Medoc Mountain

When we decided to bail on Pettigrew, we were in a bit of a bind as to where to stay.  It's infrequent that I have a list of places that are possibilities, I usually just find a place and that's where we head.  After spending time at the fish hatchery and Pettigrew, we decided to hit a Wal Mart for the night so we could figure out where to head next without worrying about rolling in in the middle of the night.  I have never seen another Wal Mart like this one.  Most Wal Marts, if they let you park overnight, just have an area for you to stay, keeping out of the way of other customers.  Oh, my.  As soon as we parked, security was all over us to escort us to the next place in line.  Bill counted 27 other RV/trailers out there.  The biggest operation we'd seen prior was maybe 15.  Holy cow.  At any rate, a lot of Wal Marts are in towns that are large enough to have decent cell signal.  We were lacking that at Merchants Millpond, so internet was key to our search.  Bill found Medoc Mountain State Park, and so we headed out there the next morning.  

What a great find!  The campground has 34 sites, 12 of which have electric.  Since we were there Tuesday through Thursday nights, it was never crowded.  The sites were set apart from each other, and the woods that surrounded each site helped along that idea that others were far away.  Internet was again scarce, which added to the solitude.  But man, it was beautiful.  K, NB, Bill and I hit a short trail while the other boys just hung out at camp.  We found this bird at the bathhouse before we truly set out on the hike.              

There's a creek running through the park, with tons of these little foot bridges.  We enjoy looking at the water to see what lives there.  At one point, NB went down a bank to get a picture of a ledge.  Something large splashed through the water, so he boogied out of there quickly.  The park is home to otters and beavers (though not many--they tend to get kicked out for building dams and such), so perhaps it was one of those guys.                

He did go back and get the picture, though, as he thought it was really pretty neat.                      

It rained while we were at the park, so we took one day and headed into Rocky Mount for their children's museum and then into Raleigh for Costco and Trader Joe's.  This tornado machine is one of our favorites.  They have one at NCAR in Boulder, and it always draws us in.                                      

Putt Putt for the Fun of It!  So this museum was really geared towards much younger children, but we had a good time because of the unique interactions they have.  This putt putt course shows some of the obstacles towards growing things.  There was also a game where they had to choose the right fertilizer to grow super huge pumpkins (competitive, of course, to make sure you are into it), a plant vs insect game that showed the characteristics of each and pitted them against each other, and a pit  you play in to show the changing pathways of water.  The other side of the museum is an art gallery that also lets the kids play with art.  Pretty cool.