T-Trak Cumberland Station TTrak and Other Adventures

[wm3798]

My property includes two very buildable lots.  We could have a round Robin club and never have to get in the car!
Lee

[davefoxx]

My property includes two very buildable lots.  We could have a round Robin club and never have to get in the car!
Lee

Sold!

DFF

[wm3798]

So do you want to be close to home? (About 3 hrs) or close to the Tweetsie?  We're working on a property near Banner Elk, too!

Monty Hall

[mu26aeh]

Please whatever you do, do plan on how you get supplies to your home.  I hate nothing more than a customer " in the sticks" or " off the grid" that expect me to get a 32,000 lb commercial vehicle down an ATv trail with overhanging trees.  Then call and complain bc I left their delivery at the mailbox 📬 at the main road.

[wm3798]

We already had a 10 wheeler of stone and a concrete truck up there for the patio and footers we just had done.   Oh, and the house was a modular, and it's on a Superior Walls foundation.  There's been 40' trailers and 100 ton cranes up my driveway!







Lee

[davefoxx]

So do you want to be close to home? (About 3 hrs) or close to the Tweetsie?  We're working on a property near Banner Elk, too!

Monty Hall

Banner Elk, please!

DFF

[packers#1]

I’m quite partial to Asheville, what with the easy access to the  Appalachian trail, Great Smoky Mountain NP, and the DuPont State Forest, plus craft beer and disc golf scenes, but Banner Elk and Boone is the area that made me fall in love with the Blue Ridge mountains as a kid. Grandfather Mountain and of course the Tweetsie are great there. I actually got to go for a cab ride the last time I was there, which was when I was 13. My how time flies.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I’m quite partial to Asheville, what with the easy access to the  Appalachian trail, Great Smoky Mountain NP, and the DuPont State Forest, plus craft beer and disc golf scenes, but Banner Elk and Boone is the area that made me fall in love with the Blue Ridge mountains as a kid. Grandfather Mountain and of course the Tweetsie are great there. I actually got to go for a cab ride the last time I was there, which was when I was 13. My how time flies.

Man, Asheville really is the ****. What a great town.

[packers#1]

Man, Asheville really is the ****. What a great town.

It’s only about an hour and a half from where I bought a house down here too. Went up for both my fiancé’s and my birthday last year. Greenville is slowly (although locals will tell you it’s quickly) becoming the same sort of vibe with the same stuff. Although we’ve got more shortlines and cool railroad stuff in my opinion 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Also, Lee, get this going!
I'm tired of giving strangers money on AirBnb when we want to get away.

[davefoxx]

I’m quite partial to Asheville, what with the easy access to the  Appalachian trail, Great Smoky Mountain NP, and the DuPont State Forest, plus craft beer and disc golf scenes, but Banner Elk and Boone is the area that made me fall in love with the Blue Ridge mountains as a kid. Grandfather Mountain and of course the Tweetsie are great there. I actually got to go for a cab ride the last time I was there, which was when I was 13. My how time flies.

I love Asheville, where I got a tour of the NS roundhouse and a walkthrough of a Southern radio-control car in 1994!  That was after a day of railfanning at Saluda.  Good times.

But, my love of the Appalachian Mountains came from the Boone area, too, which was only 90 minutes or so from my then-home near Winston-Salem.  Tweetsie RR.  Grandfather Mountain.  I’d love to get back to the Mast General Store in Valle Crucis.  They had everything there.

I also enjoyed the easy access to and hiking around Pilot Mountain (or Mount Pilot per The Andy Griffith Show) which was really close to home.  There was this outcropping where you could just hang your feet off the edge, way above the trees below.  The view to the north towards Sauratown Mountain was beautiful.

Lee, as Ed said, make this happen.

DFF

[wm3798]

@davefoxx ... check your email...

To the rest of you, I can start taking advance reservations so I can pay the drywall man for the next big push.

Lee

[jmarley76]

It's definitely changed a lot in Western North Carolina. As a local, I've watched it change over the years. But the past couple of years with the pandemic have really sent it in the wrong direction. Asheville is still cool for a week day visit, but is just crowded on weekends in Beer City. The National park has become so crowded they are exploring charging fees to access waterfalls. I'm hoping none of it sticks, that it's just a phase.

[wm3798]

It's definitely something I struggle with, too.  One of the things I like about my hovel in West Virginia, is that it's... well... in West Virginia... the land that time forgot and that the decades cannot improve, to paraphrase Garrison Keillor...

With 8 billion people in the world, and with most of them having GPS, too many of them are finding their way to the cool little getaways that used to be pleasantly isolated and self sufficient.  With Air BnB and so forth, people have the opportunity to discover, then overrun, then ruin just about any backwater place you can imagine.

But if you can't beat 'em, make a buck off of them.  The cabin should be available sometime later in the spring... I hope!
Lee

[packers#1]

At a time in my life I met my now fiancé, then girlfriend, a couple times in West Virginia when she was co-oping in Cleveland and I was in Clemson; it is the most abandoned state capital I’ve ever been in. There’s a million cars and then just a few people on the street. One time there was a festival at the River and there was zero traffic or pedestrians on the streets to where you could hear the festival echo up the street from a dozen blocks away. The state park was busier than downtown!