Hello From Arkansas

Hello from Arkansas!  Well just barely, we are in West Memphis, just across the state line from Tennessee and are at Tom Sawyer RV Park on the banks of the Big Muddy! We left home a week ago today, and have had a great trip so far. Our granddaughter, Bailey, has been traveling with us this past week but had to go home yesterday to start getting ready for college next month. We really enjoyed her company and was sad to see her leave.

Our first night was spent in Sevierville, Tn. where we stayed at Riverside RV Park.  We showed Bailey around the Pigeon Forge area, where the crowds and traffic were as crazy as ever. We had a nice dinner at Cracker Barrell and turned in early to get ready for the second leg of our trip . We left the next morning headed to Nashville, where we stayed at Seven Points Corp of Engineers campground located on Lake Piercy. We booked our site for 2 nights and enjoyed using our America the Beautiful pass (Geezer Pass) to get the senior rate of $11/night.  We decided the best way to show Bailey around was to book a tour of Nashville. I checked Trip Advisor and found a tour highly recommended with good reviews. The tour was Really Entertaining Tours and lucky for us, they had a slot open for us the next day. The tour was on an electric vehicle similar to a souped up golf cart.  Our guide, Ryan, went the extra mile to give us an excellent overview of the legacy and history of Music City and showed us a great time with his entertaining wit and knowledge. If you know anyone going to Nashville, and looking for a tour, have them hook up with Ryan for a good time. Early Wednesday morning we hit I-40 headed west to Memphis, where we are now. I haven't mentioned the hot weather, but it's been so oppressively hot that we didn't want to be out of the AC for very long and has affected our outdoor activities. We did book another tour in Memphis with Backbeat Tours. Our tour was a group of about 35 and was on a bus with marginal air conditioning. The tour was called the Mojo tour and traveled to areas where the blues genre of music was born, as well as other historical points of interest..  We had a professional musician on the bus who entertained us with songs of the era and spoke to significant events that occurred in areas we traveled. The tour was OK, but not as good as Ryan in Nashville. We also visited the Peabody Hotel to check out the March of the Ducks, which happens every day at 11Am and 5PM. If you're not familiar with them, click on the link for the scoop on the ducks.  One of our favorite stops was the Bass Pro Shop adjacent to the I-40 bridge in Memphis. This Bass pro Shop is housed in a huge pyramid and is the 4th largest in the world. It has a 300 ft freestanding elevator that goes to the top where there is a restaurant and observation decks on 2 sides of the pyramid. The inside is constructed to a swamp theme with spanish moss, cypress trees, several streams and ponds with fish, ducks, alligators and many aquariums. Needless to say, the gators are confined in a glassed in area. The structure includes a hotel, 2 restaurants, archery range and a bowling alley. Pretty cool place.

We plan to hit the road again in the morning (Monday) and plan to travel to Ozark, Arkansas where we plan to stay at Aux Arc Corp of Engineers park for a couple of days. Stay tuned for more updates and whisper a prayer for our safe travels.

Riverside RV Park, Sevierville, Tn.

Our Site, 215

General Jackson Paddewheel boat on Cumberland River in Nashville. Nissan stadium, where Tennessee Titans play in background.

Broadway Street in Nashville at night.

We were sure glad to have this nice shade.

Our Site, 32 at Seven Points COE

 

My Co-Pilot conked out!

Our tour bus wasn't air conditioned like this one!

Music City Center

Our Tour Vehicle

Panoramic Shot of Nashville

Scenic overlook with our group. Can you tell we're hot!

Our Site at Tom Sawyer, 95

The tall good looking guy on the right is Ryan of Really Entertaining Tours.

                                               

Entrance tp Peabody Hotel

Here come the ducks. Best picture we could get because it got really crowded.

They save the inside for children, as they should!

The guy in the red coat is the duck master

The ducks walk the red carpet to ride the middle elevator up to the penthouse,  er, duck house on the top floor!

Waterfront park alongside the Mississippi. You can see the Pyramid in the background.

You can see the swamp theme.

Crickett and Bailey in front of Bruno.

Bailey at observation area near top of pyramid.

Looking down

Panaromic Shot from the top.

I had to twist MeeMee's arm to get her on the observation deck.

I-40 Bridge across the Mississippi. The river is the Tennessee/Arkansas state line.

On the Road Again!

Hello to our family and friends in blogger land! Are you ready to share another adventure with us? Crickett and I are in the final stages of preparation and plan to hit the road Sunday, July 17. This trip will be ambitious in that we plan to travel about 8500 miles which will take us through about 20 states and will take about four months. We plan to visit some of the same areas and attractions as our 2014 trip and will further explore those areas as well as take in many new parts of our country. Our granddaughter, Bailey, will travel with us the first week of this trip as far as Memphis, but will have to return home to get ready for her freshman year at Western Carolina University. The rest of the trip will just be my co-pilot and myself. We have several friends we hope to connect with along the way and look forward to seeing them again. Basically, this trip will be another large loop where we plan to travel I-40 west to Albuquerque and then turn north into Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana before turning west into Washington and then travel south down the entire west coast into San Diego where we will turn east and begin our trek back home. I've included a map that shows our planned route, but is tentative at best. The yellow blocks on the map are navigation waypoints and have no significance. There is a saying among RVer's that travel plans are made in jello, and that certainly applies to us and this trip.

I would like to welcome our new blog followers and hope you enjoy riding with us on our next journey. The pictures in the blog are enlargeable by clicking on them and then clicking on the X in the upper right hand corner to return to the blog. Our two previous blogged trips can be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom and clicking on the “older post” link on the bottom. Also, in the right margin are links to blogs I follow. The counter at the top of the page is a running count of the number of page views of the blog. Comments are welcome and can be left in the comment link at the bottom of the blog, or can be replied to in the email notification. If anyone wants to be removed from our notification list, drop me an email and I will be happy to do so. 

Merry Christmas

As we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Crickett and I want to wish all our family, friends, and blog followers a joyous Christmas and a blessed and prosperous new year. It's hard to believe another year has passed, but this year has been a good year, and one we won't soon forget.

We have a yearly tradition of venturing to the NC mountains every year in search of that perfect Christmas tree and this year was no exception. We made the trip this year with our daughter, Pam, her husband, Rick along with our grandchildren, Bailey, Zach and our grand-dog, Cooper.  We went to the Twin Pines Nursery in Newland, NC and were successful in our quest! After getting our trees we went to the Mason Jar Cafe in Newland for lupper, which was pretty good but in no hurry to return. On the way back down the mountains, we were treated to a beautiful sunset that was one of the most unusual I've seen. The whole sky was illuminated with beautiful pastel colors of all shades and was impressive against the silhouette of the mountains.

We do have more travel plans on the drawing board for the coming year and are looking forward to making more memories on the road exploring our beautiful country.

Crickett and I with our tree behind us. We had to cut about 2 foot off the bottom of the tree as it was too big but couldn't find another we liked as well.

Crickett and I with our grandson, Zachary.

Our grandson, Zach, our daughter, Pam, our granddaughter, Bailey, and our grand-dog, Cooper.

Our tree after we finished decorating it.

One of our favorite ornaments. The ornament in the top right hand corner is one I had when I was a child, It's about 60 years old!

Stunning sunset we were treated to. Most unusual.

On the way home

Well first off, my apologizes to our family and friends who follow our blog for being slack and not posting in almost a month. We are back home in Shelby, NC and trying to get things back in some kind of order. My last post was in Memphis, Tn where we had a great time at the Tom Sawyer campground on the Mississippi. When we left Memphis, our next stop was Nashville, Tn for three days. We camped at the Seven Points Corp of Engineers Campground on Percy Priest Lake about ten miles east of Nashville. This is one of the better campgrounds we've enjoyed and at $11.00/night with the old fart's pass, was quite a bargain. The only negative was no sewer hookup, which is the same for most Corp campgrounds but was no issue for us as we were only there three days. It started raining when we left Memphis and rained all the way to Nashville and didn't stop the entire time we were there. On top of the rain, it was cold and dreary and not fit weather to be outside. The only thing we did while in Nashville was to visit the American Archaeology store which we had seen on American Pickers. The store was exactly as it appears on TV and was interesting but couldn't find anything in our price range that piqued our interest. The rest of our time in Nashville was spent riding around seeing the sites and eating out.
      Our next stop was Sevierville, Tn near Pigeon Forge. We stayed at Riverside RV Park and had a nice pull through site with full hook ups for $32/night. Not bad for a decent park in a good location. The leaf colors were pretty close to peak and we felt certain the area would be crowded, which it was. Our first destination was Cades Cove, which we haven't been to in many years. The drive there and through the park provided spectacular leaf color. We did get to see quite a lot of wildlife there including a mama bear and her two cubs, wild turkeys, and a herd of deer. We rode the entire loop through the cove and suffered through the bumper to bumper traffic. The next day we traveled Highway 441 through the Smokey Mountain National Park to Cherokee, NC.  We visited the casino while there and made a contribution to the Cherokee fund and headed back across the mountain to our home on wheels in Sevierville.  As soon as we got to the east entrance of the Smokey Mountain NP, we spotted a large herd of elk grazing in a large meadow beside the highway. We, along with five thousand other folks stopped to shoot a few pictures. This part of the highway is four lanes and they had the inside lane blocked off for folks to stop and take pictures so I assume this must be a regular occurrence. We counted 22 elk in this herd with several large bull elk.
          We've had another great trip seeing parts of our country that were new to us and have made many new friends along the way and visited with several long time friends. We especially enjoyed having our granddaughter, Bailey, with us the first part of the trip where we made wonderful memories. We are truly blessed to be able to travel as we have and look forward to many more travels. Lastly, thanks to our family, friends and followers for traveling along with us and your many comments.
       Here is a summary of this trip: We were on the road about 16 weeks, we traveled in excess of 9,000 miles, we traveled through 15 states, took over 4,000 photographs and there were over 4,000 page views on the blog.

Entrance to Riverside RV Park in Sevierville, Tn.

Our Site for 5 nights

The mountains were alive with color. This was taken on the way to Cades Cove.

The yellow leaves were especially pretty.

This shot was taken at the I-40 rest area near the NC Tennessee state line. If I'm not mistaken, that's a maple tree.

Colorful leaves in Cades Cove.

Mama bear with her 2 cubs. Needless to say, traffic was backed up quite a distance. I took this shots from inside the truck, but there were several "smart" folks who approached the bears taking pictures. A ranger showed up and ran the people back to their vehicles after they received a scolding!

We were lucky in that they crossed the road right in front of us, so we were able to have a good view.

This is the "new" Methodist Church that was built in 1902. The original church dated back to 1820. The church cemetery is to the right in this picture with many graves dating back to the 1800's. 

Inside the Cades Cove Methodist Church.

There was an old piano in the church that still worked. Crickett played a little to see if she remembered how.

Pretty tree in church cemetery.

Cades Cove Missionary Baptist Church founded in 1839. This building was built in 1915.

Serviceman's grave  in church cemetery. Notice the coins on the grave marker. A coin left on a headstone or at the grave site is meant as a message to the deceased soldier's family that someone else has visited the grave to pay respect. Leaving a penny at the grave means simply that you visited. A nickel indicates that you and the deceased trained at boot camp together, while a dime means you served with him in some capacity. By leaving a quarter at the grave, you are telling the family that you were with the soldier when he was killed.This tradition is more common in National Cemeteries, such as Arlington National Cemetery.

View of back of church and cemetery.

This RV was parked in the church parking lot. I'm not sure if it's considered a class A or class C. It was from from Germany. Pretty unusual to see a foreign RV here in the states.

We saw a flock of turkeys in this meadow, but they're not visible in this photo.

These deer were actually further away than they look here. Shot was taken at full zoom and then some serious cropping to get this close.

Shot of Gatlinburg from one of the overlooks on the way back from Cades Cove.

Herd of elk we came across on the way back from Cherokee.

After leaving Cherokee we came back across the mountain on US441 and hit stopped traffic just after passing the crest of the mountains. I surmised there was some wildlife spotted and folks were going slow to take pictures. Well, evidently that wasn't the case as traffic was this way all the way back to Gatlinburg. I could have walked back faster than traffic was moving. My only explanation was that there was more traffic than the road could handle.

Traffic behind us. Notice anything unusual about this shot? It looks like the traffic is on the wrong side of the road, but is actually correct because this picture was taken in my rear view mirror, which  reversed the image. It took us over 2 hours to get back down the mountain.