Starting West to Missouri

Tonight we're visiting Kay Arnold, a good friend from Michigan who preceded us in moving to North Carolina some thirty years ago.

Kay graciously lets us park in the driveway of her mountain hideaway.

Today marked the start of a new trip.  We are wandering to a rally of Pleasure-Way motorhome owners in Branson, Missouri that starts next Wednesday. Running through our start-up checklist, everything looked good. Beth even packed two different comforters because the temperatures at this time of year will change.

Starting out from Durham, we were in the Greensboro area by eleven. Camping World had sent a flyer advertising free lunch and special sales today at all of their stores starting at 11 AM. Knowing there is a CW store near I-40, we detoured to there and did a quick browse through the store. Not finding anything on sale that we needed, Beth asked a clerk where lunch was. They were just getting grills turned on, so it would be another half hour before lunch was ready. Not wanting to spend thirty more minutes in a CW store, we left disappointed in the gap between glossy advertisements and reality.

Getting to Winston-Salem, we fueled up at Costco and found a Gander Mountain store. Also a part of the Camping World conglomerate, the staff here welcomed us and immediately asked if they could serve us lunch. Again, we didn't find anything we needed, but we were impressed with the cleanliness of the store and welcoming attitude of the staff.

Arriving in Flat Rock about 1500, we offered to take Kay out to dinner. She politely declined, reminding us that it was Friday night and the tourists were in town for Fall. Instead we were spoiled with a delicious meal centered around white bean chicken chili. Chatting until cruiser's midnight (9 PM) we caught up on a few of the events in the two years since we had last visited.