Family, Hikes and Disc Golf in NC!

Yes, we are still in the Raleigh North Carolina area and staying at the NC State Fairground Campground. Our weekdays are still filled with morning walks around the NC State campus,afternoon disc golf and happy hours while our weekends are filled with family time at our daughter’s house. And,of course we are enjoying a lot of quality time with our newest 17 month old grandbaby Allie!

Raleigh NC has loads of wonderful disc golf courses so we have been playing nearly everyday at one park or another. A nice feature of the parks in the fall is the abundance of mushrooms we often stop to admire. We love to play at the Apex Nature Park disc course as it is one of our favorites but we also spend a lot of time at the Kentwood disc golf course because it is so close to the fairgrounds. Better yet it is also close to the Flying Saucer downtown.

The Flying Saucer is one of our favorite happy hour spots because it offers so many different craft beers on tap and has generous drink specials. Another favorite is the Backyard Bistro for its Wednesday NC draft beer specials. Yet another favorite is a neat little mom-and-pop gift shop which also serves craft beer called the Green Monkey. It is our go to spot on Tuesdays.

We have also discovered a drink special that surprised us. It is at the Lowes Food Stores, a grocery store, which offers half priced drafts on Thursday half priced flights on Fridays and half priced growlers on Saturdays.  Because the stores change out their beers often we have had the opportunity to try many new North Carolina craft beers.On many of the Thursday visits we have met brewery representatives who answer questions about their beers while also offering stickers, coozies or glasses to the patrons..

We have been playing so much disc golf that I even got a callous on my finger from flinging discs. Sharon’s game has improved greatly, to the point that she now makes par often and is making some nice long putts. Because our son in law is an NC State Alumni we have also really enjoyed exploring the campus and football stadium.

But then the weekends come and it’s Allie time. We are both savoring the time we  spend with Allie,her mom and dad. Our daughter has Wednesday off so often she is able to join us for a walk or some disc golf before leaving to pick up Allie from her day care (which she loves).

We actually left Allie one night with a trusted babysitter from her daycare for a Durham Bulls game (minor league baseball). What a nice night out on the town in Durham NC. There’s nothing like an evening of baseball, family, hotdogs, nachos and peanuts to feel totally American. We are down to our last week here at the fairgrounds and have started planning for our departure. But, hey, we still have the long labor day weekend to enjoy with family before departing…

Still enjoying our stay near Raleigh NC…

We are still in Raleigh North Carolina but have moved over to the NC State Fairgrounds Campground. We did so because the state parks have a 14 day maximum stay which we exhausted. The fairgrounds also has a 14 day limit but on occasion will extend stays on a case by case basis. Our hope is to stay through labor day as it is always difficult finding places to stay during that holiday weekend.

Our weeks have zoomed by and we have settled into a nice routine of playing disc golf during the week and visiting our daughter on the weekends. There are lots of really nice disc golf courses in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area and we have been taking full advantage.

Disc golf is a great substitute for hiking in the east where there are fewer trails. Although there are Greenways set aside for walking/hiking they are mostly in urban areas and more like walks than hike. We have visited the William B. Umstead State Park for a real hike but we have also done that hike many times in past visits.. Therefore disc golf  has become our diversion for some pleasant walks in the woods.

Weekends are filled with family time where we spend some quality time with our newest grandchild, Allie. We also use this time to make some fabulous meals. Katie always has her list of requests for traditional family meal favorites and Brooks takes full advantage of using his smoker to make some smoky delights.

Brooks had never made a full sized cryovac brisket before and wanted my advice for doing one. We drove over to Sam’s Club and picked out a good one to grill. I like to pick one that I can fold in half rather easily. If there is a lot of resistance when bending the brisket in half I have found they are a bit tougher and fattier than the ones that bend easily.

We put a good rub on the brisket and placed it on the smoker at midnight. Seventeen hours later it came off the pit for an hours rest before I sliced it up. It was indeed a fine, perfectly tender brisket with a very definite smoke ring. I made a point of bringing Brooks some of my mesquite to use in his smoker as it imparts the best smoke flavor on brisket in my very humble opinion.

Life has been very  good here in NC but we are looking ahead and starting to plot out our winter plans…

Getting to see Allie and family once again…

The time had come to go see the grandbaby so we packed up our stuff for the weekend to stay at our daughter’s house near Raleigh NC. While we are able to see Allie nearly everyday via video calls it just isn’t the same as seeing her live and getting to cuddle with her.

Allie is growing up fast and at 16 months old she seems to change a little bit everyday. She’s starting to explore her voice and learning some monosyllabic words such as “bye”. She also seems to have “momma” and “dad” down fairly well. Allie by most standards is slower at developing her language and walking skills than her peers. However it seems to me she is more interested in perfecting her skills before letting the world see her do them.

Our daughter discovered one reason her walking skills had not developed as quickly as she had hoped after taking her to a doctor’s office. The doctor said she had a slight foot deformity but it was correctable with a foot brace. Once Allie began wearing her braces she was pulling up a great deal more and now loves to walk if you hold her hands. She also loves her walking toy which she pushes all over the place.

Just in the short time we have been in the Raleigh area she has picked up a few new words and is obviously getting more confident in the walking gig. She should be taking her first few solo steps soon and then as we told our daughter…”Look out!”

The rest of our stay here will be short visits with our daughter and her family mixed with short stays at the RV. We are currently at Crosswinds Campground on Jorden Lake but soon move over to the NC State Fairgrounds nearer to downtown Raleigh. Each one of these parks has a 14 night max stay which requires us to be on the move every couple of weeks. It has been great but we really need to start discussing and planning where we will winter this year.  The last two years were on the beach so we are leaning more toward Arizona this year.  Parks fill up fast so we need to figure it out soon!

Poplar Point State Park NC

Our time was up in Charlotte NC but we will probably return soon as there is much to do and explore. Our next stop will be at Jordan Lake Poplar Point Campground for a few weeks. Thankfully it was another wonderfully uneventful drive so we actually pulled into the park a bit early.

Arriving early was our hope in order to avoid the rainstorms predicted. Little did we know this was another of those parks requiring a strict check-in time so we were directed to the parking lot at the beach where we had to sit in our rig for an hour and a half before finally passing muster. It was rather annoying as we drove over to see our site and it was empty but we did as we were told. We set up quickly as of course the rains arrived at that moment!

We will be in the Raleigh NC area for a good while since we plan to spend some time with our daughter and her family which of course includes our newest granddaughter, Allie! Our plans are to have fun at the lake during the week and spend the weekend with them since both parents work. Brooks actually works from home so spending weekends together seemed to be the best plan.

Poplar Point Campground State Park was a COE park when we first stayed here but it has since been turned over to the state to manage. We have the same large site but now sites cost a great deal more than before and aren’t (in our opinion) as well kept.

There are tons of great disc golf courses nearby and our first challenge was to revisit one of our favorites near Pittsboro NC. Rock Ridge Park Disc Golf Course plays really long and is as the name says quite rocky! It is also wooded so if you don’t like hitting a few trees then this isn’t the course for you.

We enjoyed playing the course once again. Well, except for the one time I threw a disc off track and encountered a resident of the woods, an eastern rat snake. This fellow had just recently fed upon either a large rodent or a small squirrel and didn’t want to move from the trail. So, I said, no problem and went a different route,

With a weekend coming up we are looking forward to seeing family once again…