What an amazing Friday with 25 brothers in Christ.

We met in Wilkesboro at 9am for breakfast, sign in, sign up for competitions. I signed up for the pistol competition, axe throwing and corn hole. I did not shoot trap. Following breakfast we had a caravan of 10 trucks, a Jeep and a couple of cars we had to leave at the bottom of the road.

Okay, my cell connection is not good enough to upload pictures. I have some great ones to share, so stay tuned for those.

We had a nice lunch which included potato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches and lots of home made desserts. The bond fire is going, tents are set up and the competitions are almost complete.

This is the first time my F-150 has ran off road in many years. The road in is about four miles of narrow single lane. There where maybe 50+ trees down that were cleared the week after the hurricane. It was pretty tight getting through some areas and we had to drive under one tree.

The host has 30 acres up on top of the mountain off Hwy 18. We took some roads I did not know existed to get around the two roadblocks on Hwy 18 caused by the hurricane.

They had a bear join the event last year late at night, and they killed a rattle snake earlier in the week setting up for this men's retreat.

I'll post some pictures as soon as possible.

 

Meeting for breakfast.



Running north on Hwy 18 out of Wilkesboro.









The leaves are turning colors. Beautiful.



We hit the dirt road. About three miles to his property gate. Then another 1.5 miles to the cabin.

Dozens of trees down from the hurricane.

 

This weather looks really nice.

 

All the competitions were a lot of fun. I did not win any. Oh well!



























Lunch was potato soup and grill cheese sandwiches.



The cabin was built in three stages. It now sleeps 20 people in bunks. Very primitive with no power or running water. They use a battery pack for lights.

I slept in my truck bed tent. There were 6 tents set up on the ground and one guy in a hammock.

 

Dinner on Friday evening was polish sausage with all the fixings. Then we had a very special treat. They cooked both apple and cherry cobbler on the Dutch ovens at the fire pit for dessert.












While the dessert was cooking we had an hour of fellowship. The owner of the property had prepared a devotional and we had a lot of nice interaction. Then we ate once again and I turned in for the night. I heard men talking up to 2pm. At midnight I got a somewhat expected surprise when they shot two Tannerite Targets. That was impressive in the middle of the night!

 

I was woken by 5 to 6 coyotes about 5:30 this morning. Something had really excited them.

At 6am I heard a lot of voices coming from near the fire pit and go on up.

We were going to do a group picture at 8am with breakfast following shortly.

I worked with my buddy to lable plastic zip lock bags and break two eggs into each.









Others were pealing potato's, making sausage patties and cooking bacon.
























After the group picture with everyone accounted for we passed out the omelet bags and everyone stuff3d them with the ingredients they like and dropped them in the boiling water.






A few minutes later they were ready, we asked the blessing and enjoyed another great meal.



Following breakfast the cleanup began, and we all started packing up. One young man was practicing his axe throwing and two others were getting in a little last minute target practice.

The final thing before we all departed was another group meeting around the fire pit with a devotional from one of the men.

What an amazing group of Godly men to be around. I was so blessed to be invited and had a wonderful time.

Praise God for his amazing love, grace and mercy. It was such a beautiful place with perfect weather.



The pictures do not show the difficulty of this road. I used 4 wheel low all the way out. The really tough areas would not allow me to take pictures and safely maneuver.

 

Final post of the two day Brotherhood Retreat in the NC mountains.




Once we made it back to Hwy 18 we had to head north to NC Game Road which by the way is cool. I'll be riding this tight, curvey road again. It dumped us back onto Hwy 18 south of the washout / Landslide. It is strange not seeing any traffic. Leaves are heavy because they are not being blown off my the cars and trucks.

I'll leave you with a few shots from Hwy 18 back toward Wilkesboro.


















It's nice being back home with the Carolina Girl. All my gear is cleaned and put away. I have a super dirty dusty truck that will have to wait for another day. I'm tired and HUNGRY if you can believe it!

Ride safe, spend time with friends and always give thinks to the Lord.

 

Looks like a great time. I think the CVO would have made it up there if you put some knobby tires on.

 

Yeah, the Million Dollar Bogan or Scooter Tramp could have navigated that effortlessly with a full dresser! LOL