Time with friends

 October 10-12, 2023

Valley River Resort - site 14

Marble, NC

What a great place to gather here in North Carolina!  This is a nice campground with plenty of grass between the wide cement pads that the rigs are parked on.  The interior roads are paved and they even provide trash pickup at the site.  

We arrived on Tuesday and hooked up with our Florida neighbors who are spending the summer in nearby Blairsville, Georgia at their camp named Chicken Pot Pie.  We contacted them to let them know we had arrived and discussed going to Sweet Tooth for ice cream....and then Momma discovered that they are 'temporarily closed'.  Ooops!!  

Well, I liked the solution to that!  Everyone gathered at my campsite for make your own sundae....except they were short one bowl...MY bowl!!

Oh well, at least I got some dog treats to enjoy before they began their game of Fast Track.  

The next day, more friends arrived from Tennessee and Steve even had a dog treat tucked away in his pocket...just for ME!!  

Tonight's menu included hamburgers on the grill.

These sites are really quite wide and I thought there was plenty of room for me as well, but when it was time for that delicious smelling Chocolate Fudge Pudding Cake after a game of Swoop, I was left on the other side of the door....looking thru the glass.  What am I?  The forgotten one??  Maybe I need to report them to the SPCA for cruel treatment??

I guess they are a tad concerned I may trip up my buddy Steve.  He is a tad 'out of sink' as he had fallen a few weeks ago and broke two pelvic bones.  Now he has to carry his weight on one side until he finishes healing.  I'm just glad he was able to make the trip here!!

He and Tina would have been heart broken if they had had to cancel their trip and miss out on those 'fall off the bone' ribs from Jim's Smokin' Que.

Jim's is only open four days a week, Thursday thru Sunday but they sure stay busy on those four days.  

Momma said the parking lot was nearly full when they arrived today around 1pm.  It was short wait to place their order.  Everyone at the table ordered ribs ...and they were fall off the bone tender and tasty.

You just can't pass up a treat like that while you are in Blairsville, Georgia.

A quick stop was made at LoganTurnpike Mill on Blairsville's downtown square so Momma and Dad could stock up on Mountain Morning Pancake Mix....a corn meal pancake mix... as well as the Raspberry Muscadine Wine Jam they enjoy before returning to the campsite for some game time.  

Now this was in interesting game of Hand and Foot.  At the end of the first round, the gals were in the lead by over 2000 points.  At the end of the second round, the gals had increased their lead by an additional 2000 points (4000 point lead) and the guys were mumbling and grumbling.  After the guys won the last two rounds, they had the gals beat by 3000 points and were declared the official winners.  Tim said it was the bad luck of the cards in their hands that had caused the loss the first two rounds, but it must have been skill that brought on the win on the last two rounds.  

The evening drew to a close after enjoying a dish of warm apple crisp topped with ice cream followed by a short couple of rounds of Mexican Train so Tina could see how Dad's box worked. Momma had taken a picture of Louise's box and sweet talked Dad into building one.   It works great, as the dominoes are no longer sprawling over the whole table.  And with the dominoes falling into the box base as they are played, clean up is a whiz.

I heard them making plans for another busy day tomorrow.  They say that laughter is good for your health.  Well, this group certainly must be healthy as there has been a ton of laughter taking place.  They are one happy group when they are spending time together.  

I'm Chloe