A beautiful sunny Autumn Day complete with sunshine and big white fluffy clouds. A cool 39F when we got up this morning, but it has warmed up nicely to the mid 60’s. The autumn colors are starting to show in the higher elevations. It’s the right moment for a hike.
I asked some locals about a good hike to see the foliage. It was suggested to hike up to the top of Albert Mountain and climb up an old abandon fire tower for a great view. I was also told, it required traveling 11 miles on forest service minimum maintained gravel roads with several turn-offs. I like it when there is a challenge in the adventure.
With a full tank of gas and the GPS coordinates set, we were off to Albert Mountain Fire Tower. The forest service road entrance was only 13 miles from our RV site, but it took us a couple of hours driving on the gravel road to finally reach the mountain.
The trail is well marked and the climb at times was steep. But once we reached the top, we forgot about the climb and marveled at the magnificent view.
It’s that time of year where there are a lot of festivals happening in the area. Each town has their flavor of a festival. In our little town of Franklin, its Pumpkin Festival time.
This is Franklin’s 25th year of the Pumpkin Roll contest. The story is told that 25 years ago, the towns chamber wanted to decorate the town with pumpkins. One chamber member reacted “saying that the kids will take the pumpkins and roll them down the hill for fun”. With that thought, the chamber came up with the annual Pumpkin Roll contest.
This year, there were over 200 roll contestant. Each contestant brought their pampered pumpkin to see if it was the one that would roll in the middle of the street the furthest. Last years winner was a 11 year old boy. His pumpkin rolled over 800 feet without crashing. His reward was a crisp $100 bill.
A great time of the year for traveling in North Carolina 👍.