Day 20 - Exploring the Hendersonville Area

October 21, 2019

This morning we went into Hendersonville, North Carolina, to look around. What a pleasant place to spend a few hours walking around and having lunch.

The first thing you notice is the parking. One side of the street has angle parking and the other side has parallel parking, the sides alternate. I'm sure that slows traffic down a little, but it makes for nice wide sidewalks.

Below are some pictures of the main street.

Note the fall color change in the photo below. I think one of the reasons we are seeing so many campgrounds full is because people are here to see the leaves change color.

 We had lunch at Mike's. The food was good and reasonably priced, especially for a tourist area.

Then it was back to the campground for a little rest and on to the town/village (population 110) of Chimney Rock and Chimney Rock State Park, about 8 miles north of the campground. The town/village probably totally closes down over the winter months. It is one gift shop after another, with restaurants and coffee shops thrown in for good measure.

 We drove up the WINDING one mile long road to the park entrance/ticket booth. We were to cheap to pay $34 to see Chimney Rock and so we drove back down.

Elevations: The campground is 2,200 feet above sea level. On the way to Chimney Rock we went up to 2,350 then down to 1,060 when we arrived in the town. During the one mile WINDING climb up to the ticket booth we climbed to 1,610 feet. They say the road to the ticket booth is 2 lane. We met a couple of cars going the other way as we went up and down. In every case one of the cars picked a wide spot, pulled to the edge of the road and stopped, to let the other car pass.

Once we got back down we parked and walked around the town and down along the creek bank. These boulders are monsters.

 It was a cloudy day and the tops of the mountains were in fog most of the time.

One of the reasons we went to Chimney Rock was because some of our tourist info told about all the orchards out that way. We had no idea North Carolina was such a producer of apples. North Carolina is 7^th in US apple production, with over 200 commercial apple operations comprised of 9,000 acres of apple orchards (another site claims 300 commercial operations and 14,000 acres of orchards). 70-80% of North Carolina apples come from the Blue Ridge area. There are 150 apple orchards in Henderson County. There are 28 direct farm markets selling to the public in the Hendersonville area. We stopped at one on the way back to Hendersonville, and bought some apples and a squast.

We went to Binions for supper. My steak was good and Kathy liked her chicken. Local reviews talk about it being worth the wait to get in. We got there a little after 6 and didn't have to wait for a table (mind you this was a Monday night). On the way out there must have been 20-30 people waiting for a table.

Tomorrow we plan to move to Triple Creek Campground near Newport, TN. It was our 2nd choice campground. Our 1st choice was booked full all week. We plan on staying there two nights so that we can spend a day close to the "mountains". Then it will be on to Crossville to spend a few days with family before heading back to Missouri.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.