After Virginia, and the Indian Reservation visit, we headed down to Forest Lake, a Thousand Trails Preserve in Advance, North Carolina. This was our location to stay over the Thanksgiving Day Holiday.
Because of the stop at the Indian Reservation, this was one of those rare times that we arrived to our stop after dark. And, this one was hilly, with trees everywhere. Fun. Also, there was no one at the gate or office. Just a box that had our info, car/RV tags, and a map. Oh goody.
It took about a half hour, but we finally settled on a 50 Amp site that was easy to get into, close to the buildings, and had good clear view for satellite. We thought we’d have to pay an extra $3 per day for that site, but it’s only during the summer.
This preserve is pretty cool. There’s a big lake, and camping on both sides. They have a large number of cabins, an adult lodge, and a family lodge. Also, a pool at each lodge. Everything but the adult lodge and laundry were closed for the season though, so not much else for us to do here at the preserve. We did finally see some staff, and everyone we saw were very nice and helpful.
After all the travel, the lack of any friends/family around and such, everyone was getting, well, grouchy. Just lot’s of grouchy ladies in the camper. Not good, for anyone. So, I told them to get ready, that we were going out for a surprise evening. The big surprise was bowling. It had been a long time since we’d gone, and it was just different and fun enough to get rid of the grouchies. Hard to see, but Diane won… both games!
So, for Thanksgiving, the plan was to hit up a local Cracker Barrel restaurant and then go see the movie, Lincoln, to continue with the Lincoln theme of the trip. We found a Cracker Barrel near a movie theater, and headed over around 1 pm. Well, everyone else seemed to have the same idea, and the wait was going to be around an hour. So, we headed next door to the not crowded Ruby Tuesday’s. No turkey on the menu, but we got some decent food, and had time to head over to the movie and deal with the lines there too. The movie was awesome. No, nothing major or new to the story, but the way it is told is fantastic.
Back at the preserve, Molly and I were able to use the shuffle board courts and scoot the puck around a bit, as they’d left the equipment out. Diane and Molly were also able to get in a round of mini-golf because we carried a couple putters and golf balls with us in the RV. And, there is an old tobacco barn on the property that we got to check out while there.
And, anyone that is a fan of Hunger Games, that finds themselves in North Carolina, is going to try and seek out one or more of the movie shoot locations. Diane read up on some of the old abandoned buildings that were used for some scenes, and we weren’t sure what we’d find or be able to do while there. To our surprise, we were able to park, get out, and spend plenty of time walking around and taking pictures.
On one other holiday weekend trip, we went to tour the Latta Plantation in Huntersville, NC. It was another historic site with re-enactments, and we had a good time learning the history.
Oh, and he’s not smiling on purpose, cause it used to take so long to take pictures in his day, and such.
We headed out of North Carolina on Sunday, and headed to Georgia. We’d hoped to go over and stay at a place in Myrtle Beach for a few days before heading to Florida, but, work had requested me and a few others to come in for some meetings, so we hoped over to Cumming/Alpharetta, GA.