Today was a lay day for us. We decided to stay at The Outpost for an additional day. We moved from out grassy little make-do site to a regular campsite on gravel with electricity and water. And we took time to do things that needed doing. Time to shop for groceries at the local WalMart. Time to process pictures and finish up our latest website post. Time to do laundry for the first time on this trip.
Time to relax.
Ahh … clean sheets!
August 28, 2023 – The Outpost to Peaks of Otter Campground, VA
Rain. This area has been very dry and this was the day that made up for that. It rained steadily all day. We filled our fresh water supply, dumped waste water and showered before heading off.
We’d made reservations to tour “Project Greek Island” at The Greenbrier Resort today. Commonly known as “The Bunker”, this secret, cold war era Congressional “Relocation Facility” fallout shelter was completed in 1961 under a new wing of the resort. It was operated as a convention and meeting facility for the public. But those spaces and much more were actually designed to house all of the members of the House and Senate plus one staff person per legislator for at least 40 days. Upon activation, the public would be evacuated, false walls that hid the blast doors would be removed and furnishings would moved into position.
The location in this small town of White Sulphur Springs, WV, was chosen for its location near enough to Washington DC to move Congress by train, plane or car in a matter of hours. It was also far enough away to be unaffected by nuclear blasts in DC or any blast within 15 – 30 miles. When built, nuclear bombs would have been delivered by airplanes. Today they would be delivered so quickly by missile that the facility was actually useless.
The 153 room, 112,544 square foot underground facility included 18, 60-bed dormitories, desks and chairs for everyone, a dining room that sat 400 people per shift and separate Senate and House chambers that could seat the full legislatures. Walls and ceilings were 3-5 foot thick reinforced concrete and they were covered by 20 to 60 feet of dirt. Four entrances were fitted with blast doors, the largest of which weighed 25 tons and was 12 feet wide, 10 feet tall and 18 inches thick.
The facility was maintained in ready mode for 30 years until a Washington Post reporter revealed its existence in 1992. It was immediately decommissioned and is used, today for tours and by a commercial data security firm for data and document storage.
The tour was excellent but participants were not allowed to carry phones or cameras. Therefore, the only photos I have are of the postcards given to tour participants.
Oh, yeah, you walk through the main building of the Greenbrier to take the tour. It is huge and the décor is amazing. There is most any activity available you might hope for in a luxury resort including high end shopping and 18 dining venues by my count. We’d have walked the grounds and gardens but it was still raining. Sad.
The late day question is getting to be, “Where will we stay tonight?” This night we decided to continue to drift southward and camp along the Blue Ridge Parkway at Peaks of Otter Campground. As usual during midweek, it was nearly deserted and we had our pick of campsites. There were a few other campers nearby but the rain kept us all inside.
August 29, 2023 – Peaks of Otter to Jordan Lake SRA, NC
We woke to a foggy, damp morning and decided to get underway early. Figuring on breakfast on the road, we stopped at the Otter Creek Lodge. Their $18 breakfast buffet had little Sandy could eat so we headed south on the Parkway. It was still pretty foggy so, while the driving was mostly clear, the usually lovely overlooks yielded only fog filled valleys.
A stop in Roanoke yielded a better breakfast alternative at a Chick-fil-A.
We’re facing several rainy days and an upcoming holiday weekend so we reserved a campsite for the next three days at Jordan Lake State Recreation Area just south of Durham, NC, and west of Raleigh. We’re hoping to hook up with a couple of relatives who live in the area who we rarely get to see.
Jordan Lake is quite large with lots of campgrounds on the east side. We ended up in a waterside campsite in Crosswinds Campground. The woman who checked us in was from Lancaster County! We unloaded the bikes and toured a couple of the campground loops. They are nice with widely spaced, level sites and large clean bathrooms with showers. This will do nicely for a few days.
What we’ll do for the holiday weekend is still up in the air. We had tentatively planned to visit friends who live on the water just east of New Bern, NC. However, they are busy preparing for hurricane Idalia so a visit with them is off the table. We’ll have to watch the path of
the storm and make alternate plans.
August 30, 2023 – Jordan Lake SRA & Raleigh, NC
We’re camped southwest of Raleigh and plan to meet relatives northeast of the city in the early evening. So, wanting to see a few of the area sights, we followed a generally north and east track through the area.
First on our list was North Carolina State Farmers Public Market. This is a true farmers market with fruits and vegetables galore for sale. All of the produce vendors are located in a single large pavilion. Meat and other products are located in a variety of other buildings. We purchased a few vegetables and some pork barbeque to add to our pantry.
Sandy always loves to tour universities, especially ones with a basketball heritage. Therefore, the NC State Campus rated high on her list and we drove around the campus. We’d have done some walking but the public parking was nearly all in garages with headroom limits in the eight foot range, not suitable for our ten foot six camper. The highlight was when Sandy took a picture of a bronze statue of one of her favorite basketball heroes, Jimmy Valvano.
Then we were off to see historic Yates Mill. First constructed in 1756 and now restored and owned by NC State University, it is the last remaining operable grist mill in the state’s capital county. The mill and its pond are very picturesque. Although it is sometimes open for tours and corn milling demonstrations, tours were not offered when we were there. We walked some of the surrounding park trails but increasing rain showers convinced us to leave.
Sandy never misses an opportunity to stop at a Trader Joes and there was one along our way. And, also not to be missed was a Wegmans almost next door. We supplemented the stuff we’d purchased at the Farmers Market so our pantry is now overflowing.
Sandy’s great nephew, Derek along with his wife, Kristin and their children Eoin & Colleen live in the area and we’d arranged to for drinks at the Compass Rose Brewery while Colleen was at soccer practice in the light rain that was falling. We had a great time catching up and touring our camper and ended up ordering dinner, arepas for most of us. Derek picked up Colleen after practice to join us.
It was a fun evening followed by a rainy, 40 minute drive and backing into our campsite in the rainy dark. Home safe!
All that night we had continuous rain that radiated out from Hurricane Idalia. It wasn’t a problem, just noisy.
August 31, 2023 – Jordan Lake SRA, NC
We decided to exercise ourselves and our ebikes today so we headed off for a nearby rail trail named the American Tobacco Trail. The trail is a 22 mile long and the southern access point was only a few miles from our campground. Wea unloaded the bikes and set off. It was a pretty trail with a nice crushed limestone base. However, several miles in it connected with the White Oak Creek Greenway. The trail is part of a huge network of trails in the area and we decided to take a look.
Wow! It was beautiful and wonderful to ride. The gently curving, mostly level route lead mostly through wooded areas but sometimes around the edges of tony developments. Open sections were paved with concrete, mostly, and wooded sections were mostly wide, smooth boardwalk. The whole trail seemed, at most, a couple of years old and the newest sections of boardwalk weren’t even wood; they were Trex!
Afterwards we stopped at MacDonald’s for their internet. (But I just couldn’t resist a milkshake while I worked!) Our mission was to find places to stay over the Holiday weekend. Indeed, we did find a Harvest Host location, Rocky Mount Mills, which operates as a sort of incubator for microbreweries. It also has several restaurants.
