We’ve Traveled Through It Together

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Day 12 – July 9 – Lewisburg, WV to Lenoir, NC (257 miles)

Before leaving Lewisburg, we made a point to drive through the historic downtown area to see if it lived up to its name as the “Cutest Town in America”. It was cute, but certainly not the cutest. Onward we went out of town driving on narrow two-lane roads that sometimes turned to one lane. For miles and miles, we snaked through farmland in the valley between lush green mountains as beautiful wildflowers edged the road. Along the way, we passed through the small town of Union, established in 1774. Nearby we stopped to see a small covered bridge over Indian Creek. Out in the middle of it all, we passed acres and acres of blue fields of chicory that almost didn’t look real. Later, we passed through the small town of Narrows, established in 1778.



Our big stop for the day was at Mountain Lake Lodge in Virginia. If you haven’t heard of it before, it’s where the majority of “Dirty Dancing” was filmed (the other parts were filmed at Lake Lure, NC). Claire had gone to the “30th Anniversary of Dirty Dancing Weekend” a couple of years ago, so she played tour guide pointing out all the important spots in the film. After our tour, it was lunchtime, so we ate a small lunch at the Lodge restaurant and sat on the patio where some of the filming took place. We were in the clouds . . . no, not because we are big “Dirty Dancing” fans, but we were literally in the clouds. They had settled on top of us while we ate, and at one point, we couldn’t even see out the windows of the patio. It was a breezy, cool 65 degrees sitting in the clouds on top of the mountain.

Next stop would be Lenoir. Yes, this was the last day of our trip. We were a little sad, but we also missed many people and pets back home. With miles of curvy road between us and the interstate, we had time to just act like sisters (picking on each other, laughing about our youth, etc). Then, suddenly out in the middle of nowhere, Susan spotted the sign “North Myrtle Beach” with an arrow pointing ahead!! What??? We’re in the middle of Virginia. Yes, North Myrtle Beach might be that direction, but why here???

With back roads, sparsely populated land, and the occasional small town for a good while, we began to discuss how over the past few years, we have really seen our country. When we tell someone, we’ve traveled through a state, we really mean we’ve traveled through it. We haven’t just hit the big cities that everyone has heard about or just gone to the popular things. Matter of fact, we often didn’t do any of those unless it happened to be the capital or was something like Niagara Falls that we just had to see while there. In our travels, we’ve truly seen our beautiful country (everything from interstates way down to the one lane roads, deserts, dirt highways, ridgetop cliffhangers roads, volcanos, beaches, and at least a thousand miles of cornfields). And, through it all, we’ve noticed that no matter where we go, we meet some of the nicest people; they’re genuinely good people who restore our confidence in mankind and clear away all the bad that media so likes to promote. If you are friendly to people, you’ll find friendly people everywhere you go. We’re so glad that we decided several years ago to do the 50 states together as sisters. Our lives have changed for the best and we are truly blessed. Only 7 more states to go (Alaska, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin). Which will we do next? Stayed tuned for our next adventure sometime next year! See you then . . .

P. S. - This trip was a total of 2,797 miles. And, wouldn’t you know it? As we were leaving the car rental place after dropping Abby (our van) there, we saw Scarlett (from our Florida trip)!!! We checked her plate to make sure. Yes, it was her!! We waved and talked to her as someone drove her out for a rental. It wasn’t as difficult to leave Abby knowing she had Scarlett as a friend at the rental place. When the two of them get back together, they’re going to have plenty to talk about!!!

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Photos

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single lane tunnel we had to go through

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covered bridge

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Mountain Lake lodge - where dirty dancing was filmed

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Baby's cabin

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The sisters

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the dinning room and the one from the movie

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where Johnny drove his car as he was leaving

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The dock - yes, the lake is starting to come back.

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the signs around the lake showing where things were filmed. You can see the cinder-block where he stood to hold her.

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The gazebo conga line.

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short conga line.

Comments

[Barbara]

Your travels
Thank you so much for the blog. I feel like I am on vacation when I read it. Welcome home!