”

Ah, yes. So it was. And unfortunately, so were all the rest of them.

We have learned that our camper’s fridge is a little funky, so placement of certain items is critical. Unlike at home where the bottom of the fridge is the coldest, in the camper the stuff on the top shelf tends to freeze; I guess because it’s closest to the freezer. In any case, it’s pretty hard to scramble frozen eggs, so Scott put several in a bowl of hot water to thaw. I thought that would be way too slow, so I did something you generally can’t do in a state park campground, but which you can do in a private campground (like Deep Creek Tube Center & Campground): I googled “thaw frozen eggs” and read that you can thaw frozen eggs by using the defrost setting of the microwave. Wow! So I did, and it worked jost grett.

Fourth, while Scott cooked, I wanted to go spend a little time with God sitting in a quiet, natural place, so I took Thomas and headed for the national park picnic area half a mile away. That’s the same place we’d spent quite a while seeking–and not finding–our campsite #29 on Thursday afternoon, and I figured it would be deserted, because who picnics at 8:00 AM anyway? But only 100 yards down the road, Thomas suddenly gave me a triangular, orange “Check Tires” alarm, stating that my left rear tire was only 30 psi. It should be 36 psi. Sigh. I turned around and drove back, only to find Scott…

Fifth, dragging a propane tank across our site. It seems that you can’t scramble even perfectly thawed eggs on a propane-powered Blackstone when your propane tank is empty. I was concerned about Thomas’ left rear tire, but Scott assured me that that would be fine; he was concerned about not being able to cook! I’m sure he was glad to see me, but I think in that moment he was even more glad to see Thomas. = )

Sixth, propane having been procured, My Hero did cook our breakfast, but the result was not quite as stellar as it might have been. Comments, some made by the chef himself, included the following.

“The hash browns are fine, but they could stand more seasoning.”

“I think they’re better with more onion.”

“Cheese makes everything better. Definitely use more cheese in the eggs next time.”

The above have been duly noted and recorded for future reference by Our Resident Documentarian.

Scott then used our nifty Teromas air compressor to air up the tire. This guy has been a workhorse! I mean the air compressor, not Scott. Well, yes, Scott too! = )

Thomas was happy, and all was well. In fact our rugged day was about to get a lot better!

Birds of a feather

Sunday 5/28/23

We knew that Monday, our final full day together, would be the warmest and sunniest opportunity for people to get in the water and go tubing; something Scott, Katie, and the Joneses especially wanted to do. So with Sunday expected to be cloudy with a possibility of rain and a high of only 63, Scott and I spent some time just relaxing—something he and I do differently, HA!—and then we did laundry there at the campground. Scott’s been working diligently on his Laundramat 101 Certification, and he’s making great progress, having even flown solo a few times.

Andrew and Katie came up mid-morning, and we talked about options for the day. Katie and I were very interested in visiting the Bryson City Island Park, less than two miles away. Andrew wanted us to spend time together and have a picnic. Scott and Katie wanted to play Wingspan, a fairly complicated board game about birds; it’s another one which I like and consistently lose, but which Andrew was willing to learn. I wanted Katie to experience e-biking. So, despite the foreboding weather forecast, we decided to bike to Bryson City Island Park, have a picnic, and play Wingspan. = D

Not knowing how many picnic tables would be available, while Scott and I finished collecting all the stuff we’d need for this excursion—or at least most of it—Katie and Andrew rode our e-bikes to the park to claim a table; we followed in Thomas.

Bryson City Island Park is in a somewhat sketchy part of town. You park along a dead-end-ish, potholed street and then walk or ride your bikes across a short concrete bridge to the five-acre island, which is big enough that you don’t feel like you’re on an island. A mile’s worth of dirt trails encircle and bisect the island, which is located in the Tuckasegee River near the mouth of Deep Creek. There are no bathrooms in the park, but it does have trash cans and several picnic tables, the most nicely located of which the kids had secured for us.

Area map (top oval says “Deep Creek”)

We ate our lunch and set up Wingspan—somewhat of a process—while Katie explained the game to Andrew. Each player deals with a number of birds and needs to keep up with their food sources, eggs, nest types, characteristics, and habitats. It’s one of those games where there are many different ways to earn points, so there are layers of strategy to consider. Thankfully, Andrew’s a really fast learner. Halfway through our game, he understood the process and nuances better than I did after having played it three times.

Our picnic table was on the side of the island opposite the bridge, and over near the far shore we saw a whole family of geese: Mom in front, the goslings following her in a row, and Dad bringing up the rear. So very cute! (I thought sure we had pictures of the Goose Family and was going to put them in here, but I can’t find them now.)

A game of Wingspan takes about two hours to play, and as time passed, two situations developed: 1) bladders filled, and 2) dark, ominous clouds blew in. With rain threatening and a few drops already falling, Katie and I left the guys guarding the bikes and board game while we walked as quickly as feasible back across the bridge to the car and drove to the Swain County Heritage Museum a few blocks away to use their public restrooms. By the time we returned, it was misty raining, the winds had picked up, and it was clear that we peaches would all need to exit the scene fairly quickly.

But “Boo-Hiss!” I thought [in a whiny tone of voice]. What about our grand Wingspan competition? Here we were, only 30 minutes from finishing a long, complicated game, and now we’d lose it all because we needed to keep the game dry and get the bikes under cover as quickly as possible. What to do?!? Well, our kids are the brilliant ones. They took detailed pictures of the current game set-up, noted whose turn it was, dumped all the game components back into the box, and hustled it, our lunch items, and the two bikes back across the bridge. Scott and Katie rode the bikes back “home” in the chilly rain, while Andrew chauffeured me in the Armada.  

Back at our campsite, where a nifty, easy-to-set-up-and-take-down blue canopy covered our picnic table, they quickly reconstructed the game from their pictures!

One of our Brilliant Ones
re-creating the Wingspan game

After Scott and Katie parked the bikes under the camper’s wide awning and either did or didn’t change into dry clothes, we finished our game of Wingspan!  = )  Andrew fared very well for his first time, and guess who won? I did! And I couldn’t believe it! I was shocked, overwhelmed, and very happy. Maybe at least one of my 206 bones really is competitive.

That evening Katie, with Andrew’s help, used the Blackstone to make her delicious grilled mozzarella, basil, and tomato sandwiches for supper.

Chef and Assistant with gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches

These are always crowd pleasers, and our Team Roberts crowd was definitely pleased. Proof? There were no leftovers!

After helping clean up our feast, Andrew and I were able to have an important conversation in the camper, while Scott (possibly utilizing the shop vac?) built us a nice campfire, around which we sat, told stories, laughed, and enjoyed a few more Chainsaw Bars and Cookie Dough Brownies with some of our favorite Joneses. Ian is hilarious.

Bridge and beans

Saturday 5/27/23

The four of us Robertses who were camped/cabin-ed at Deep Creek do enjoy games. Scott and Katie are both highly analytical and extremely competitive. Scott likes games with a high strategy-to-luck ratio. Katie and Andrew enjoy cooperative games. I like word games, which I should do well at but which I seem to lose to Scott ~84% of the time, so it’s convenient that I am not at all competitive. Andrew is more competitive than I am, but less than Scott or Katie, and he’s a whiz at Quiddler. Scott’s vocabulary and spelling skills are less refined than Katie’s, Andrew’s, and mine, but he tends to do well at word games, perhaps because he takes his turns very slowly and evaluates every conceivable possibility—and then some. Frequently heard: “Did you set a timer on Dad?”

All that to say that it’s impossible to find games that all four of us, much less all six (or now seven) Team Robertses enjoy, so over the years we’ve learned to provide options and then let subsets of folks play what they want without pressuring others to join in.

But there’s one game that some of us are always up for, so Saturday afternoon we (Scott, Patty, Katie, and either Milt or Becky, depending on availability) played Bridge at our picnic table. As I recall, my team did not fare so well. This didn’t particularly bother me, but I did feel bad for my partner(s), sometimes Milt and other times Scott. Thankfully, they are both scholars and gentlemen, and they were gracious to me when I made dumb mistakes in playing or failed to appropriately evaluate nuances in bidding.

Meanwhile, before our trip, Scott had asked that each of us Robertses cook one night for the four of us. Andrew and Katie had gone grocery shopping at Ingles and gotten what they each needed for their meals plus a few groceries for Scott and me, and that evening Andrew used the Blackstone to prepare us a delicious meal of pan-seared chicken and asparagus along with a side dish of alfredo noodles with broccoli. He really enjoys carefree, creative cooking and does it very well, inside or out!

Chef Andrew at work (or play?)

Saturday evening the four of us sorted through our available games and decided to play Bohnanza, and, because our camper is fairly tight, we played with scavenged seating around the small wooden table in the compact kitchen/living area of Andrew’s and Katie’s tiny cabin. Bohnanza is a game that’s ostensibly about beans (black beans, stink beans, cocoa beans, wax beans, coffee beans, etc.), but is really about logic, odds, and trading.

In our family, for as many years as any of us can remember, Scott has been the most consistent game-winner, so the obvious and unspoken strategy for the rest of us in almost any game is to work together to try to keep him from winning. This we did that night in the cabin as the rain poured down, and in the end the three of us achieved our goal! Incredibly, we EACH ended up with 19 points (who ever heard of a three-way tie in Bohnanza?!?) and Scott had some score less than that.

But he was especially bummed because of the way we accomplished our victory; we simply refused to trade with him. This was very frustrating to Scott, who later told me, “I don’t mind losing, but this is a trading game, and if I can’t trade with anyone, it isn’t fun for me. I just need to remember that next time.” His disappointment made me feel really bad, and I decided that since I don’t care very much about winning, in the future he and I should just play games that we both enjoy and that frustrate each of us minimally. There really are some of those! = ) Hmm… maybe I should make a list…

That said, we all enjoyed the “sweetness of the tree” as we continued to work our way through Chainsaw Bars, Cookie Dough Brownies, and Skittles—one of Andrew’s birthday gifts from Katie—around the Bohnanza table.

The Road to Nowhere

Saturday 5/27/23

We wanted some time with the Joneses, but we also wanted some “us four and no more” time. With the remaining portion of the Jones crew arriving late Friday night, we figured their gang might get going later on Saturday, so we chose to spend the early part of Saturday (relatively speaking) doing some Roberts family exploring.

Expedition chauffeur at the helm

As we drove the six or so winding, hilly, super-scenic miles through the mountains on the so-called Road to Nowhere, Katie read us some historical background about it. It’s really fun having your own personal research consultant riding in the car with you.

View from an overlook
on The Road to Nowhere

The story of that road went something like this.

The Good: In the 1930s and 1940s, on the heels of the Great Depression, Swain County, North Carolina gave much of its private land to the federal government for the creation of Fontana Lake and Smoky Mountains National Park. The TVA’s project to construct Fontana Dam on the Little Tennessee River provided both jobs and hydroelectric power to an impoverished rural area. The government promised to relocate and compensate the residents of Swain County (seat, Bryson City) for their donated land.

The Bad: Hundreds of residents of Swain County were displaced as their homes, farms, and businesses were submerged under Fontana Lake. In addition, because Old Highway 288 was now deep underwater, they could no longer reach old family cemeteries where generations of their ancestors had been laid to rest. However, the government agreed to construct a new road called Lakeview Drive, which would run 30 miles from Bryson City to Fontana along the north side of the lake and provide access to those cemeteries. So, once the dam was completed, the DOI (Department of the Interior) began work on that promised road.

Over the next 20 years and at a cost of $4 million, the DOI completed six miles of Lakeview Drive, which  ended at a ­­­­1200-foot long tunnel. In the 1960s and 1970s, concerns about damage to the environment and potentially unstable rock conditions, as well as extensive political and legal disputes about costs and benefits brought the construction of Lakeview Drive to an end.

The Ugly: The federal government failed repeatedly and on several levels to keep its promises to Swain County. Lakeview Drive was never completed past the tunnel at the six-mile mark, and after decades of innumerable costly legal battles, in 2010 the DOI signed an agreement to give Swain County $52 million. In 2016 the county received an initial $12.8 million and sued to get the rest, which it finally received in 2018, 75 years after the whole business started in 1943.

So that’s the story of what Bryson City locals call “The Road to Nowhere, A Broken Promise.”

Such a lovely approach

There’s light at the end of the tunnel!

Two of us biked through the tunnel with headlights on, the other two walked through (one of them carrying my trusty walking stick while I rode), and at the far end, Scott, Katie, and Andrew climbed up on top of it.

Three apples Roberts’ up on top

Slightly closer, landscape orientation

Happy hikers!

We found the history disturbing, the six-mile drive stunningly beautiful, and our walking and biking through the tunnel absolutely amazing. We were very pleased to have experienced The Road to Nowhere.

But wait; there’s more! In her online research, Katie had found another interesting local feature that she and I both wanted to see in person. It seems that in the 1960s, in order to prevent erosion along the banks of the Tuckasegee River in Bryson City, stacks of demolished cars were placed in the riverbank, and they are still there! This so-called Automotive Riverbank Preservation Wall isn’t nearly as famous or scenic as the Road to Nowhere—after 60+ years the cars are significantly overgrown with trees and other vegetation—but we did find them, and we acted like tourists to get some pictures to prove it!

I’m standing on the bank above the cars, Scott’s on the bridge (bottom right corner of lower sign), figuring out how to take pictures of the cars – and us. = )

How do you pronounce this river, anyway?

Here’s Scott’s picture from the bridge of us by Thomas above the Automotive Riverbank Wall. (Sorry it’s blurry.)

Doing our touristy thing

There really are crushed cars in riverbank

Well, there you have it: Between Bryson City’s Road to Nowhere and impressive tunnel and its Automotive Riverbank Preservation Wall, I think we’ve seen it all now!