All the Battlefields

Okay, I have two days of blogs to catch you up with.  Again, the wi-fi is very weak here tonight at a different campground, and I'm even right next to the campground office where the signal is stronger, but still pretty slow.  I'm also sitting on the front porch in the pitch black during a light rain.  The things I do for you guys.  :-)  Alright, let's get started.

Yesterday, we had a THRILLING day full of battlefields.  Those that know me or have followed the blog long enough know that battlefields and forts are my least favorite National Park sites.  The reason I don't like them is because I can never keep track of who the good guys/bad guys are when they talk about the specific people leading different things.  Plus, we end up staring at a field where I'm supposed to visualize the events that unfolded there.  No...it's a field...that's all I see.  But I digress...

We started at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park (sorry T.R., there was no postcard there). Guilford Courthouse has a driving tour which takes you through different parts of the 1780 (give or take a year) battle.  The driving tour ends with an impressive statue of General Greene.

General Greene Statue

The next battlefield was King's Mountain National Military Park.  Most battlefields have a driving tour, but this one had a 1.5 mile loop trail through different parts of the battle.  It's a pretty hilly hike because you are going up and down parts of the mountain.  Now, I still had the same feelings I have towards battlefields with this one, however, it was a really pretty hike through the woods.

Memorial at King's Mountain

The last battlefield of the day was Cowpens National Battlefield.  This one had a 1 mile loop trail which was a pretty hike through a field.  If you want to know more about any of these battles, ask Steve.  He knows what's going on in them a lot more than I do.

See...it's a field.  I promise this is at Cowpens, but how would you really know??  ;-)

We were hoping to get to Carl Sandburg National Historic Site in time to get a tour, but we missed the last tour of the day by a few minutes.  However, we had an hour to explore the grounds and go see the goat barn, and the baby goats!  We spent the entire hour there - they had to kick us out.

Carl Sandburg's home - it really is a shame he had such a terrible view.

All of us in front of the lake at the house.

These two were playing.  Darla is the mom of the two babies that were born on April 10 (Dancer & Dreamer).

:-p

These two were born in March - I didn't catch their names but they were so playful!

One of the babies born April 10 - he was sooooo sleepy and rested in Jamie's hand.  ALL THE HEART EYES!!!

After Carl Sandburg, we ditched the RV at the campground and headed into Asheville for beers in small glasses.  We hit up Asheville Brewing Company and Hi-Wire Brewing.  Hi-Wire's dishwasher was broken, so we only had a beer each.  What we all had we liked.  Ashville's beers were okay, but they had a decent-sized beer list.  Hi-Wire was fun because they had a couple pinball machines - one of which was the one my parents still have that I grew up playing (Captain Fantastic)!

Asheville Brewing Company

Hi-Wire Brewing Company

This brings me to day two.  We started the day by going back to Carl Sandburg NHS to get the house tour.  This was an interesting tour because I didn't really know much about Mr. Sandburg before going to the park.  He wrote a 6-volume book about Abraham Lincoln and won a Pulitzer Prize for the last 4 volumes.  Before the tour, we visited the baby goats again and Jamie and I tried to figure out how we could go home with one.

Every room except for the kitchen and bathrooms had bookcases in it.  They had 17,000 books in their house!

Mrs. Sandburg ran the dairy farm - her filing system made me laugh.

Mrs. Sandburg's room was the prettiest.

We were able to get to Smoky Bear Campground early which was nice.  We ditched the RV and then headed over to Manhattan Project National Historic Park.  This is where all the work was done to build the atomic bombs we dropped in WWII.  I had no idea that the entire town of Oak Ridge was forced to pick up and move so the government could create its own community of people who worked on this project and live in secret without any of the information leaking to anyone.  It was pretty fascinating.

Trying out the Van de Graff machine

Jamie trying out the Van de Graff machine

Flat top house - once they kicked everyone out of Oak Ridge, they rebuilt the community with these houses for the Manhattan Project workers.

When we stepped inside the house it felt like we walked into a post-apocalyptic shelter.  It was really weird!

Bedroom in the house

We ended the day at the RV cooking dinner (thanks Steve!) and then we figured out what's on tomorrow's agenda since we are in the Smokies now!  Here's hoping the rain that's projected for the next two days doesn't actually happen!

Edited to add:  the campground owner just gave me a better wi-fi password and things are running great!  I can add pictures to this blog now - I wasn't planning on it at first!!  Thank you so much Smoky Bear Campground!!