My Tuesday did not get less exciting. Or less frustrating, actually. 

Or less fortunate, for that matter. 

I drove away from Pisgah, heading toward Asheville. It wouldn’t be my day to write, but that was okay, it would be my day to explore. I stopped along the way to eat breakfast, pulling into a random empty parking lot. Breakfast was fine, just my usual yogurt and granola, but the parking lot had an unexpected dip to the exit. When I pulled out, I heard the kind of crunch that you get if you go over a speed bump too fast. 

Oops. 

Sorry, Serenity.

It wasn’t more than ten miles down the road before I started to hear a noise. It wasn’t a big noise. I tried to convince myself for the space of one traffic light that I was hearing my dirty dishes rattle in the sink. And then I pulled over into another empty parking lot, and got out and walked around the van. 

Damn it. 

The brackets that had fallen off in Yellowstone were hanging loose again. And this time, one of the weird metal pieces that ought to be holding the bracket in place was gone. 

Plans derailed. 

But! I was in a town! Which meant I had cell service, yay. I googled RV service and called a place in Asheville, 15 miles away. They recommended a truck service place only two miles away. So I zip-tied the brackets in place (sorta) and drove to the truck repair shop. 

The woman behind the counter said that someone might be able to take a look around 3PM. I said that was fine, I’d hang out in the parking lot, since I couldn’t really drive with parts hanging loose. She asked what I thought the problem was. 

I said, “I think it’s probably trivial, except not trivial for me, because I can’t fix it myself.” 

She said, “Let me come take a look.” 

About half an hour later, as she was lying under the van in the parking lot with a lug wrench and a part that one of the guys in the shop had cut down to size for her, I asked her, “How often are you the person who ends up lying on the ground in the parking lot?” 

She replied, “Very, very, very, very, very, very, very seldom.” 

That was what I thought. 

She wouldn’t let me pay her anything, not even for the parts, so I hugged her and told her she was my goddess. And if you are ever in Black Mountain, North Carolina:  Valley Truck Service, absolutely fantastic service. I wish I’d thought to ask her name, but I will be eternally grateful for her efforts. 

(The brackets actually run under the black tank, not the generator, and I think they’re probably just holding the heated drainage system in place. Or rather, were holding the heated drainage system in place. I suspect I also lost a piece of the insulation yesterday, but driving slowly along the highway looking for it felt like it would be a stupid idea.) 

My next decision also turned out to be a stupid idea. So it goes. But I’d been thinking I’d explore Asheville for a while, then drive up to Great Smoky Mountains National Park, then look for a campground. But it’s been getting dark really early, and I didn’t want to wind up in the park when it was too late to actually see or do anything. So I decided to first go to the park, then to come back and explore Asheville. 

It was a beautiful drive — no regrets on the drive. I wound up back on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is just gorgeous. 

But Great Smoky Mountains reminded me of why I avoid the national parks. It was ridiculously crowded. On a Tuesday! There was no room in the parking lot at the visitor center at all. I drove through, then drove through again, then looked for nearby overflow parking, then said “the hell with it.” 

At that point, I felt like I’d been on the road forever and I was exhausted. And traffic was stop-and-go, roads packed with people, just miserable. 

So I headed to Asheville, but by the time I got there, it was rush hour. And Asheville really is a city. A lovely city, it looks very fun, and I understand why people always say it’s great. But cities at rush hour are not terribly convenient places for camper vans with tired drivers. I’d decided that my first stop would be a fancy grocery store, “better than Whole Foods” according to an online review, to buy myself a well-deserved gluten-free treat, but there was absolutely no chance of parking anywhere nearby. And so I wound up back on the highway, headed south. 

After a stop at a non-fancy grocery store, where I picked up a rotisserie chicken, some potato chips, and a gluten-free pumpkin chocolate chip muffin — (Total win for the healthy dinner, yeah? I think those are my worst food choices for a “meal” in months) — I made my way to North Mills River Campground, still in the Pisgah National Forest, but a real campground. 

I hate my site, which is totally on me. Why did I pick it? I actually think I picked it because it was close to the dumpster, which reminded me that I really needed to get rid of a full garbage bag, but it’s also fairly private, no other campsites in immediate view. But it’s sloped, and the van door opens onto the road, so Z can’t be outside on her tie-out without actually being in traffic. Not that there’s been much traffic, but it’s the principle of the thing. 

On the other hand, it is a nice quiet national forest, and it was very reasonably priced ($11 with an America the Beautiful pass), and rumor has it that there are showers. I paid for two nights when I arrived, then when I realized how stupid my site pick was, I thought I might leave after one anyway. But instead I’ve been writing blog posts and taking nice walks and puttering around the van. 

And being grateful. 

Tuesday was not a fun day. It was definitely not the excellent day that I was looking forward to when I was writing my morning words. But I didn’t get shot, I didn’t spend the day in a truck service shop parking lot, I wasn’t in the accident that totally snarled traffic in Cherokee. It could have been so much worse. 

And, on the positive side, the woman at Valley Truck Service was fantastic. The scenery was beautiful. A helpful store clerk found me my gluten-free treat at my non-fancy grocery store, and Zelda loved the rotisserie chicken, gobbling it down with enormous enthusiasm after a few days of being picky about her food. So all is well. 

I suspect that I am not going to finish writing APM while on the road, but I’ll have plenty of time once I get to Florida to focus. It’ll be a lot easier when I’m not thinking about things like where I’m going to spend the night and when I might shower again and whether I should try to find a laundromat. (Yes, I should. I’m probably not going to, though. But my first order of business on my Saturday arrival is definitely going to be a load of laundry and a real shower!)

In my opinion, the problem with first person point-of-view is that it inherently lacks suspense. If I’m telling the story, obviously I survived the story. That’s always the good news, though, when you’re writing a blog post!

So, I had a rather lovely Monday. I took my time leaving Bandit’s Roost, appreciating my electricity and the availability of water and having another nice walk with Zelda where we went nowhere, but she enjoyed the smells. It was a beautiful day.

It was even a nice day for a drive. We wandered around back roads in North Carolina, staying off the highways, but heading toward Asheville. I did a little shopping at a Salvation Army store and managed to replace the jeans that developed holes in the knees a few weeks ago, plus picked up a cotton sweater to add to my warm weather layer collection. I also had a pleasant chat with a woman in the parking lot, who was impressed that I was traveling by myself. 

She wanted to know if I carried a weapon with me. 

I do not. 

She shook her head and eyed the van, and told me that I was very brave. 

Eh, I don’t usually think so. Bad things can happen anywhere, but they’re random, IMO, no more likely to happen on the road then when you’re at home. I told her that my weapon was my car keys: if I ever felt unsafe, I just drove away. 

Isn’t it strange how life provides its own foreshadowing sometimes? 

Eventually, in the early afternoon, I headed up into the hills of Pisgah National Forest to check out the Curtis Creek National Forest campground. The drive was up a winding narrow dirt road with multiple one-lane bridges — not scary, particularly, but definitely the kind of road where I had moments of wondering what I was getting myself into. The campground itself was unusual for a national forest campground in that most of the sites seemed to be clustered together in a small meadow. I kept driving, hoping to find a site that was a little more private and suddenly I was out of the campground, still climbing up into the mountains. But the road was narrow and there wasn’t any easy place to turn around. As I kept going, I passed a couple parked vehicles with tents set up in the woods. It wasn’t the campground. They were “dispersed” camping, aka free camping in the national forests, at spots just off the road. 

After several minutes of driving, I found a spot in the road wide enough that I thought I could turn Serenity around. But instead of turning, I parked and ate a late lunch and considered the idea of dispersed camping. I hadn’t really done it before and maybe it was the conversation I’d had with the woman at the Salvation Army store, but it felt sort of spooky. It was so very isolated. Seriously, I was alone in the forest. No neighbors, no one around at all. And I had no cell service, of course, nor internet. 

It was a beautiful forest, though. Lots of green and a little bit of autumn color, and I could hear running water from a nearby brook and birds chirping. Z and I went for a cautious walk in the woods while I thought about bears and broken ankles and the amazing beauty of real nature. 

And then we came back to Serenity and settled in. I opened the windows, and started reading my book, and Z snuggled up and went to sleep. As it got dark, I listened to the sound of the brook and appreciated the chilly fresh air while a full moon started to rise. Then, of course, I thought about werewolves, and wished I hadn’t read so many shifter romances that start with a woman being attacked in a remote forest. The light from the moon was so bright that twice I checked to be sure I hadn’t left the outside light on, but I hadn’t. 

In the morning, I was feeling ever so cheerful and optimistic. I’d had a restless night, but had two good ideas about the ending of APM, and my free campsite in the woods felt like a fine place to spend the day. Totally isolated. I’d get out the computer and do nothing but think about Fen until I was finished. 

And then I heard a car pull up and stop right next to me.  

Huh. 

That was odd. 

A ranger? I didn’t think I needed a permit for dispersed camping, but maybe I did. The car was behind the van, so I opened the bathroom door to look out the back window. 

It was not a car, it was a pickup truck. 

And it was not a ranger. 

The guy who’d gotten out of the truck was scruffy, pudgy, dressed in camouflage. He was behind the hood of the truck and he was doing something that I couldn’t quite see. 

But… and this was clearly paranoia on my part… it looked like he was loading a gun. 

I watched him for several seconds that felt like several long minutes. 

Okay, yep, he was loading a gun. 

That was not paranoia. That was what he was doing.

That… didn’t feel like a good thing. 

I glanced back into the van. I had a bunch of kitchen stuff out. Olive oil, dishes, hot water on the stove for making coffee. How fast could I safely put things away? 

Then I heard a car door slam. I looked at the pickup truck again, and nothing had changed. No one else was there, just the guy with his gun. So I scooted over to the front of the van and yanked open the curtain that separates the seats from the kitchen. 

Another pickup truck was parked in front of me. Two men had gotten out. Both of them were carrying guns, too. 

And neither of them was remotely scary, because they were both wearing bright orange baseball caps on top of their camouflage. 

Hunters. 

Guess what October 15^th probably is in North Carolina? I say probably because I don’t know for sure, not having had internet access, but I’m going to guess that it is the opening day of deer-hunting season. Because for the next twenty minutes, while I packed up the van and got ready to go, truck after truck after truck drove up my remote forest road, carrying guys, guns, and dogs. Lots of dogs. Also more men with guns than I have ever seen in my life. Like, by a lot. Like, by an enormous amount. 

It was a party. A gun-toting, deer-hunting,* celebration of fall, party. 

By 9AM, I was on the road, driving cautiously to avoid hitting pickup trucks on the one-lane bridges. So many trucks, so many people. So not the glorious day of isolated writing in a beautiful spot that I was anticipating. 

But one of my travel games — a thing I think about to entertain myself when driving — is to try to remember an experience I’ve had in every state. And I am fairly sure that the moment of watching a guy load his gun while contemplating how fast I would be able to get the van moving will get to be North Carolina’s memory for a good long time. Maybe forever. 

*They could have been hunting something else. Do you need dogs to hunt deers? I am no expert, so I would google, but I have no internet, so can’t. Whatever they were hunting, it was not random women camping alone or small white dogs, so it was fine by me.