Before, During and After TS Fred

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If you recall, we had ordered new captains chairs and sofas for our motorhome. The original ones had poor quality fabric that started to peel a couple years ago. We hadn’t found someone we felt comfortable with to get them reupholstered so we had ordered new furniture around Thanksgiving 2020. Originally it was supposed to arrive in Elkhart Indiana in April or May but that never happened. We got a call recently from our vendor saying it had finally arrived. Since we are booked in our current location until October 1, we looked at the route and scheduled an install date during the first week of October. With that issue resolved, we could make our travel plans from NC to IN to FL for the month of October. More on that as the time arrives.

The town of Boone is about 20 miles northeast of camp. It is one of the larger towns near us with about 18,000 residents. We figured we should head there to check the place out. It is the home to Appalachian State University which has an enrollment of about 18,000 students meaning the town roughly doubles in size when school is in session! Chris had found a website with a self guided tour of the university and we thought it would be neat to see the campus. Little did we realize that we were heading there on the Friday before the first week of classes for this semester. Probably not our smartest move! At least the parking garage we picked was free and had some parking spaces available.

Entrance at App State

Tall Bell Tower on Campus

It was a beautiful summer day in the mountains and the campus is quite pretty. There was a lot of activity going on as we wandered around. Parents helping kids move into the dorms and many groups of people probably doing orientation tours. I suppose we could have crashed one of those groups to get more in depth information but we kept to ourselves and got a good feel for campus.

Stained Glass in Dining Hall

Science Building

Campus in Mountains

Our tour got a bit sidetracked in order to find a geocache. We were lucky the hiding spot was not very heavily trafficked and were able to make the find without being spotted. We headed just off campus to visit the Mast General Store. We have been to several of these stores in western North Carolina and they have a good assortment of sporting goods, clothing, books and gifts. It has an “old timey” feel to it. One large room is dedicated to barrels of assorted candies for those with a sweet tooth.

Butterfly

Founder's Bell

Large Arena on Campus

After coming out of the store, we could see dark clouds on the horizon and hear thunder. The plan had been to find a lunch spot before heading out but figured if we did that, we would risk getting quite wet. Plus with all the crowds in town for the opening of school, it just seemed a bit too crowded. As we got back home, it became clear that the storm we had heard was likely sitting right over our campground. I was talking with one of the neighbors and they suspected we had gotten 2 to 3 inches of rain!

The next day we wanted to do a hike but worried the rains we had recently received might have made for a muddy mess on many trail. We figured the carriage trails at Cone Park are much less susceptible to rain so we head there for another hike. We hadn’t tried the trail around Bass Lake yet, but it’s not quite a mile in length which seems a bit short. One option would be to simply walk around the lake multiple times. It is a beautiful setting and a very flat trail, so that could work. The trail around the lake was rather busy with scores of people including joggers doing laps.

Large Flowering Bushes

Water Lilies on Bass Lake

Bass Lake with Cone Manor House in Background

But the other choice is to tack on the trail just to the east of the lake. “The Maze”, as it’s called, snakes up and back down a small hill near Bass Lake. Combining the two trails results in nearly a 4 mile hike. There are numerous hairpin turns in the trail as it works it’s way up the hill. If the hill was 1200 feet high so many switchbacks might be justified. Given the hill is only about 250 feet, I think Moses Cone was just feeling whimsical (or drunk) when he laid out the route! There are many spots along the trail where you can see a portion of the route we have either just taken, or will be taking in a short distance. We spotted some horseback riders coming up from behind us but our speed differential wasn’t that great so they only caught us on the downhill portion as we were approaching the apple barn.

Bass Lake and Maze Trail at Cone Park

Swallowtail

One of Several Hairpin Turns

Passed By Riders Near Apple Barn

We stopped to investigate the barn. It is a big building but given how many apples were grown on the property it wasn’t large enough to store all of the crop. There were 4 other smaller apple barns located on the estate, but only this one remains today. The crowds picked up as we worked our way back down to the lake trail. We spotted a small pond that was likely part of a fish hatchery. Nearby we noticed a cow grazing on the other side of a barb wire fence and had to go say hi. This was a pleasant hike and we were correct in the assumption the trail condition hadn’t suffered from the rains.

Apple Barn

Back to Bass Lake

Hatchery Pond?

Moo!

That evening while drying off after my shower, I felt a drop of water land on my shoulder. It hadn’t come from the shower head but from the ceiling above me. I reached up to touch the screw head that held a plastic trim piece on the skylight and realized the water wasn’t simply from condensation. We had a leak! Leaks aren’t good in any home but can be rather elusive in and RV. Since it was already dark out, I wasn’t able to go up on the roof to investigate. No more rain was expected over night so I simply removed the inner trim piece in order to ascertain where the water might be coming in and begin to dry out the interior. I could see the water was likely coming in from one corner of the skylight and then getting into the ceiling and insulation. From the looks of things, I don’t think this had been an issue for very long. There didn’t seem to be mold or wood rot. We have a small dehumidifier and oscillating fan and left that run in the shower stall for about 2 days.

I got lucky that no more rain was in the forecast until the next evening and I was able to go up on the roof in the morning to look for the problem. I was expecting to find the caulking around the skylight had failed but discovered the 24” square plexiglass dome has a 2 inch crack in the lower corner right where I expected the leak. Getting a replacement dome, removing all the caulk and the old dome and installing the new one wasn’t going to be quick. And with more rain in the forecast, I simply put additional caulk over the crack and will make better repairs at a later date. The rig is 10 years old and the plexiglass dome does see sunlight everyday, so I suppose it makes sense that it has reached the end of its life. We had rain that evening and the following day but everything inside was staying dry. A small problem caught early enough to prevent a much bigger problem.  I suppose a leak over our shower stall could go unnoticed for a long time. I guess I got lucky by having the drip fall on me when it did.

The next day was my birthday. We knew Tropical Storm Fred was heading our way with heavy rains expected so there wasn’t going to be any birthday hikes. The rain started to come in waves in the morning. Just before lunch, we had a knock on our door. The campground owner was here to warn us that with the anticipated rainfall, there was a good likelihood the campground would be given an evacuation order by the county officials by early evening. He informed us that the other end of the campground has flooded in the past but the “water has never come up this far so you should be okay”. He told us that if an evacuation order was issued, we would have to leave the campground but could keep the rig here. There would be some sort of community shelter opened up for those without other housing options.

I checked my topographic maps and discovered there is only a 3 foot difference between the two ends of the campground. So not a lot of safety margin. We started to put things away that had come out of their storage area. All day long our phones and weather radio would sound alarms. They tended to be tornado watches or warnings. We would need to check our weather app to see if they were over our area or just nearby. By mid afternoon I went around the campground to see what it looked like. The Linville River was up quite a bit from normal and was flowing rather quickly. Our understanding was that the flooding wouldn’t only come from the water flowing down the river, but the water downstream being pushed back up river. We had gotten things to a point where we could wait for the evacuation and drive to a shelter. But we really don’t like the idea of leaving the motorhome unattended - it is after all our home. The pictures below are from camp about 4 hours prior to evacuation order. For each one, I have taken a similar shot a month after the flood to show what is normal.

Flooded

Normal

Flooded - the river did go over concrete wall that evening!

Normal

Flooded

Normal

There were also a couple locations to take the motorhome to if we had to evacuate. Chris drove to check out the local fairgrounds. She spoke with someone there about the possibility of needing to park the rig and was told it would be fine and where they would suggest to park on the grounds. By late afternoon we decided to just leave with the motorhome and Jeep and go to the fairgrounds. Even though the evacuation order wasn’t issued yet, we really didn’t want to wait until dark to head out. As I drove up the hill to the fairgrounds, it was clear that river flooding wasn’t a possibility. But as I turned into the area that we were told would have no problems with a heavy motorhome, I started to question if that was true. The ground was quite soft and it seemed like while we might not get flooded here, we might still get stuck. After a short discussion with Chris, I pulled out and got back onto the gravel driveway without any issue and drove back down the hill to park in the local grocery store parking lot. This Ingles market closes at night so there shouldn’t be much traffic. Being on a paved parking lot just felt safer. Chris went in to tell them our plan and they were fine with it.

The rain just kept coming and the wind got pretty bad as well. We decided to head the mile into Newland proper and celebrate my 60th at a Mexican restaurant. We had a good view out the window as the rain and wind was nonstop. Just before 6 PM while we were eating, we received the email that the campground had been evacuated so we had only jumped the gun by a couple hours. As we were finishing up our meal, the lights flickered a few times but they didn’t lose power. Good thing, since we might not have had enough cash if their credit card processor went offline. We managed to get some sleep that night and by morning things looked much better outside. The small drainage ditch next to us was still swollen but the sky was clearing and it looked like it might be a nice day. By 8:30 AM we got an email saying that the campground would reopen at 10 AM but there had been a fair amount of flooding and delay your return if possible. We figured we could leave the motorhome where it was and go out and enjoy what was shaping up to be a nice day.

We headed back to Moses Cone Park for another carriage trail hike. The drive from Newland to the park gave us a good indication of just how severe the rain and flooding had been. There were homes with driveways a couple feet under a now raging stream in what is normally just a drainage ditch. There were all sorts of limbs and rocks on the road. There we some nice views along the BRP on our way to Cone. As we approached the parking spot for our Trout Lake hike, one half of a large tree had snapped and was blocking the one side of the road. 

Clouds Hang on the Blue Ridge

The trail we wanted to hike is called the Trout Lake Loop Trail. It’s just under 3 miles and about 300 feet elevation gain. we parked at a small parking area on Shulls Mill Road. Surprisingly we weren’t the only ones out for a hike. The carriage road was covered with limbs and twigs and leaves. There were a few spots where the water runoff had removed a few inches of the road but none of the spots were impassable. We ended up picking up larger branches every 100 feet or so and throwing them to the side. There was no hope that we could completely clear the debris and still get in any sort of real hike but we could at least get the big stuff our of the way.

Debris Scattered Trail

The initial half mile is a pretty constant incline raising about 200 feet. At that point the trail splits. A few cows were in the field next to the trail. They appeared to have weathered the storm. A slight left at the split heads up to Rich Mountain. A slight right will start heading down and around to Trout Lake.

Cows Survived Fred

Small Waterfalls

At about the 2 mile mark is another trail split. We still hadn’t really seen the lake yet. Our intention was to continue straight which would take us to the western side of the lake, but the sign at the split tells us the dam is along the other trail. We figure we will go check out the dam and then backtrack to the original route. But once at the dam, we decide to simple follow the trail on the eastern side of the lake figuring there would be a way around the bottom of the lake and then get back to the car. Our detour made the hike a bit longer than planned but not a whole lot longer. It worked out well after the day we had yesterday.

View from Dam

Trout Lake at Cone Park

On the drive back to the motorhome, we stopped at the Yonahlossee Overlook along the BRP. There is a bit of a trail on the safe side of the guard rail that heads over to the Linn Cove Viaduct just a bit further on the parkway. The storm had left some large clouds that seemed to just hover above the horizon. We will need to come back at a later point to actually head on the trail below the viaduct. There is a great view of Grandfather Mountain as we head back to the car at the overlook parking.

The Clouds Looked Fake

View of Linville Viaduct on BRP

Grandfather Mountain

We stopped by the campground on the way back to the Ingles market. We wanted to see firsthand what the conditions looked like before driving the rig back. There was obvious flood damage on the south end of the campground although the water had receded by this point. It was clear from the debris and mud on bushes and trees just how high the water had gotten. It looked to have been a foot deep about halfway up from the south end of the campground. And from how the debris was around some of the landscaping, it was actually flowing water. Our site on the north end of the park seemed reasonably dry and didn't show signs of actual flood waters. We couldn’t find the owners but headed back to the rig for lunch and then drove back to camp.

While our site is a pull through about 90 feet in length, the concrete pad is only about 35 feet long. Originally we had driven forward across 45 feet of lawn behind the rig onto the pad. There is also about 10 feet of grass between the pad and the road in front of it. When we got back with the motorhome, the owners discussed it and asked how I am at backing up. I told them I was good and she decided to have me back across the shorter 10 foot grass section instead of driving forward across the 45' grass section. The thinking that we had much less potentially soft ground to cover.

This seemed logical to me and started to back into the site. The biggest problem is the road throughout the campground is a nice concrete surface but only 12 feet wide. In order to cut the corner backing in, the front tires needed to come off the concrete on the far side. I had a really good line onto the pad but when backing up something this big, you’re really moving slowly. As I tried to back onto the pad, the rear drive tires were on grass with a slight rise onto the pad and the front tires were on grass a few inches lower than the road. At this point the rear tires were just spinning with no traction. Once the tires loaded with mud, there was little hope.

Rear Tires a Mere 3 Feet from Pad

We have an assortment of wooden boards and heavy rubber pads that sometimes are used to help level the rig on an unlevel site. We spent a good (actually bad!) hour trying to use the pads to get traction and move the few feet required to have the drive axle on concrete but wasn’t having any luck. The owner came over with his pickup truck and a chain with the idea he could give just enough of a pull to get me unstuck. After a few failed attempts, the 52 HP John Deere tractor was brought over. This tractor only has 7 more HP than the one I used to own but is one frame size up. I was skeptical this would do any better, but with it being on the concrete pad and having 4 wheel drive I actually got the drive tires onto the pad! The rest of the parking was much easier.  It took another hour or more to clean the mud off of the tires on the rig and remove the various pads that had gotten quite buried in the mud and clean them up as well. I guess we’ll never know if I would have been better off pulling forward onto the pad?

The Aftermath with All our Pads Buried in Mud

I was wondering just how much rain we had gotten from TS Fred. There aren’t any weather stations local in the area that I could find but there was a NOAA map that provided an estimate presumably from Doppler radar data. Our campground is in between the towns of Linville and Crossnore (in the image below) which puts it near the boundary of 6” to 8” or 8” to 10”. I’ll assume eight inches would be a reasonable guesstimate. I hadn’t given much thought to what damage a hurricane or tropical storm could have in the mountains of western North Carolina. In our 5 years of full time travels, we have adjusted our route to avoid one hurricane and was evacuated from another campground in the panhandle of Florida just last fall. But when you’re camping on the Gulf of Mexico in October, that might be anticipated. In one sense we may have gotten lucky. Our previous spot in Waynesville NC had even heavier amounts of rain and six people lost there lives in Haywood county from the flooding!