Trial by Fire

We officially began the big trip three days ago. First stop: Asheville, NC. The plan was to camp at Wolf Ford Horse Campground just outside of the city and have my best friend Justin come visit for a nice little night around the camp fire. The camper was packed full, and we had three cats, two dogs, two humans, and one goat in the car quite comfortably. It was a very pleasant drive and we found the dirt road that led to the campground quite easily. From there began a harrowing journey involving forty miles of gravel roads up and down a mountain and ended with Rosie almost killing everyone. That last bit might be a bit dramatic, but let's just say we've had a stroke of bad luck.

The website that we use to find places to camp on the cheap is called freecampsites.net. It's basically user-submitted free or cheap camping sites with locations, details, and reviews. According to the site, twelve miles or so up this dirt and gravel road would be an intersection with sixteen free campsites encircling a vault toilet. Along the road there were plenty of dispersed tent camping sites for free, but none we could get the camper into. At the beginning of the road was a $22/night state maintained campground, which I believe was the campground that the poster was talking about in the first place. At any rate, we drove over a mountain twenty miles each way on a winding one lane gravel road with nothing to show for it and night approaching fast.

Twenty miles of this. Each way. Towing an antique pop-up with leaf springs.

By six in the evening we had made it back to a McDonald's and found some Wifi. We decided to just go to a paid campground and located Mt Pisgah Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway for $16 a night. We invited Justin to meet us there and left for the area at the same time he did. There's no cell signal that high, so we had no way of contacting one another after deciding to meet up. Our little zoo made it up the parkway to the campground and picked a nice little spot where the picnic area was up a little ways and out of view so the ranger might not ask about the goat. Technically she may not be allowed in National forests, and we weren't sure what the part of the parkway was considered. I managed the minor feat of backing the trailer into the concrete pad and we managed to get mostly set up before darkness fell. I lit a lantern and a few torches for the picnic area where we had tied the dogs and Rosie, and Dan went to pay for the site.

First setup of the trip!

We discovered that Juno has a talent for breaking tie-out cables. 

As I was arranging things in the camper I noticed that it looked a lot brighter through the woods than I had remembered it earlier. I ran up the steps to the picnic area and realized that Rosie had knocked over the torch, singed her eyelashes, set the picnic table on fire, and also lit the bag of harnesses, collars, and leashes on fire. I managed to put it out with a towel and a water bottle, and luckily we only lost one cat harness and turned a thirty foot lead into four foot segments. I did not want to have roasted goat for dinner. (Yes, Dan, I thought she couldn't reach it and I was wrong.) 

She was then moved to the lantern post and the fireless pit.

The rest of the night was relatively uneventful and we did not deign to try an actual camp fire. Justin never showed up and I was worried that he had ran out of gas with no cell signal on the parkway, and we weren't able to contact him until after lunch the next day when we had packed up and charged the phones. He had gotten lost and just decided to turn around and go home. I was just glad he was ok. 

She was not amused that a leash was preventing her from hunting voles.

Shortly before we made it to Mt Pisgah Campground the gas light had come on. We decided we had enough gas to go do a short hike up to Black Balsam Knob about ten miles away and take in the wonderful view there. The road to the trail head was severely in need of maintenance, with potholes almost a foot deep. With a howling irritated cat in the back we made it to the trail and hiked with the dogs and the goat. I'll add in more pics later; now I'm not able to access the SD card on my camera. 

 They were having a moment.

So was I.

When we were done hiking the GPS said gas was 9 miles away. My GPS is a liar, as we have come to discover multiple times in the past 48 hours. I think we went more than fifty miles on curvy mountain roads, finally ending up in Brevard somehow without actually running out of gas. We had to have been running on fumes and were lucky to not get stranded.

After all that stress Dan got me a Rocky Road double scoop in a sprinkle cone just to see me smile. I chose a good trip companion.

We never did get to see Justin and just kept on going. Next stop: Blue Valley Dispersed Campground in Highland, NC. Arriving shortly before dark last night it was a much better time, but I'll post about that adventure later. Sorry for the lack of pictures but I need to find my SD card! Hopefully next time that will happen. We may be off the grid for a couple days, so ta ta for now!