Travel Stage: Boondocking in Huntersville, North Carolina
Date Range: Nov 23 – December 18
Summary: After leaving our campground in Lexington, we go to Huntersville to boondock on a friend’s property, which will hereafter be referred to as “The Farm.” We have a lot of fun at the Farm and Lake Norman, meet some more full-time RVers, and do some manual labor to refill the coffers ;).
Date Range: Nov 23 – December 18
Summary: After leaving our campground in Lexington, we go to Huntersville to boondock on a friend’s property, which will hereafter be referred to as “The Farm.” We have a lot of fun at the Farm and Lake Norman, meet some more full-time RVers, and do some manual labor to refill the coffers ;).
The Farm
So after we departed from Lexington, North Carolina we made the short 1 hour drive down to Huntersville to boondock without water OR electric hookup on our family friends’ farm. Here is our fabulous spot!
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About the water and electric bit – we filled up our 100 gallon fresh water tank before we left our last campground and we have our wonderful Honda generator to supply electricity when we need it. (We can run it about 8 hours per gallon of gas on average!) We draw straws for who has to go start it in the morning and shut it down at night 😉
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Besides tearing around the farm on the tractor and the four-wheeler as shown in our Vlog #11…
Our First Extended Boondocking Experience on the Road - Furnace stopped working! | MOTM VLOG #11
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…we have been exploring the area a bit. We’ve so far stuck to the Huntersville-Cornelius-Davidson area, which is along the southeast shorline of Lake Norman.
Lake Norman Lake Norman is a gigantic lake formed by the damming of the Catawba River between 1959 and 1964 as part of the construction of the Cowans Ford Dam by Duke Energy. So it is essentially a man-flooded river, and there were literally roads and trees that used to be under its surface. I guess they even found an airplane down there. Whoops!
It has 520 miles of shoreline and a surface area of more than 50 square miles! Recently we’ve had some spectacular sunny and seventy+ degree December days, and we’ve had the amazing opportunity to spend these days on our friend’s boat. We took a quick trip over to see the energy plant and the dam, and to see some of the other residences and sights on the lake…
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The Nuclear Energy Plant near the Cowans Ford Dam. Nuclear + Hydroelectic = power for everyone in this growing area!
HUGE fancy houses like this were everywhere along this lake. We found ourselves wondering what do they do with all that space? We like our tiny house just fine 🙂
And yes…there was a helicopter platform on the lake (we heard this wasn’t the only one too!) Hard to keep up with these Joneses! Still, pretty cool idea.
…but mostly just enjoying the sunshine and the boat ride!
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This is the place our friends joked that we might fall in love with and end up staying before our journey began. These friends were looking find a place 5 years ago to open a restaurant and perhaps a bed and breakfast. They found the charming town of Davidson, and now own a restaurant on Main Street. It is called The Pickled Peach, and if you are in the area you need to make sure you stop in and try their food! It is delicious, honest, homemade food sourced from local farmers and merchants. Yum!
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One of the things that our friends love about the area is that you can drive 2 hours north and be in the Blue Ridge Mountains. This gets you to the Boone area. We took a few days to visit Boone and Banner Elk, but that too will be another blog post Coming Soon!
Also, the area is pretty much booming with lots of opportunities. It’s only about 30 minutes from the city of Charlotte, which is North Carolina’s largest city. We are planning a trip to the city before we leave, but that will be covered in another blog post coming soon!
Not All Fun and Sun – Making Money While We TraveL
We’ve also been working quite a bit around here (in addition to our own business). Our friends have had a few handy-man jobs to do around the restaurant and around the farm. We’ve also solicited work in the area, and succeeded in helping a gentleman move, and getting an offer to be a traveling sales representative, among others. One of our jobs at The Pickled Peach is documented here in Vlog #12:
Finding Jobs on the Road - Balancing Work and Play | MOTM VLOG #12
More Full Timers Like Us!
We had the chance to meet another RV couple! The “Vandy Vagabonds” reached out to us, and we met Alexandra and Jeremy for coffee in Davidson. Turns out they launched on their adventure around the same time we did, so are also relatively new to the full time status. They also had lived in the Lake Norman area before. We had so much fun with these guys, sharing stories and ideas and hearing about their former lives and aspirations for the future – it was one of those get-togethers where you look at your watch and are surprised 2 hours has gone by! Check them and their two canine counterparts out at their website here!: http://www.vandyvagabonds.com/
Photo cred: The Vandy Vagabonds | Instagram @vandyvagabonds
What better way to conclude a blog post than with a smiley picture of 4 happy travelers! (Recognize the location? Notice the nicely finished door panels in the background? lol)
Thanks for reading, and we hope you are having a smiley day, too! 🙂
Scott and Judy Shriver
Friday 4th of December 2020
Hello Cait and Tom, Just read your North Carolina adventure Trip story, We live in Concord NC. so its just a small jump to the towns of Davidson and Lake Norman. I have been communicating with you guys on several topics for our truck Camper (Northern Lite). Thanks for all the great info! If you are in this area again please give us a shout out, we are devoted truck camper people, having fun traveling and camping.
Mortons on the Move
Friday 4th of December 2020
Thank you, Scott and Judy! We're glad you're finding our truck camper information helpful. :)