Our friends from Florida, Thom and Bonnie Coste, were staying at our resort while visiting the Blue Ridge area of Virginia. Since both Thom and Paul are baseball fanatics, we took a drive south into North Carolina to visit BB&T Ballpark, home of the Winston-Salem Dash. The Dash are a minor league team in the Chicago White Sox organization. The main entrance to BB&T Ballpark is from behind center field. The back of the scoreboard serves as a welcoming billboard.
Thom and
Paul in front of the "Home Run" statue outside the main entrance. The
statue depicts 3 boys of different ages all reaching for a baseball.
Our seats were in the second row behind the first base dugout. Thom, Paul, and Bonnie are discussing the intricacies of the game.
Bolt, the team mascot, served as umpire during the ceremonial first pitch.
During the National Anthem, the video board is used extensively. Various patriotic photos are intermixed with the American Flag.
The bald eagle, a symbol of our great country, was our favorite photo.
There was a ribbon board all along the left field wall. The starting lineups were announced after the National Anthem. This is a family-friendly ball park with a nice lawn area beyond the left field wall. You can also see a private party deck in left centerfield. BB&T Ballpark has been our favorite park of the three we have visited in the southwest Virginia area.
This sign is to the right of the private party deck. On several previous trips to Winston-Salem, we have eaten at this brew pub. We thought this was a clever play on words since professional sports have drafts.
Later in the game the ribbon board was used for ads. It was Thirsty Thursday with beers either half price or a $1, depending on the type of beer you wanted.
Bolt was used extensively during the various between inning promotions. We especially enjoyed Bolt break dancing with an "acting" umpire. This was not the real umpire, but you had to look closely to recognize this fact.
Bolt and JJ, the between innings host, along with several other members of their promotions department, led the crowd in the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the 7th inning stretch.
The Dash lost the game, 2-1. Several outstanding players on the team are from the Tampa Bay area. The starting pitcher, Tyler Danish, is from Valrico and the first baseman, Keon Barnum, is from Tampa.
This was a good night out with friends prior to going back to work for our 5 day "work week", which for us is Friday through Tuesday.
Once again, it was time for our monthly beer dinner experience at Boondocks in West Jefferson, NC. We have looked forward to these dinners each month, as we have tasted - and liked - many new types of beers that we thought we would not enjoy.
We took the drive to West Jefferson, NC by a different route this trip. We were looking for a campground nearby with a drive that would be easy enough for us to navigate with a 35 ft. RV towing a car. Our tentative plans are to drive to Bristol on our way home to see Ann's sister Kathy and her husband John again. West Jefferson is between Hillsville and Bristol.
We did find a decent campground that is only a short 20 minute drive from West Jefferson, The drive from the campground back to Highland Grayson State Park will be less than an hour as well. We are hoping Ann's ankle is strong enough in 3 weeks that we can take the short hike to go see the wild ponies in the park. When we tried this hike back in June, the rain poured down before we could get to the ponies.
When we arrived at Boondocks, we sat at the bar and sipped one of the more than 30 craft beers on tap. We love the sign on the wall saying "I would give up beer but I'm not a quitter". Boondocks is a brewpub with a great atmosphere!
We moved to the private dining room for the beer dinner and were seated with Gary, the owner and head brewer. It was interesting as he talked about the beginnings of Boondocks and the plans to open a separate catering facility a block away in the near future.
This beer dinner was sponsored by Bell's Brewing Company located in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Bell's has been brewing beer since 1985. We had never heard of Bell's but were eager to taste the beers they offered as a critical part of the dinner experience. We started off with Bell's Amber Ale, their flagship beer. he Amber Ale looked and tasted similar to Sam Adam's Boston Lager.
The first course was orange-mint glazed shrimp & scallop. The flavor was dominated by the orange with only a slight after taste of the mint. This course was accompanied by Bell's Oberon Wheat Ale, which is their summer beer. It had a crisp and clean flavor that complimented the seafood.
The second course was a sausage and black bean soup. It was very tasty, with a spicy bite to it. This soup would be a good option as a lunch entree, especially when the weather gets cooler. Bell's Lager of the Lakes was a very refreshing beer which helped compliment the heat from the local North Carolina (Lansing, NC) sausage that was used to make the soup. It was interesting that this soup was served warm, not hot. It was the chef's idea that serving the soup steaming hot, enhancing the spiciness, would overpower the beer.
Our main course was Sirloin Chipotle-Coffee Au'poive. The meat was tender enough to cut with a fork. As the name would imply, there was definitely some spicy aftertaste. The heat was easily squelched with Bell's Hopsolution, a double IPA that was so smooth. If it weren't for the 8% alcohol, we could have sipped additional servings of this outstanding beer. Our definite favorite beer of the night.
Dessert was a Bacon-Porter Brownie. The saltiness from the bacon blended well with the deep dark chocolate flavors in the brownie. Just look at the artful presentation on the plate. Bell's Porter even gave off hints of a chocolate taste. This was a great ending for those of us who really like chocolate.
This was our fourth beer dinner at Boondocks, and it lived up to our expectations once again. This restaurant does a great job of pairing the various beers with their exceptional food. The food items served at the beer dinners are created especially for the beer dinners and are not found on their regular menu. The food is high quality, and their chef uses many fresh locally grown ingredients.
We have been looking for area attractions that Ann can maneuver with her foot still in the ankle boot. We decided a tour of Dixie Caverns in Salem would be a good visit.
These caverns were discovered in 1920 when two boys were playing on this mountain. Their dog fell into a hole, so they went to rescue him. When they were able to get the dog out, they found these massive underground caves. The caverns are named after their dog--DIxie. When Dixie Caverns first opened for tours in 1923, visitors had to crawl through narrow openings. The passageways are now lighted and passable on foot without crawling along the limestone rock. The entrance looks like a mine shaft from a western movie.
The first stop along the tour is the Cathedral room. You can see that some of the cavern floor is paved with tiles. Behind our guide are about 6 of the 347 steps inside the caverns.
The limestone inside the caverns was very colorful. The rock "pencils" hanging down from the ceiling are called stalactites and the rock growing up from the bottom are called stalagmites. Each drop of water from a stalactite adds growth to the rock formation. Even with minimal lighting, you can easily see how beautiful these rock formations are.
Here is another view of the side of the cavern.
One of the first formations we came to was called the Totem Pole. We could see how this tower got its name.
This pool of water is called the Magic Mirror. Unfortunately, we could not duplicate in the photo the mirror view we saw when looking at the surface of the water. The rock below the pool of water is also growing downward.
This formation is called the Turkey Wing. Several other guests from our tour are seen behind the Turkey Wing.
Paul is shown coming out from underneath the Wedding Bell. This formation is an example of a flowstone formation. These sheetlike deposits of calcite are formed when water flows down the walls or along floors of a cave. Dozens of couples have actually gotten married here.
Behind the Cathedral Room is another room where bats gather in the winter and salamanders can be found in the summer. The temperature inside the Dixie Caverns is a constant 55 degrees. This is a very skinny salamander, probably not much food inside the caverns.
Our trip to Dixie Caverns was an enjoyable day outing. It was good to see Ann being able to walk the quarter mile inside the caverns without any difficulty while wearing her boot.
Here are some of the "different" happenings at the campground. We continue to be amused by our observations as we live and work in a campground environment.
Once in a while we have an unusual RV in the campground. This RV belonged to a singer (husband) and writer (wife) who visited recently. Doesn't this look like a Schwan's frozen foods delivery truck?
Each weekend during the summer has a theme. Recently, we had carnival weekend. Calvin Klown visited our guests each day. Calvin does a great pose with Paul during a work day. Notice how spiffy our work polos are.
Miss Piggy Su also visited.
Yes, it is a real live pig that was raised by her owner since she was 3 weeks old. For a donation to St Jude;s Childrens' Hospital, you could have Miss Piggy Su kiss you. She is wearing her Saturday night dancing costume. After this posing, she attended our Saturday night karaoke and played along to the music on a toy piano using her snout to hit the notes. All the best entertainment at Lake Ridge RV Resort! Ann is patiently waiting for her kiss.
Paul took a turn next, hearing Piggy Su's snorts of delight as she did the kissing motion.
This is just a sampling of some of the fun special activities that go on each weekend.
For the first time since we began camping, we decided to experiment with cooking in aluminum foil. We bought a campfire cookbook and followed a recipe to cook a pork tenderloin with Granny Smith apples, sliced onion, and onion soup mix on our charcoal grill.
Ready to seal the foil.
The finished product which melted in your mouth and tasted wonderful. As you can see, the apple slices slid off the meat, exposing the onions.
Stinging
insects have been a pest this summer. We have never camped where there have been so many bees, wasps and hornets flying around and building nests. This bee's nest was inside the
front of our RV just below the headlight. It is the size of a baseball.
There were 3 distinct layers of honeycombs and a paperlike covering around it. Paul sprayed three different times early in the morning when the bees were mostly asleep and then had to use a wire coat hanger to knock the nest loose from under the headlight until it fell to the ground.
These experiences help make our work time go by quickly.
The Grimes family descended from Ann's mother, Bernetha Grimes Schlegel, has a long-standing tradition of getting together for visits. Twenty members of our family, spanning 3 generations, recently gathered in Hillsville for a mini-family reunion. Family members traveled from Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania for two days of visiting. We met at the RV resort to begin our visit.
There are four components to a good time whenever our family members gather. One is good conversation. John, Laura's husband, is talking with John and Alice Ann Dinger, Ann's cousins, who live in Denver, PA, where Ann grew up.
Paul is talking with Kathy and Lyn, Ann's sister and brother respectively.
Kelly with Astrid and Kim with Kate discussing "sister talk." Kelly and Kim are two of Kathy & John Mack's daughters. We were thrilled to be meeting their young children, who we had seen in pictures on Facebook but had never met in person.
Ann and Leo chatting. Leo is Kim's oldest child.
The second component is good food. We rented a pavilion at our campground for this two-day party. Our 4 grandchildren are enjoying some pizza. From left to right: John, Amelia, Jack, and Henry.
Here is a plate of some Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies that we all crave. Ring bologna - a sausage made at a local butcher shop in Denver. Potato chips fried in lard - not healthy but taste so food. And Pennsylvania Dutch thick pretzels - good with a cold beer!
A third component is lots of things to do. Paul and Ann are taking the 3 grandsons for a ride in a golf cart. Henry is sitting between Grandma and Grandpop, while Jack is behind Ann and John is behind Henry.
Our campground has two large swimming pools and two 400 ft. water slides. From left to right: Alice Ann Dinger, daughter Laura, Jack, and son-in-law John.
Laura, John, Penny (Lyn's wife) and Lyn look down at the water slides from the pool deck cabana.
Jack and Paul just landing in the bottom pool after riding down the Black Momba waterslide. You can tell by our faces that we loved the ride.
Penny teaching our 4 grandchildren the intricacies of making bubbles. Penny, John, and Amelia are using a bubble wand while Henry is blowing bubbles.
The last component is game playing. Lyn and Amelia strategizing during a game of "Blokus".
Penny, Alice Ann, John Mack (Kathy's husband), Wendy, and Amelia playing the card game "Hands and Feet" while Lyn looks on.
Lyn giving advice to Wendy and Amelia.
John and Ann playing cards with Henry at the Fancy Gap cabin that Wendy and Laura's family rented for the week.
The last evening, everyone gathered at the Fancy Gap cabin where there was lots of room to spread out and enjoy an evening meal together. Fancy Gap is a "blink or you will miss it" village right off the Blue Ridge Parkway not far from Hillsville.
With not much parking at the cabin for our extra cars, we tried to put them in a nearby area that looked solid. But It had rained enough in the afternoon to make the ground muddy. Oops! John Mack got his car stuck. The family came to the rescue and pushed the car out, with John B., Paul, and John Mack pushing and Kathy at the wheel. Notice the boards underneath the front and rear tires to try to get some traction.
Four couples gathered to play a version of the "Newlywed Game" even though each couple had been married at least 40 years. Laura is reading the questions on the cabin porch with North Carolina in the background. Lots of laughs, and we seemed to know our spouses pretty well.
The rental cabin was located on the Blue Ridge Mountains, with a stunning view of the North Carolina valley below. Stormy weather rolled in during the Newlywed Game, giving us some amazing views of storm clouds preceding a passing storm.
Part of the last night celebration was for Ann and Paul's 45th anniversary.
Our 4 grandchildren posed for a photo with Ann and Paul on the last morning.
We are so appreciative of all of our relatives traveling to Hillsville so we could enjoy each others' company. We love that our children brought their children so we could get some "Grandma and Grandpop" fun time while we finish our summer work in Virginia.
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