Skyland Camp and Cashiers, NC

Well, hello there.  Long time no see.  How ya’ll been doin’?

Thanks to my sister’s neighbor, Pam, I have been motivated to catch you up on the goins’ on over the past 10 or so days.

Let’s see, after I left the Great Smokey Mountains, I headed about 30 miles east to Clyde, NC and Skyland Camp for Girls, my childhood summer camp.  Sing with me, “On a hill not far from Clyde – You could find it if you tried – Lots of girls in green and white – Sing camp songs on Sunday nights…”  What wonderful memories I have of those many summers on Skyland Hill.  I was 12 years old my first summer there and kept going every summer, moving from camper to Counselor In Training to Counselor along the way until I was 20 years old.  Go Big Tro!

Here’s a shot from the Chalet overlooking the upper portion of the camp.  You can see the barn, the riding ring, and if you look closely, you may be able to make out the tennis courts in the trees just above the barn.  Skyland was founded in 1917 and has been run by the same family ever since.  If anyone is interested in learning more, you can visit their website at www.skylandcamp.com.

Here is a shot of the now retired Director, Bunny Brown alongside Mark Rathbone, a well-respected local man without whom Skyland Camp as we know it would not have been possible.  The donkey is Mark’s friend, Jake.  I wasn’t introduced to the cow, so can’t tell you her name.

While staying with Bunny at Skyland for a few days, I got Dora all lined up to have her compartment door repaired and visited with an old camp friend, Suzanne Hoover Klimek, who now lives nearby.  This is Suzanne rocking on top of Chambers Mountain after our hike up with her husband Alan in the background.  Everyone say hi to Hoover and Alan!

It took a few days to get organized after driving the 5,810 miles it took to get from Anchorage to Clyde, so I didn’t get down to my parents house until this past Monday, but here I am now in Cashiers (pronounced CASH-urs), in the far southwestern corner of  NC.  My family has a long history of spending summers in this neck of the woods too, so I’ve been enjoying being here again.  This is a shot of the view from my parents porch.  That is Rock Mountain on the left and Chimney Top on the right.

The leaves are beginning to turn on the sugar maples.

This is the High Hampton Inn.  When I was a young child, my family drove up here for summer vacations to escape the Florida heat as did my Mother and my Mother’s Mother before her.

This is the view across the lake to Rock Mountain as seen from the Inn.

This section of the lake was developed for swimming, boating, fishing, etc.  I remember sitting around here fishing with a hand line.  In my case, a hand line consisted of a stick with a length of white string tied to it.  My Dad tied a safety-pin to the end of the string to serve as a hook, and I used a single corn nibblet as bait.  No, I never caught anything, but at age 6, I sure had fun trying.

And finally, this is Biscuit, the resident pot-bellied pig at the local Farmer’s Market.

That’s it for now.  Dora is supposed to be ready for pick up tomorrow, if so, my parents and I will drive up to Clyde to get her.  They haven’t met her yet and are anxious to do so.  What fun.  I love showing Dora to interested parties.

Oh, and for those of you wondering about my finances, I have a job interview set up in Charlotte for October 4^th.  Hopefully, I’ll be a revenue generating traveling salesman shortly after that.  I’ll keep you posted, so stay tuned.