Where Mailmen Fear to Tread

Coming up with a title for each entry is always a challenge.  That’s why some entries have boring titles such as “Travel Day” or “Destination”.  Today, however had a title just begging to be used.  Read on...

Morning dawned clear and cold.  33 degrees cold.  Enough to make the floor of the RV rather uncomfortable for bare feet.  Sunrise over the mountains, however was spectacular.  This campsite has a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the sun blazed on the mountain peaks long before it touched us here in the valley.

After breakfast we took a walk around the campus.  We walked the steep road past the radio station building and towards the Camp Cedar Cliff campground.  Although once a part of the Cove, this was sold to another organization.  But if it’s anything like its former owners, it’s probably immaculate.  We made it as far as the entrance pavilion before we had to turn around to make a 10am meeting.  The main camp office was still a half mile down the road.

At 10am we met our fellow SOWERs for the first meeting.  This was just to communicate some of the expectations and to get to know each other a little bit.  We talked about how the days are going to look, some possible evening activities, where to attend church, and so on.  As for what we will be doing, we’re still not all that sure.  The women may spend some time working in the chapel, rolling silverware in napkins in the conference center or doing some laundry in one of the lodges.  The men will probably be doing some form of grounds maintenance.  This is a big place which has a lot of volunteer work done.  As we were told in the meeting, we just have to be flexible.

After the meeting we took a tour of some of the buildings.  First, the chapel.  Basement level was a presentation room where we saw a 9-minute introductory video.  Next level up was a large room with lots of pictures and signs showing the reach of Billy Graham’s ministry, the life of Billy & Ruth Graham, and some testimonials on lives that were changed through this ministry.

Third floor was the sanctuary.  It contained items that were specified by Ruth Graham, including a 400-year-old pulpit from a church in England, and 200-year old pews.  The large windows looked out over the forest and the mountains beyond.  The fourth floor behind the sanctuary was a prayer room where people could come either singly or in small groups to pray in a quiet setting.

We also drove to the main conference building and chatted with a staff person in the lobby for a bit.  There was an event going on and people were on break while we were there so we didn’t tour the building; we will do that sometime in the next three weeks.  The staff person was a wealth of information and told us about the building.  It is a beautiful place with a massive fireplace and big windows and big portraits of Billy and Ruth.  The staff person told us the story of how just a few years ago at Christmas time, one of the electric chandeliers fell from the ceiling and landed on a nativity display.  The display was decorated with quite a bit of straw and the falling chandelier ignited the straw on fire.  The fire was quickly extinguished but it resulted in severe smoke damage throughout the lobby which took several months to restore.

It was warm enough to eat lunch in lawn chairs outside the RV, so we enjoyed our panini sandwiches in the sunshine.  A real treat for a Michigander.

I checked my phone during lunch and there was a text from Abigail. You can probably guess what this is said the text, and it was accompanied by a picture of a home Covid test with two indicator lines.  Positive.  I guess it was bound to happen.  Nate tested positive two days ago and the two of them spend a lot of time together.  So we leave town and Abigail gets Covid.  It’s pretty hard to  provide care for her while we’re 700 miles away.  The most we can do is encourage her over the phone and pray for her.  Which we did.

After lunch, we did some exploring.  We headed first to Old Fort, where Deb found a bike trail that looked interesting.  The Point Lookout Trail follows what used to be a road to Point Lookout, a former tourist attraction.  It is now a bike/hike trail. This trail ascends 900 feet in 3.5 miles so it’s quite a climb.  This is where ebikes came in very handy.  We powered our way up the mountainside, passing a few bikers pedaling in granny-gear, feeling like a couple of impostors.  

The end of the trail comes out on Mill Creek Road, with a sign pointing toward the Inn on Mill Creek, a popular bed and breakfast.  As one of the bikers we passed caught up and turned to go up Mill Creek Road, we half-considered trying it ourselves, but it was a dirt road so we turned around and coasted for 3.5 miles down the mountain.  What fun! 

Deb found a park to make dinner, called Andrews Geyser.  This geyser was built in 1879 to honor a railroad bigwig, and the grounds contain a couple of civil war markers.  We had dinner here, enjoying the quiet as this place is several miles away from just about anything.

Cell service was spotty to non-existent here, but I did get directions that showed this road continuing and eventually meeting up with Interstate 40, which would take us back toward Asheville.  Not wanting to backtrack for several miles, we followed the map directions.

The road narrowed considerably and the pavement ended soon after.  There weren’t any good places to turn a motorhome around so I continued driving.  The road twisted sharply and steeply upward for several miles, and it was a good thing that we met only two cars going the opposite direction.  Their drivers looked at me like I was crazy. I took up nearly the entire road.  I figured out later that I was on Mill Creek Road, the same road we had turned around at on the top of the mountain.  So we saw where the biker went.

Finally made it back to Interstate 40, where one lane was wider than the road I was just on and I could do more than 10 miles per hour.  Deb wanted to see Montreat, to see if she could find the home where Billy and Ruth Graham raised their family, so we got off at the next exit.

There is no commercial development in Montreat.  Not even a traffic light.  Most of the streets are narrow and winding, with much less traffic than larger towns and cities.  As if to emphasize this, the road into the town has a stone entrance gate and a sign: No Trucks.  We were told also that there is no mail delivery to many of the homes on in the town.  The mail carriers did not want to drive the streets because they are so narrow and steep, so many of the residents get their mail at the bottom of the hill on the main road.

There was a way around the entrance gate for those trucks that really needed to be there.  We had just successfully navigated a narrow mountain road so we forged on.

The streets are narrow.  And winding.  And the town is beautiful.  Nice homes nestled on the steep slopes, plenty of native vegetation, and a stream right along the main road.  I would have taken pictures, but I was too busy avoiding the native vegetation.  Some of the native vegetation could be heard scraping across the side or the roof of the RV, so these roads weren’t built for something this large.

The road follows the river past Robert Lake Park and Montreat College, but the area is otherwise only residential. Only these residents drive small Hondas and Chevys, not 24-foot motorhomes with a couple bicycles hanging five feet off the back.

Google maps suggested a route back along West Virginia Terrace, which turned a barely navigable corner before ascending steeply along tall retaining walls and more native vegetation.  It also sloped to the left, so the RV dutifully listed badly leftward at times.  It was true white knuckle driving.  At three miles per hour.

We were finally descending and appearing to head toward a wider road when Deb spotted it.  A place that looked like the pictures she had seen. She found the address on the internet, and it was indeed the Graham home.  I’m glad one of us saw it.  She was satisfied, and I just needed a place to stop and change my underwear.

Back to Asheville to the grocery store for ice cream, and to Lowe’s for the mandatory second trip to fix the step.  We got back to our campsite just as it was getting dark.