#285a 1st stop LAKE POWHATAN, ASHEVILLE, NC

I sent my sister Sheila the following text the day before we departed.

Hi Sister, it seemed too early to call so here goes. I don't have any real expectations but I wanted to let you know that I will be near Asheville from Tuesday night till Wednesday morning. I didn't know what your schedule was or whether you go to the college or anything like that but we can say hey if that's meant to be.

Unless something goes wrong, we will be at Powhattan campground about 5 or 10 miles south of Asheville.

Let me know.

Going to Mayfield our first stop was Asheville at Lake Powhatan. We visited with Sheila my sister had dinner.

She lives in Franklin North Carolina but she had reason to be in Asheville visiting her daughter Becky for a day so it was ideal. I told her we were going to be in Asheville if she wanted to do dinner. Most people when you tell them you're going to be there at 5 pm and then it ends up being 8 or 9 at night they get bummed out. They wouldn’t want to do it but she hung in there and it was just wonderful. The mechanic had told me he could do my 2-hour job at 8 am. I was there on time and then it took all day. When I could see we were way behind schedule I called her and asked if she wanted to skip the visit. She said just call when you get settled and I’ll tell you if I’m still in. Getting settled happened at 8:30 pm and we called and she said let's eat. We had a nice dinner at a Mexican place. It was 9 at night when we got there.

We did end up staying at the Powhatan campground. It was a federal place up the hill in Asheville and a nice place with a full hookup. It was just a place to sleep but it was wonderful to visit my sister. She's the eldest and the nicest person ever. She's a registered nurse who became a hospital administrator. Now she's teaching at the University of NC at Asheville. She was on the board of directors as a higher-up for I think 20 years in Sylva, North Carolina. It was bad that we were so delayed but great to hang out with her for a while. We went on back and ended a very long day.