24 May 2023

1415  54,860  Leave Home

1541  54,931  Reidsville, NC

We’re here for an overnight stay and will wander home tomorrow.

Lakeside site 43 was $28 with electric

We had 2 bars Verizon LTE service and excellent views of visiting waterfowl.

We met Judy, Gary and Gracie migrating north from Florida. It is always good to catch up with family.

Several hiking trails leave from the campground.

Here’s the campground and trail map.

(click any image to enlarge it)

Great Blue Herons like this one flew in and out checking to see if anyone fishing might share their catch.

Morning brought “smoke” on the water as the air temps were cooler than normal.

Beth and Judy had good sister time.

Sites that back to the water are the most popular. Campground loop roads are well packed dirt and gravel.

The restrooms and showers were closed due to a plumbing leak, so we can’t report on them.

Judy, Gary and Gracie headed west to explore Kentucky next.

We drove nine winding miles north to walk the Chinqua-Penn Trail.

Here’s the story from a trailside sign…

“In the mid-1920’s, Thomas Jefferson (Jeff) Penn and his wife Margaret (Betsy) Schoellkopf Penn built Chinqua-Penn Plantation, named for the chinquapin, a dwarf chestnut. Using local logs and stone quarried on the farm, they erected a 27-room English country home.

Their wish was to make it “a place of personality.”” 

Even this picnic pavilion was made of local stone.

Bamboo lined the far side of the stream named Betsy’s Branch.

This stone pump house was used to feed water up to the greenhouses and gardens close to the Penn’s home.

A few mountain laurel blooms were holding on in the woodland shadows.  Their season is just about over.

This pond is retained by a 30 foot high dam that spans 157 feet across. Electric lights set in embedded millstones added a festive setting for night time parties starting in 1935.

My favorite spot was on the back side of the dam where a plaque read:

“May we stop this silent stream so that its waters may kiss the garden of love and beauty and make the flowers and their perfume bloom and cheer this Betsy Branch on its ever flowing way to do its duty and bring life and happiness, wherever its waters may wander.”

Jeff and Betsy Penn – June 1935

The 1.75 mile loop trail passed a cattle pasture before finishing back at the parking lot.  

NC State University uses the farm for agricultural research.

It is a delightful walk with just enough hills to get a little workout. Leashed dogs are welcome and we passed quite a few on our visit.

The house is not open to the public, but Beth took a snapshot as we drove by the gate.

The buildings behind the hedge look interesting.

Driving twenty-nine miles south brought us to Gibsonville, NC where a large Garden Railway operates weekly in the town park.

We were a day early, but it was still fun to see the structures and layout.

This large suspension bridge is a central feature.

Saturdays can be busy with many trains running at once.  Folks are welcome to bring their own G gauge trains to run on the club layout.

Our last stop before home was in Burlington, NC at the Company Shops Station.

Signage here told of the building’s history:

“Originally a locomotive maintenance shop and engine house built circa 1870 as part of the NC Railroad Company Shops. NCRR used this shop to repaoir steam locomotives until 1886. A fire in 1918 destroyed much of the Shops; only the engine house remains intact.”

The restored building serves dual use as an Amtrak station and the local Police station. It is worth stopping, just to see the large photos with 3D pop-outs in the atrium.  One is of a modern diesel…

and the other is of an 1800’s steam engine.

Also interesting to me was a nicely modeled N scale diorama of the NCRR facilities that once surrounded this building.

After checking the schedule, we waited ten minutes for the eastbound Piedmont to arrive. The City of Cary was the pusher locomotive today.

Click on the video above to see the Piedmont arriving in Burlington. Check out the names of the passenger cars as they slide by.

From Burlington, it was only 32 miles home to Durham. We took US 70 instead of I-85 and enjoyed the slower pace.