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…

Rudds Creek Campground and a hike in Rochichi Wildlife Management Area VA…

After spending only a single night in Appomattox we headed on down the road on a southernly route for a short drive to a Corps of Engineers Park in Boydton, VA. Rudds Creek Campground is yet another great COE park located on the John H Kerr Reservoir. We had a back in site which was spacious and secluded.

We also were happy to see we had a nice view of the lake through our front windshield which was great as the plan was to spend a few nights here to unwind. We set up camp and walked around the park. This park was fairly packed mostly with locals since it is bit off the beaten path. There weren’t many tags that weren’t from either Virginia or North Carolina which is only a few miles south of the lake.

Each morning after breakfast and a little time to digest we would venture out for a 1.5 to 2 mile hike around the park. What is great about COE parks is that they are usually huge with ample places for a nice walk even if it is just inside the campground. The dense Pine and Harwood Forest  has kept us shaded evenl during the heat of the day.

Nearby we drove over to the Rochichi Wildlife Management Area one afternoon to hike the trails in it. The trails here were not maintained at all and were mostly along an old logging road that had patches of coarse gravel here and there making the walking not as fun as we hoped.

What was interesting though was the abundance and diversity of fungi growing in the understory of the woods. We really had fun looking at and photographing the various mushrooms and fungi. After photographing them I spent some time on the web to identify as many as I could and was able to place a name or two on some of them. Note the watermarks in the photos for what species I think they probably are.

Afterward we drove over to the Buggs Island Brewing Company to check it out. Since it had a nice area out front to sit outside we stopped and and ordered a few craft beers to enjoy. Maybe not the best craft beer we have had but it was nice just to be at a brewery during this pandemic and the staff was especially welcoming..

NOTE: We are currently in Raleigh, NC probably until the end of September…