Asheville, North Carolina

Today we were headed to Campfire Lodge RV Resort north of Asheville, NC.  It was only a couple of hours away from our current location which is Sevierville, TN.  The check in time at Campfire Lodge was 2:30 while the check out time at Sevierville was 11:00 so we had a little time to kill.  We decided to take a detour south of Asheville and stop at Camping World.  We want to buy a small LP outdoor fireplace.  It sounds kind of corny and it won't take the place of a real wood fire but with the firewood restrictions we face due to the ash bore beetle and fire restrictions due to dry conditions it is getting harder and harder to have a real camp fire.  We have noticed more and more people with these little LP fireplaces due to these same problems with a real wood fire.  We stopped at one in the Sevierville campground and actually found the LP fire to be very nice.  From a cost standpoint you could probably burn LP a lot cheaper than firewood if you have to buy your firewood.  Many campgrounds use the ash bore beetle problem to say they don't allow you to bring in your own fire wood.  Then they want you to buy six pc bundle from them for $5-8 dollars per bundle.   We have been to parks that you could spend $50 for a four hour campfire if you bought the wood they were selling at the campground.  I'm too cheap to pay this kind of money for fire wood.  I have a load in the back of  car and so far have been able to burn it but it's getting harder and harder.

Anyway we didn't buy the fireplace but did buy some other things and did kill the necessary time to allow us to pull in to Campfire Lodge Resort at 2:35 pm.  Campfire Lodge is just north of Asheville,  NC.  The unique thing about this park is that it is situated on top of a very high mountain.  There are about 20 rv spaces and a couple of yurts and cabins in this park.  Getting to the park was a little precarious since the road up the side of the mountain was gravel and included several very sharp curves getting to the top.  Once we got to the campground we both felt the drive was worth it even though I pinched a hole out of the drivers seat cushion.  The guy at the rv park was using a leaf blower so he was nice enough to blow a half inch of dust off of the back of the motorhome, bikes and car.  We are here for six days and will be checking out some of the trails around the park as well as the town of Asheville.  We have already done the Biltmore Estate so we won't be doing that again but I do remember that place as being amazing.

We are the only unit at the one half of the campground.  I got into this site ok but may have to back out of here unless I can figure out how to get her turned around.  There are only sites on one side of the road due to it being fairly narrow on top of the mountain.  We also need to be careful with the dogs and leaving any food or trash around because they have had to chase 12 black bears out of the campground during the last two weeks.  The person at the park said the bears are getting ready to hibernate so they are trying to eat as much as they can at this time of the year.  On the way to Asheville I saw where someone hit a black bear and it was still laying on the side of the road.

Here are some pictures.  Hope you like them.

 

 

 

 The trees are still very pretty here.

 

Starting the trek up the mountain to the rv park on the gravel road.

 

 

 

I just hoped we didn't meet anyone coming down while we were going up.

 

The view is worth it once you get to the top.

 

 

I went down the gravel road to the end of the camp sites and then backed into the next to the last site in the park.  Not sure how I am getting out of here yet.  I told Huli we may have to back up the hill to the camp office which is about a half mile up the road.