Raleigh/Durham, NC

We planned a stop in the RDU area to have a few days enjoying the great food in the area. It turned into a sports themed stop. As we continue to be chased by the never ending rain, we looked for things to do that were going to keep us indoors and dry. Since our park was in Chapel Hill, we needed to only drive a short distance to be on the North Carolina campus. The campus is beautiful and we stopped at the basketball arena to tour the arena and their basketball museum. I have always been a fan of UNC basketball and the museum did not disappoint. MJ is still the best basketball player to ever play the game. That night went to dinner at our favorite BBQ place in the area and we got tickets to see the Durham Bulls play in their home stadium. We were lucky with the weather to see the game played with no rain delays. The next stop on the sports tour was Duke University which is just a few short miles down the road. We once again toured the stadium, Cameron Indoor, which is a basketball legend and toured their museum. Another great university and great basketball program. All hail Coach K and Coach Williams! We wrapped up our stay in the RDU area with a drive out to Asheville to see the Biltmore estates. The house was built by George Vanderbilt in the 1890's and is the largest privately owned house in the US at 135K square feet. Adding to the amazing sights of the house and the grounds was a Chihuly display around the estate. We missed out on taking the Lemur tour at Duke as they are sold out many days and weeks in advance, as surprising as that sounds. We look forward to coming back to the area as there is a lot to do.

Spring Hill Park, Chapel Hill, NC

Very remote and quiet park in the country area outside of Chapel Hill. The park is a meandering grouping of sites nestled in the mature forest. Our site was pull through and extremely long. There are no issues with the length of the site for anyone with large rigs, trailers, extra cars, etc. The park is on well water, so the pressure is on the low side and the power is sketchy. When you connect to 50A, expect to randomly pop the breaker if you pull in the mid-40s. We were closely watching the number of AC units we had on and shut one or more down every time we had to turn on another appliance and we still had to reset the breaker 5 times during our stay. The sites are in a beautiful wooded setting, so don't expect to get satellite service and they don't offer cable service to anyone staying short term. The park is mostly filled with long term and permanent residents. The camp hosts that run the office and manage the campground were extremely friendly and helpful, which was the one high point for our stay at the park. They offer wifi, but it seldom worked well enough to check email, let alone get on the internet. I really wish RV parks would be honest about their wifi. If you stay here, bring your hot spot if you need to get on a computer. The setting was beautiful and relaxing, but we felt cut off from the world, which we don't like and the park being full of mostly long term residents gave our stay and even more isolated feel. We give this park a 2 out of 5 rating and will not stay here again when we come back to the area.

Pigeon Forge/Great Smoky Mountains NP

Neither Gary nor I had ever been to Tennessee so we were excited to go.  Driving from Myrtle Beach the landscape definitely changes.  After a long, 7 hour drive we pull into Pigeon Forge and become overwhelmed with sensory overload.  Yiiiikes! 
Pigeon Forge is a town where the main road is literally filled with every garish building you can think of to lure in the tourists who flock there every year.  A lot of people (like us) go to the area for the national park (Smoky Mountains are the most visited NP annually) but get sucked in to the carnival type atmosphere of the town.  There is maybe, 5 feet between most of the buildings and there are go-kart tracks and putt putt golf courses, fudge shops and ice cream parlors and retail shops for as far as you can see. 
We pulled into our RV park and collapsed on the couch to try to process all that we had seen.  The next day we went into the national park and visited with the rangers to get the lay of the land.  We decided to do a couple of small hikes with the highlight being able to reach the back of a waterfall.  Did I mention that the park is the most visited annually?  This means you are "combat hiking" and you can't really escape to find nature.  ;)  The next day we decided to drive an hour and half through the park to get to the NC side where we wanted to do a hike that involved 3 waterfalls.  We put on the bug spray, filled our packs with food and we were off.  We only walked about 3 miles and found all of the falls.  Two of the falls were located in an area along the river where people were walking with inner tubes to go down the river.  We felt really dumb all geared up for such a short and well populated hike!  Haha!  After that we decided to be done with the Great Smoky Mountains and thought we'd give Pigeon Forge another shot. 
We did a little shopping at the outlet mall and noticed across the parking lot that there was a moonshine store and they were doing free tastings.  Well!  When you go to TN, you HAVE to taste the moonshine!  We walked right over and literally bellied up to the bar.  We had a tasting of 14 different flavors, one of which was 100 proof, straight moonshine that they called "Ricky Bobby In A Jar"!  Hahaha!  That was a lot of fun and if you're ever in the area I highly recommend going into Smith Creek Moonshine. 
Our last day we wanted to see why Dollywood is such a big thing so we bought tickets and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!!  They have a few "big kid" rollerocoasters and the atmosphere is so family friendly, I found myself smiling a lot just because I was there.  Another place that I would highly recommend. 
I was sad to leave the area and we hope to be back again, hopefully in the fall time to see the leaves change.  Beautiful area (despite the main strip of Pigeon Forge).  ;)

Pine Mountain RV Park, Pigeon Forge, TN

A nice park that is just a few blocks off the main road of Pigeon Forge. Even though it is only a 1/4 of a mile to the main road, the park is very quiet and has a country feel to it. The staff at the park was very nice and helpful. The sites at the park are mostly back in with a section of shorter pull through spots in the center. Our site was concrete and just long enough for our rig and the space needed to park our Jeep. The park offered a nice laundry room room, bathrooms and a good pool area. There are several open grass areas for kids to play and/or for the dogs. The wifi worked great, which was good as the park asks that you not use your hot spot since they cause service problems with their wifi. Staying at the RV park also gives you access to use the pool and hot tub facilities of the hotel across the street. We give this park a 4 out of 5 and will gladly stay here again if we are in the area.

Myrtle Beach KOA, Myrtle Beach, SC

A very nice KOA just a few hundred yards away from the beach. The KOA was large, but still spread out with nice sites and a ton of trees. Don't expect to use your dish, but they do offer cable, which was nice. Great amenities for the kids with a nice pool, kids water park, nightly "worm train", jumpy, bike rentals, etc. They have the standard bathrooms, shower and laundry. The downside was we were not able to get their wifi to work for us. Even though the park is very close to the main road along the beach front, it is quiet. The roads are narrow, so go slow, but we were able to navigate them with our big rig. The sites are dirt/gravel, but fairly level and plenty long enough for a large RV and a tow. As with all KOA parks, the price is a little high, but you know you will be staying at a quality park. The wifi not working is the only reason we rate this park a 4 out of 5.

Myrtle Beach, SC

South Carolina has a 60 mile long stretch of fantastic beaches called the Grand Strand with Myrtle Beach as its center and most popular destination. We were not able to visit the area a few years ago when we were on vacation, so I was excited to see it and spend a few days exploring. The beach did not disappoint. The main town area was more of a carnival atmosphere than we expected and wanted, but we found that going either north or south just a few miles and it became more of the beach town feel that we wanted to experience. I would like to spend more time on the SC coast, but I doubt we will come back to stay in Myrtle Beach. Now it is time to head into the mountains!!!

Charleston, SC

We had been to Charleston one other time a few years ago and loved it so we were very excited to get back.  Luckily, it did not disappoint. It was still just as beautiful and charming as we remembered. 
Of course we still had to deal with rain but there were a few days without the wet stuff so we got to explore. 
What you may not know is that I am a huge fan of HGTV and a show on there called "House Hunters".  I had watched an episode in the past about a couple trying to find a house on Isle of Palms.  I had to go there since we were so close in proximity.  Let me just say now, I LOVE ISLE OF PALMS! :)  It is a beautiful, little beach town that I wouldn't mind exploring more of and for a lot longer.  The beach is not over commercialized and the water is warm!  I could go on and on but I'll stop now. 
Over the next few days we went into Charleston.  We toured the USS Yorktown which is a recommissioned ship of the Yorktown that was sunk in the battle of the Midway in WWII.  It had so much information and a lot of very cool aircraft.  After touring we caught a ferry over to Ft. Sumter which is the original fort that was fired upon to start the Civil War.  We saw the walls that still have cannonball indents and some of the bricks that still have fingerprints from the slaves that helped to build it.  SO much history.  Another day we shopped a little (to Gary's chagrin) and took a carriage ride through historic downtown.  The most interesting thing I learned on the tour is that the horses that pull the carriages are very well cared for.  ;) They get 6 weeks of vacation time a year and after one tour they get to go to the spa.  :)  After exploring some more of downtown we heard a lot of thunder and saw some lightning so we decided to duck into 5 Church for a drink.  5 Church is a VERY cool restaurant and bar that is right in the heart of the tourist district.  It is an old church that has been converted and the most impressive part about it is that the ceiling is a chalkboard upon which the book, "The Art of War" is written on and parts of the Declaration of Independence.  How cool is that??
Our last day there we drove out to another place I had heard about on HGTV ;) called Kiawah Island.  It was only an hour's drive away and it was a beautiful drive.  What we didn't know until we got there is the majority of the island is gated off and you have to have a pass to get in.  Hahaha!  We were a bit shocked but it was still a pretty area to see.
The whole Charleston area is gorgeous, the people are friendly and there is so much history.  It is definitely an area we will be visiting again. 

Columbia, SC

As we continue on our journey to visit as many National Parks as possible, we put Columbia on our schedule in order to see the Congaree National Park. I had never heard of this park before researching our route, but it looked beautiful from the pictures and I was excited to do some hiking in a park after so many days of being chased off beaches by the rain in Florida. When we stopped at the visitor center at the park to get our bearings and to talk with the park rangers about the best places to hike, we saw that most of their souvenirs had something to do with a mosquito. They had stuffed mosquitoes, t-shirts that read "I gave blood at Congaree," and magnets of the mosquito meter. How bad could it be, really???? HAHAHAHAHA. For anyone visiting this park at this time of the year, I would highly recommend a bath in 100% deet to start your day. Then pop a deet lozenge every few minutes during the drive to the park and finally carry a spray bottle with 100% deet in it that you spray on every inch of exposed skin for the entire visit to the park. It's really that bad. The funny part was the rangers had the scale set to a 4 out of 6. I asked about the 6 and they said it was so bad they were miserable inside. The park is a flat flood plain with some of the largest old growth hardwoods in the world. The cypress knees were cool, but the attempt to hike was cut short by the swarm of mosquitos and we were glad to get back to the car and put the park in the rear view mirror. I'm glad we visited the park, but we won't come back unless the mosquito meter is running at a 1 or 2.