Tag: Greensboro

Esse Quam Videri – North Carolina’s motto – all these months later is meaningful.

Before we made it to NC, we stopped in Virginia at another great Boondockers Welcome location. We were outside of Ashland and in the country. The hosts encouraged me to take a walk, and once the sun started to set, I took a nice walk down the lane.

If you’ve traveled down the east coast, you probably guessed that I was on I-95 – not my favorite stretch of road. Back in 2012, I went to Virginia to visit the Edgar Allen Poe sites in Richmond, and I got into a car accident – drunk driver ran a stop sign. I was fine, but my car was not. It ended up getting fixed in VA, so I spent a good amount of time up and down 95. This is the type of road where traffic slows for no reason and for plenty of reasons. One time, I was driving to Richmond, and traffic slowed, and then there was someone’s entire wardrobe strewn across the highway. Just another day on I-95.

We also needed to refill our propane. I don’t use it very much, but I like to have the tank full just in case. We tried two different RV dealerships – The General and Camping World, but none of them would fill our tank without a service appointment. 🍫 I ended it up at Tractor Supply, and they were great. The manager who helped me was chatty and interested in our journey. He had lived briefly in PA, so we talked about some locations, and then we were on our way.

Our camping spot was a quiet location in the Oak Hollow Campground outside of High Point. October is a great time for acorns to fall off oak trees, so the two weeks were there was filled with a symphony of pings on Estella’s roof. The name of the campground should’ve been my first clue.

When we were in MD, I also had an RV tech (Fixed It! Mobile RV Services) come out to see if he could source the water leak I was starting to see evidence of. We ran the water and ended up overflowing the grey tank without any clue where the water leak was coming from. We couldn’t find anything even after taking off the back panel and scooting under the RV. Matt, the owner of Fixed It, was a great help and felt pretty bad that we couldn’t find the source. He gave me his number and told me to call if I found the leak and was still in Maryland.

Fast forward to NC where I found that I had standing water in the basin of the shower. The litter mat under Arthur’s litter box had blocked the drain after we overflowed the grey tank. It was pretty gross, and I spent a couple of days cleaning up the mess that was left over. I ended up warping the tabletop. 🍫🍫🍫🍫 Needless to say, I spent some time chewing through the chocolate and thinking about my life decisions.

My friend and co-worker lives in NC, so we planned to take a day off and meet up for lunch and an adventure. The timing of my stop in NC was just a couple of weeks after Hurricane Helene had devastated a large portion of the state. We had talked about walking the grounds of the Biltmore, but we had scratched that idea to get tattoos even before the storm and its aftermath. I wasn’t near the area where the storms had the greatest impact by sheer luck and the desire to be close to my friend and her family.

Before tattoos, we had brunch at a Print Works Bistro in Greensboro. The mini cinnamon rolls were pretty good, but the bacon was even better.

My tattoo guy’s name was Ryan. We’d never met before, and he spent two hours creating a very elegant weeping willow branch and small blossoms on my right forearm at the Dogwood Ink Tattoo shop. His work is really impressive, and he was very patient and observant when the pain was starting to get to me. It healed really nicely. The picture on the right was about 48 hours after. I’m not sure what the overall design will be, but for now, I’m just enjoying it.

I also had a chance to tour the Blandwood Museum in Greensboro and made a stop at a great store called Cattywampus General Store outside of the city. I also discovered Chicken Salad Chick. Do you know it? If you don’t, you should. With most of their locations in the southeast, it wasn’t a restaurant that I was familiar with, but once I had some of their Cranberry Kelli chicken salad, I was hooked. When I can find it, I buy a tub, and eat chicken salad for lunch and – sometimes – dinner. If you like chicken salad, I highly recommend.

The size of the pocket doors in the Blandwood mansion were incredible. I am grateful for the preservation of these historic homes – even if the history of the families that lived in them can be questionable. It’s the glimpse into the untold stories of the past that pique my interest.