Month: October 2022

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October 17 – 26, 2022 Sun, Sharks, and Spooks? at Myrtle Beach Ocean Lakes Family Campground

It was time to just settle a bit. We’ve been “adventuring” for nearly three years, and have traveled a lot these past few months. After reflecting on our life and that this is the year of our our 50th Anniversary we decided that we should take some time to just rest and “recover” for a spell. We made reservations at Myrtle Beach – a favorite of ours from days gone by. But for the first time we were staying at a beach side RV Resort – who knew what we were going to encounter?!?

We left Lake Hartwell, SC following the Juice Plus conference in Atlanta and began our trek to Myrtle beach. Lorree had a zoom conference call the day before – always ready to connect with her Juice Plus people! We took advantage of Buc-ee’s along the route (of course we bought those delicious brisket sandwiches! Yummm!

We were ready for some down time – sunshine and sea shore camping, here we come!

On the road looking ahead – it appears to be the “highway to heaven”!

The SUN! We can still feel the warmth and relaxing nature of sand, sea, and sun! The dunes had previously been wiped out by hurricane Ian a few months ago – but they had already rebuilt them and were now waiting for new dune grass growth to occur. Oh the white sand!

The SHARKS! What?? As Dennis was relaxing on the beach watching the kiddo’s and other waders playing in the waves, a guy right next to him caught a 54 inch shark – from the same area where those kiddos were swimming! Yikes! The crazy part is that if it had been less than 54 inches he was required to return it to the ocean!?! Some regulations are crazy!

The SPOOKS! Who knew that it was so close to Halloween that the park was entertaining a Halloween decoration, costume, and parade event this weekend?! Everyone (but us) had come prepared for the event – we just stared and took pictures!! Some scary stuff!!!

The campground resort was great, although a bit tight in parking sites. We did OK and enjoyed our spot. The large swimming pool, slides, lagoon, and lazy river were beautiful – just too cold and/or closed during the time we were there. We were thankful for the days of sunshine and beautiful beach – they never close!

Wow! They had over 850 RV sites plus 300 rental cabins, lodges, and multi-family housing units. And as I shared before it was a bit tight! We took a picture out of our back window – wondering if we were going to be hit! We had to roll up our awning to give them a few more inches! They did well and no-one had any damage. With all paved roads, this was definitely a golf-cart type resort… we purposely chose to walk!

YIKES! …and then the SPOOKS came out! The resort advertised a Halloween dress up & parade for each weekend in October (we didn’t know…?!) That’s one reason the campground was so full – camping people book this place a year in advance for this event!

It was a lot of fun. It was great to see people interacting again after the National COVID Lockdown. There were so many smiling faces, laughing kids, friendly strangers, and very creative golf carts decked out for the 2 hour parade! We even got a treat out of the deal!

The highlights for us….

We can still hear the waves and the birds and feel the fresh warm breezes – so nice!

Ahhh – the beach! Not crowded, full of fresh air, colors, warmth, and relaxing moments!

And then a great date! …remembering the songs and bands from 50 years ago!

Great times and great memories! We’re so thankful and full of love for each other! …and we love our adventures – still making those memories!

Before we leave the East Coast, we’re headed a bit south to meet up with some Juice Plus friends and partners. We’re enjoying living such a healthy life, full of energy, and to be able to share a thriving business together with some great friends!

We stayed at Skidaway Island State Park just outside of Savanna, GA. It was another great place to park, rest, and enjoy the scenery.

We even had fresh lemons just outside our door!

In nearby Savannah, we really enjoyed a lunch with Kim and Sharon at the Green Truck Pub. Sharon won an award with the JP Company and we were delighted to deliver it to her! We also met up with Lucy at the Oak 36 Kitchen for a delicious evening meal and some catch up time.

We are so thankful our travel lifestyle that keeps us connected to so many friends and family along the way!

Time to pack it up and move on down the highway. We are ready to get back to work at our next SOWER’s project in Alabama. We know there’s amazing adventures ahead! Meeting new friends, helping at a youth & family camp, seeing Tate, Kimberly, and the girls, and a race track adventure! Check it out next!

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October 8 – 16, 2022 Cousins in NC, the Biltmore House, and the Juice Plus Conference in GA. We love our relationships and connections!

We were so close we had to stop in to visit our cousins, Craig & Larry Leonard in Concord, NC and their families. We were able to park our rig and stay at Craig & Jeanie’s new house. Then our first day together we enjoyed a tour of The Kings Greenhouse! They were already getting poinsettias growing for the coming Christmas season.

And surprise, the nearby family was invited over – so much fun to see and hug everyone! We enjoyed a great time of re-connecting with the family and sharing a delicious home cooked bar-be-que with all the fix’ns! It’s always too long between visits but wonderful to catch up with each other again! This was another highlight of our 50th year anniversary trip!

Thanks Craig & Jeanie, Larry & Jean and family for a great time!

We traveled on to Ashville after our stay in Concord. After learning and hearing some fascinating things about The Biltmore House…we added a tour day to our itinerary!

Here we are at the famous Biltmore Estate, wow – impressive! The Biltmore House is a mansion that 26 year old George Washington Vanderbilt II built between 1889 and 1895 for his wife! The structure is approximately 179,000 sq. ft. (over 4 acres of floor space!) It is the largest privately owned house in the US. George called this his “little mountain escape”.

Some amazing facts: in order to provide building materials, George first had to create onsite factories including a mill, a woodworking factory and a brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day. It is estimated that over 11 million bricks were used to build the house! A three-mile railroad spur was constructed to bring special Indiana Limestone to the project. They hand carved the limestone and covered the bricks with a 6 inch thick facing !

The six year construction on the main house required the labor of about 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. Biltmore has 250 rooms in the house, including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as an electric Otis elevator, pipe organ, libraries, and an indoor swimming pool! The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

We traveled by car for miles on the interior roads going from the entrance to the Village, to the House, Gardens, and more. The original property was 125,000 acres, today it is approximately 8,000 acres – whew! Lot’s of trails, paths, and roads to explore!

We explored the village grounds and had fun imagining “being there”.

Our time slot for our house tour arrived. We were fascinated by the history and luxury that was built into this “house” from way back in the 1890’s. It reportedly cost $5 million (today’s equivalent of $150 million) to construct. That’s an amazing amount of money. The Vanderbilt fortune, if measured in today’s dollars, was worth over $6.2 billion – more money than the entire US treasury at the time! All from a startup shipping and railroad empire, the “American Dream”!

Our tour inside was amazing… then we went outside!

Just outside of the Biltmore House are 75 acres of gardens designed by renowned American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted (the same guy that designed Central Park in New York City!) The gardens, the art, the landscape, the beauty, and the sense of excellence that showed itself in everything that we saw. We were challenged to live and strive for excellence in the things we do as well! Those things stand the test of time!

While we were there, we were also able to experience a special limited exhibition: Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius!

We were even photo-bombed by Mona Lisa!

De Vinci was an amazing man with an amazing mind. His ability to use and apply his senses to observe, reflect, contemplate, imagine, record, reveal, and invent from what he saw in creation gave him the label “genius”. For us, his life provided new glimpses into the beauty and mysteries of God’s amazing creation!

Onward to more adventures!

At the end of the week we traveled into the big city of Atlanta, GA. We met up with many friends and partners for the October Juice Plus Live Conference. This was the first live conference since the “pandemic” shut down. It was so good to be together again!

We are SO THANKFUL that God brought this amazing business into our lives over 10 years ago. We have made so many close friendships with people that love the Lord and eagerly promote the God given nutritional benefits of fruits, veggies, and berries. It’s our mission to help people – this gives us the opportunity of helping others with their health and finances. We’ve shared with so many that we couldn’t be traveling like we do serving others in God’s Kingdom without this solution providing for OUR health and finances! We are blessed!

We had a lot of fun and learned so much from the sessions and presenters. Juice Plus continues to be the world leader in whole food nutrition in a capsule! We learned that even more research studies have been completed or are in process. Here’s a fact: Juice Plus+ is the most researched nutritional product in the world!

One of the highlights for us is attending the Prayer Breakfast that starts us out with the right mind set – to glorify God in our lives and in our business! Inspiring healthy living around the world!

Just a quick note: maybe you are considering a new career or even adding another stream of income – we highly recommend the Juice Plus Company (only $52/year and no inventory!) Or maybe your health needs a boost from whole food – fruits and veggies. We’d love to have you on our team! Text Lorree 269-753-4124 or Dennis 269-753-4125

Wow – another adventure filled week! We love our life of travel, exploring and interacting with friends and family. So many places to see and do with lots of miles in between.

We decided that for our next adventure, we are going to stay put, rest, and reflect on where we’ve been and things we’ve done and to just enjoy the past 50 years with each other.

Do I hear the waves crashing on the beach?? See our next blog!

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September 27 – October 7, 2022 Traveling the Blue Ridge Parkway, Hiking, Water Falls, and Camping.

But first…our battery has been showing signs of failure, we decided we better get a new one before we go any further. The Advance Auto Parts store we stopped at had the battery but no one to install it. They suggested we go next door and see if Meineke could help us. They were very helpful by providing pictures of how to pull & replace the battery. God was in control directing us to this specific place and specific help during lunch! Dennis was able to get’er done in less then an hour. Very do-able but not so simple like back in the 70’s!

We’re on the road going South this time – the Blue Ridge Parkway! Looking for changing colors of trees and general beauty of the North Carolina Mountains! The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and is America’s longest linear park, running for 469 miles through Virginia and North Carolina linking Shenandoah National Park to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Our first day was cool and a bit rainy but we explored many of the overlooks and vistas ahead of us. To see the giant panoramic views was amazing. It is such a peaceful and beautiful country, and fall colors were starting to emerge!

As we looked out, we could see a sprinkling of yellows, oranges, reds, and combinations of colors that were just starting to show. So majestic! We shared what a wonder it would be to behold all the land fired up in brilliant colors – we’ll keep this drive on our bucket list!

Near our campground along the Blue Ridge Parkway, we had access to “Natural Bridge” which is a National Historic Landmark. . We explored and hiked the river under the bridge.

The Natural Bridge is one of our natural wonders. In fact, it has been hailed as one of the nation’s most visited natural wonders and known as one of the seven natural wonders of the modern world. Natural bridge is 215′ high, 40′ thick, 100′ wide with a 90′ span between the walls. The “Lee Highway” US Route 11 still uses the bridge today passing overhead.

In 1750 when George Washington was 17 years old, he surveyed the site and carved his initials in the rock wall. We could see the initials highlighted by the small white rectangle on the wall above our heads. Pretty cool!

It was a fun little hike along the river, even found some waterfalls! We saw a Blue Herring “fishing” and Lorree was fascinated by the colors and sizes of the leaves on the path.

We moved on down the Parkway to our next camp spot at Stone Mountain (not to be confused with Stone Mtn in Georgia). Stone Mountain State Park is home to the 600-foot granite dome that is a designated National Natural Landmark and the historic Hutchinson Homestead.

We found the Stone Mountain Falls trail, which is pretty much a very long rustic staircase stepping down over 200′. From the top it looks like the river just disappears over the edge of the granite rock. What does the bottom look like? We had to know!

Pretty easy going down. We kept saying, ” You know we’re gonna have to climb back up all these steps, should we turn around?” Nope – let’s do this!

Pictures don’t really show off the height and steep fall of the water. Looks like it would be quite a water slide – but for 200 feet! Yikes! So glad it was just us this day. There was no room on the stairs or at the bottom for crowds of people to enjoy it.

Here it comes yikes! Steps all the way back up! We counted stairs and came up with 380 (give or take a few).

We made it up and even continued hiking another 3 miles with more elevation climbs that day. We hiked to the homestead and later to another falls. The name “Widows Creek” left us wondering if we bit off more than we should have! We’ve found that hiking is a great way to really experience the beauty of God’s creation and make lasting memories of great adventures…

…but our age is showing as we take rest stops and huff-n-puff a bit LOL! Those trails and elevation climbs did us in!

Our next campsite was right on the river with a deck! These campsites sure made traveling the Blue Ridge enjoyable. It gave us a “homebase” to unwind and plot our next adventure.

Finally…OH the colors! We’re so grateful that we get to see and experience these beautiful views – the trees and landscape are fire-ing up all around us!

One of the many iconic views that we were able to stop and hike to was the Yonahlossee Overlook. This is at the base of the Lincove Viaduct that we’ve “oo’d & ahh’d” over as we view the images of fall colors along the Blue Ridge. It was fun to actually be here!

Had we hiked up the steep rocky trail for the upper view we would have captured this iconic photo! We were happy to be able to see this location in person and add to our memories!

Another great spot! This is Price Lake found along the Blue Ridge. We passed this one day and had to go back the next day to spend some time hiking around areas of the lake and grabbing these amazing views!

Another day. we hiked to the Upper Falls along the Linville Falls Trail. It was a beautiful area – there were actually some people wading/swimming in the cold pool below the falls! Brrrrrr!

Before we left camp and traveled on to our next adventure, we decided to try a new-to-us campfire meal – Woof’ums!

Named “Woof’ums ’cause you just woof’um down! LOL!

After making the wood dowel sticks needed, we stretched refrigerator biscuits thin over the dowels and toasted over an open fire. We then stuffed these with sausage dogs which we also cooked over the fire. So fun and tasty! For desert we stuffed additional woof’ums with peaches and yogurt, these really hit the spot. We’ll be doing this again for sure!

It’s time to head down the road again. We’re looking forward to visiting with cousins in North Carolina and exploring the famous Biltmore House in Ashville on our next adventure – be sure to see our next blog!