Thousand Trails/Outdoor World Lake Gasburg NC

Name of Park; Outdoor World/Thousand Trails Lake Gaston

Date of stay;7/15-7/22/12
Staff/owner: very friendly staff.
Price;  $0.00 for TT members, $36-43. For non members
Site Description; We had one of the few pull thrus. We were on site 18. Most sites are back ins. All sites are mostly dirt with very very little gravel. Out site was very unlevel, side to side and front to back. Roads are mostly dirt, some gravel and paved in places. The park is heavily wooded. Our site was 50 amp electric with a water hook up. There are about 10 full hook sites in the park. There is a free holding tank pump out 3 times a week. Sites do have a little more extra space and some sites some privacy between them.  Sites have picnic tables and fire rings and charcoal grills.  In many of the sites the water hooks are a long distance away.

 You can see the lake to the side and front of our site.

From the beach looking back at our site.

Laundry; There is a laundry with 4 washers and dryers. It was clean and bright.
The laundry

Amenities; There is a small pool, marina with docking and gas,  boat launch,a nice mini golf, 3 small beaches on the lake, sand volleyball court, small store with a snack bar, a small adult lounge, a pavilion for crafts and shows. There is no clubhouse. A busy schedule of activities mostly Friday to Sunday.  

Phone/Wi-Fi/TV;  Our Verizon was week, TV over the air we got 2 minor stations, satellite is very hard to get because the park in heavily wooded. We could get  on line with our phone using our Wilson amp and external antenna. There is Tango wi-fi for a fee. But this is being changed very shortly.
Dog friendly;  Yes, lots of space to walk a dog.
Night;  Good but low nice night lighting.  Some late night noise on weekends. Weekdays very very quiet.
Book Exchange;  Small book exchange in the adult lounge.
Special Features; Lake Gaston, 34 miles long with 350 miles of shoreline.
Comments;  A very busy park on weekends in season. There is not much to do in the area. The park is all about water sports with the lake. The nearest town is Littleton, about 4 miles. The population is between 7-800. Not much in town. A Piggly Wiggly grocery and 2 Dollar stores. Restaurants and Wal mart about 15 miles. The last mile of road to park is a little narrow  with no shoulders. Driving through the park is ok, but use caution as some areas you have to maneuver around trees and cars/trucks on the edge of the roads.  There are a lot of golf carts in the park.  The pool is on the small size, but on weekdays very few using the pool.

Opinion; We would stay here again if in the area, only if we could spent 1 weeks or more.  We are kinda neutral on this park. It is to far out of the way for just a day or two. We found the best way into the park is off  I 95.  It is about 15 miles from the exit in Roanoke Rapids NC.

North Carolina Transportation Museum 7-2012

       We visited the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer NC. You can visit just the museum buildings or also include a short train ride with your visit. We opted to also take the short train ride. If we would visit here in the future we would skip the 30 minute train ride. The ride is just along the museums property. But the museum had some really interesting things to see. This is the only operating roundhouse still in the US. . You can take a ride around on the turntable. There were many old train engines in the stalls of the round house.  There is a building housing many old cars and trucks. See more here  www.nctrans.org

Old Salem Winston-Salem NC

While in Advance NC we drove to Winston-Salem NC to visit Old Salem. Old Salem was settled by the Moravian's from Bethlehem PA, our home town. It is a super restored village. There are many buildings you can tour. There are also a number of crafts men and women demonstrating their trades. While visiting the gun shop one of the craftsmen ask where we were from. When we told him we were from Bethlehem he told us he married a girl from Hellertown.Turns out we did work for his father in law and brother in law. Talk about a small world. We had a nice conversation about Salem and Bethlehem.  See more about Old Salem here www.oldsalem.org    Also you can see many more photo's from Old Salem at our webshot photo page, click on this link   http://community.webshots.com/user/101ontheroad?vhost=community

God's Acre, the men are buried on one side and the women on another side. No family plots.

The Home Moravian Church

The single brothers house. The brick addition was added shortly after the original was built.

 See  more photo's here   http://community.webshots.com/user/101ontheroad?vhost=community

Lexington NC 7-2012

      We had a great visit to Lexington NC in Sept of 2010. See that post for more information. This time we wanted to visit a few more places. One of them was Mrs Hanes Cookies. We had met Mrs Hanes on our visit in 2010 and had a great converstions with her and her husband. They invited us to stop at their farm anytime we are in the area. We did want to visit their cookie factory as they make Moravian cookies. The Moravian's founded our hometown of Bethlehem, and Linda was a Moravain. They then founded Salem NC, now Winston-Salem. See another post about our visit to old Salem.
    Well anyway, we did get to the factory on this visit. They make all their cookies by HAND. They were feathure on the Today show, Oprah, Roker on the Road, and many more magazines. . See www.hanescookies.com  They make about 100,000 pounds of cookies each year, thats about 10 million cookies.
     When was the last time you saw this type of customer service.
 

Here are a few pictures of the bakery. Remember they are made by hand. Rolled and cut by hand.

Ovens in the back of photo.

Tins of cookies waiting shipment.

Of course we bought some, you didn't need to ask.

      We walked around the town and came across this great mural.

Can you find Bob?

There he is again.

 We came across this Bell tower.

We found this neat store that reminded us of a store in our home town called Bergstressers. This store was in the town of Salisbury NC. This store is called Okey Dokey. Let the pictures talk for themselves.

What the heck is Scuppernong?

Linda had one just like this when she was a little girl, but hers was green.

On a country road to Mrs  Hanes cookies.

Like old homes, Chevy's keep running

"What are you looking at"? Didn't you ever see goats sun bathing. They must be city folks.

Childress Winery Lexington NC 7/2012

We visited the Childress Winery in Lexington NC. Its is one of the nicest wineries we ever visited. Richard Childress is the owner of the winery and Childress Racing. See more  at
www.childressvineyards.com

The inside with their Bistro in the background

Some of the vineyards.

 This is about 1/3 of the large fermenting tanks. They have 3-4 tours a day. Tasting is a little high, $12-$15 depending what you want to taste.

Some of the barrels. I believe the tour guide said they have over 700 barrels ageing.

Linda waiting to be served. See the threatening sky in the background. We had a tremendous downpour minutes later.

Bob said "I want this one"