#237 Tanglewood in Winston Salem for Thanksgiving

We left Wytheville and headed towards Winston Salem on the Monday before Thanksgiving to visit with my sister Cheryl. Over the years she has become the location and head cook for our family turkey day. My other sister Darylene cooks the turkey and Cheryl does the 30 side dishes. My elder sister Sheila comes in the day before and just helps do everything. It was only about an hour and a half to two hours away and we arrived at Tanglewood and checked into the RV area the three days. My plan was to stay at Tanglewood for three days until Thanksgiving and then on Thanksgiving Day go ahead and move to the Winston-Salem fairgrounds. Tanglewood RV park closes for the season right after Thanksgiving. They are locally famous for assembling a Christmas light exhibit that is several miles long and draws thousands of people year.

It will be a bit of a chaotic Thursday for us. When I checked in with the campground host and they told me that they were sold out from Thursday on through the weekend and I had to leave even if I weren't really planning to. I gathered us and the RV and left at 11 or there about and parked at a grocery store parking lot just above my sister’s house. The cat had to stay behind without wandering outdoors privileges. When they don’t get what they want, cats sleep so he managed. We had a really nice meal and enjoyed our time with family. Sometime in the evening around for our 5 o'clock there was a bit of a lull in the festivities. I decided this time of day would be a good time to take the RV from the parking lot over to the fairgrounds. It would appear that even though I was able to go across the country for 50,000 miles I can get lost going across town. Moving the RV takes a half an hour or so. I heading back and I went down some meandering way to get to highway 52 which took probably 20 minutes because I kept getting lost and turned around. I was just trying to use common sense instead of the GPS and that didn't work out. I got on 52 South and missed the 40 exit. Now I’m going towards Lexington trying to find a road to turn around. I got a call from the folks and where the heck are you. I had burned up about 45 minutes due to my foolishness. Even when you take all the right turns it really does take to set up the RV so I know they don't get that.

After Thanksgiving we had a nice time, sort of uneventful. We went to a cool movie called Loving Vincent. Nobody else wanted to go but we enjoyed it. It was the story of Vincent Van Gough. Even though it was animated motion picture each cell was and painted in oil base colors.

It was in a small venue in the center of downtown Winston. It had only about 20 chairs. I really liked the atmosphere.

Over the next several days we just visited and did this and did that and generally spent time with family. I was nice to slow down from every 2 days got to go. We stayed at the fairgrounds last year during New Year’s weekend and stayed for free because nobody was watching the fort. This is the scenario that I wanted this year for Thanksgiving evening and the next several days. On the second day a person knocked on the door and asked if we could pay the fee and I realized the game was up.

It would seem that the real reason we got caught this year is there was a football game next door. Parking is a paid adventure and anybody parking at all is going to be questioned. There was availability at Tanglewood on Sunday evening. We wet back over and were glad to be back. The fairgrounds are functionally ok but the area is a little sketchy. By contrast Tanglewood is really pleasing to the eye and a little more like being out in the woods. We wanted to give Cheryl a day off and went to a church service on Sunday. On Monday I did some work at Cheryl's house installing two ceiling fans and some outdoor landscape lighting. We visited with her on Monday night and I knew my time was getting short in Winston Salem. She came by the RV a little bit Tuesday afternoon just to say hello. We watched the Tanglewood light show with my niece Amber, Mike and her children. Wednesday we were on our way out to the next adventure. We went towards Troy NC area in the Uwharrie National Forest to a place called Badin Lake. I had heard about this area all my life but never stayed there.