In search of warmth

We travel south now in search of warmer weather.  The days are OK, normally in the lower 70's while the nights are in the low 50's.  Good for sleeping under some warm blankets!

We stopped at the Florida Caverns State Park.  The cave is MUCH smaller than Mammoth Cave, only about a mile in total length, but there are a lot of stalagmites, stalactites, columns, and draperies in this cave.  It was a nice stop.

We are now at Mexico Beach in Florida.  It's in the pan handle area.  This isn't one of the big tourist areas, but the beaches look wonderful.  This morning I took a short walk on the beach.  Cool (literally), but relaxing.  I'm not sure, but the bird in the picture may be cold too.

By the way, with Florida, this makes 20 states we've visited in the RV. Not bad for only having the RV for 7 months.

Addictions

I must admit that I have been a Coke addict, Diet Coke specifically.  I loved Diet Coke!  Drinking six Diet Cokes a day was not unusual.  However, after reading so much about the side effects and now having the space constraints of a very small RV, I have finally kicked my habit.  I proudly announce that I have fought through the headaches and have gone several days without a Diet Coke.

A second addiction we are currently fighting is the TV habit.  We have several shows we used to think we couldn’t live without (Bones, NCIS, etc.).  Well, it turns out the whole RV satellite system is bad and our older receiver has some problems too.  And, by the way, it would be best if we upgraded our TV with a new HD flat screen.  So, we’ve decided we’re going to rely on cable (when a campground has it), DVD’s when it doesn’t, internet TV shows, and maybe just reading or taking walks in the evenings.  TV technology is changing fast along with the best method to get TV shows and movies.  I figure by the time we move back into a house we can buy the latest thing then.

One new/old hobby I’ve taken up is baking.  I baked bread a LONG time ago, but recently made some whole wheat bread.  Yes, I’m proud!

I’m not sure if I’ve used this term before, but I’m looking forward to seeing the ball-of-twine type of places.  Those are the little absurd places that no one in their right mind would want to see except in National Lampoon movies.  Apparently Minnesota proudly displays the largest ball of twine that one person has every made while Kansas has the largest ball of twine made by a town.  Yesterday we went to see the Boll Weevil Monument in Enterprise Alabama.  It is believed this is the only monument to honor an insect.  The story is that the boll weevil started killing cotton crops in 1918.  Because of this, farmers learned to diversify their crops and towns learned to add industries and not rely on farming only.  Not relying on one thing is a good lesson but a boll weevil monument is weird (and cool)!

We also went to the United States Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker.  It’s a pretty neat museum with examples of military helicopters and planes.  Interesting and good explanations.

A Yankee Perspective

As a Type A personality born and raised in Ohio, it has been interesting and perhaps frustrating on both sides talking with the people in the South.  I have found myself assuring people we are from Arkansas (which is true for the last 2 years) and trying to slow down.  But I have to admit the idea of waiting while the next person in line is discussing weather and family with the clerk is maddening.  Plus I’ve seen more than one askance look when they detect I am upset….deep breath…..  The other thing that is interesting is seeing all the Civil War references.  Besides seeing the Confederate flag, every location that a confederate soldier walked seems to be marked, and people even have pictures of their relatives in the war up in their businesses.  One thing that surprised me was that they did have a separate plaque dedicated to the Northern division that overtook one location. 

I've never seen a cotton field when it was ready picking.  We've been seeing large bales of cotton in many fields.  I made John stop while I took a picture of one of the fields.  I ran across the road to take this picture.  The empty road suddenly had a school bus on one side and a truck coming on the other side.  I'm sure I made them think "crazy yankee".  Growing up on the farm, I would have thought anyone crazy who took a picture of corn!

Southern wild plant life has been interesting too.  While we’ve seen Spanish moss draped over trees, we’ve seen much more kudzu.  In case you haven’t heard about this, kudzu was originally from Japan and considered to be great for erosion control.  However, it’s taken over much of the South and has been said to cover over seven million acres and destroys forests.  It actually looks pretty cool, like a green blanket over everything, but you can see that it is smothering the plants beneath it.

We’re staying for a week in southern Alabama to work on the RV.  There are several details that need fixed and solved.  Our short trips before we went full-time didn’t find all the problems.  Surprisingly or perhaps naively, we’ve also found that the people who sold us some items didn’t tell us all the problems with those items.  I guess you live and learn.

Today we drove to the nearby Kolomoki Mounds.  There are 8 mounds built between 250-950 AD by Native Americans.  Two of them are burial mounds.  A museum is built around one to show the mound excavation. Temple Mound is the largest mound and is thought to have been a religious center.  It surprised me to know such a large mound is here in the United States.  The mounds I’ve seen before tend to be fairly low.  This one is tall with a great view of a plaza area where there was a village below.  In the picture, there is a little dot at the bottom of the vertical line (stairs) which is John standing there.

Birmingham

We stayed a couple of days in a park near Birmingham.  Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is the perfect place to camp for Cindy as a member of a metals society!  This area has iron ore, coal, and limestone to make iron.  There are ironworks onsite that you can wander around plus several restored or reconstructed houses from the Civil War era including a blacksmith shop, a gristmill, and a slave cemetery.  The iron made at Tannehill was used for artillery and other items for the war.  There’s a small museum explaining the history with many of the pieces that were found in the area.

Continuing the metals theme in Birmingham meant we went to see the Vulcan cast iron statue and the Sloss Furnaces.  The statue was made for the 1905 St. Louis fair and now overlooks Birmingham. 

The Sloss Furnaces made iron from 1881-1971.  The actual furnaces were built in 1927; making these much more updated than the Civil War furnaces at Tannehill.  The funny part of this tour is that they had it set up for a haunted tour in the evenings.  Apparently Sloss Furnaces have been featured on one of the haunted shows on TV.  So, we had to walk around coffins and dead body pieces while touring the facility.

  

We also visited the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.   Very thought provoking.  There was a lot of information on the civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.  He recently passed away and public visitation will be held at this Institute this Sunday for him.

Camping in October has been interesting.  Many of the RV sites have been decorated for Halloween.  This campground has topped them with decorations.  Even though the big night for trick-or-treating is the 29^th, the sites are already decorated for a contest this weekend and the camp is full.  We were able to get one of the last sites that was available.

Men in the ladies room

Mammoth Cave is big (duh!).  At this point there is almost 400 miles of caves mapped while we saw only 2 miles of it.  There was a lot of history and geology on our tour.   Mammoth Cave doesn’t have many stalactites or stalagmites, but we did see the remnants of earlier visitors with smoke writing on the ceiling.  We also did some hiking at the campground and saw several deer along with many noisy squirrels and chipmunks.

At this time of the year it seemed like it was a young men’s park.  There were several small and large groups of guys here hiking in the woods and taking the cave tours.  I’m not sure why it’s such a “guy thing”.  During the tour we had a pit stop in restrooms inside the cave.  Perhaps it was the dim lighting for the Ladies sign, but as I left the ladies room I noticed the other occupant was a guy!  At least it was stalls only, so it was kinda funny. To top it off, the next morning I came into the ladies room at the camp ground.  There was a little boy (5?) by himself and brushing his teeth.  I decided to go about my business.  When I came out he was standing by the sink holding his hands over his ears.  I’m not sure if he was being gallant or what.

Lincoln

By the end of our travels, we expect to be much smarter.  We are learning something new (or remembering things we learned a long time ago) at every stop.  We both thought Illinois is where Abraham Lincoln came from.  Apparently he was born in Hogenville Kentucky and didn’t get to Illinois until he was 21.  The park is really in the middle of nowhere.  In the middle of the woods is this large memorial.  Very surprising. 

We’re finding that we’re not as connected as we used to be.  At this point I’m enjoying the fact.  Internet is only at campsites that have it (maybe ¾) plus have it working (less) and many times requires going to the office to stay within the range (1/2 of the working campgrounds).  Cell phone service is much spottier than I expected.  Plus, utilizes vary.  Most of the time we have electricity and we might have water, sewer, and cable.  We’re still learning what we can run off our batteries when we don’t have electricity.

Frankfort is the capital of Kentucky

OK, you probably know that Frankfort is the capital.  I guess I did, but it seems a small town in comparison to Lexington or Louisville.  Pretty nice to drive through, at least on weekends without an RV.  Frankfort is a good town to visit with plenty of smaller attractions that kept us busy for a couple of days.

We started by going to Rebecca Ruth Candies for a tour and some candy.  The place is pretty small but they make 3 million candies a year and 120 varieties.  The original owner (a lady) invented bourbon balls (chocolate covering a bourbon cream) and her grandson is running the place now.  I’ve never had a bourbon ball before, but they are an incredibly rich chocolate.  By the way, I thought the shop looked a bit like Honeydukes.

We walked around the capital building.  I was amazed at all the marble and columns in this place. 

Frankfort has a wildlife center that is pretty amazing for the price (free!).  It was sorta like a zoo, but the animals are all from Kentucky.  Inside they had live snakes, frogs, and bees along with several  stuffed animals.  Outside they had bobcats, a bear, an eagle, deer, elk, and several other local species.  There were also volunteers at the different stations that were quite knowledgeable to answer questions.

I had to go to the town’s cemetery (but didn’t get locked in this time).  Daniel Boone and his wife were buried here along with several (17) governors of Kentucky.  We thought the stone for Daniel Boone wouldn’t pass today’s PC police.  One side showed Boone fighting an Indian while Rebecca his wife was shown milking a cow.  Other interesting stones we saw included a veterans’ memorial and some interesting inscriptions like “Anne. Consort of Langon Sneed. Died 1812.”  Consort??  I guess that can mean a spouse, but I've only heard that used with royalty.

Finally, our last stop in Frankfort was at a bourbon distillery.  There are several (6) distilleries to visit in this area.  We went to the smallest and oldest one.  While I can’t say I like bourbon that much, it was an interesting tour.   Plus it smells much better than making beer.

Wind

I've seen the wind symbol on weather forecasts before.  It seemed a bit silly.  Wind is not rain, snow, or sun.  So what if it's a bit windy?  It never mattered when you sit inside a nice comfortable house.

"Wind" is a type of weather when you live in an RV.  John just spent the day fighting the wind while driving along the highway.  The larger surface area of an RV makes a big difference.  There were a few times where we ran over the rumble strips along the road when the wind suddenly pushed us.  This evening we sit in the RV and listen to the wind along with the drop of stick, leaves, and acorns on top of the RV.

The GPS lady played her tricks on us again.  And again we found wonderful local people to help us in an absurd situation in making a U-turn with a RV, dolly, and car.  With their help we found the campgrounds and are set for the night.

Comments

I've heard from several people that the comments still weren't working.  After a few changes, I think this will work now.  You do not need a google account. 
- Click on "x Comments" under the post (such as "0 Comments").
- Type the comment within the "Post a Comment" box.
- You can use either "Name/URL" or "Anonymous" as your profile.  You don't need to type in a URL.
- Click on "Post Comment" to finish.

Hope this works!!

Visiting family in West Virginia

We're taking a few days to visit John's sister and brother-in-law (Sue and Frank) in West Virginia.  On the way we stopped at New River Gorge Bridge.  It is the 3rd largest arch bridge and the 5th highest vehicular bridge in the world.  This Saturday is Bridge Day.  Every year they close the bridge to traffic and allow people to rappel, BASE jump, or high line off the bridge. Only trained people can rappel or BASE jump (parachute), but anyone can pay to high line.  It seems similar to ziplining.  Thousands of people come to watch. 

Frank and Sue live on a back road surrounded by a babbling brook, deer, and beautiful trees.  A gorgeous place to take a walk!  We need to spend a few days fixing up some things.  John has already fixed some wiring problems on the dolly.  Plus we get free laundry! 

Dolly problems

No, not a doll.  We have a dolly that we use to pull our car behind the RV.

In Virginia, we stopped for gas.  John is neurotic about walking around the RV and car every stop to check for problems.  Given that he found tire problems on our trip to Washington, I see his point but it gets to be annoying.  Plus, he seems to have every tool known to man packed away using valuable space.  Anyhow...

He found that the dust cover or cap came off the dolly axle.  That let out all the grease.  So now the bearings were heavily damaged. After pulling into an empty lot and using the tools John brought along and perhaps a few swear words, he was able to remove the wheel hub with the bearings.  A helpful guy from the area stopped and gave us directions to a nearby Tractor Supply Company.  John took the car to get parts.  We were back on the road within 2-1/2 hours, which is pretty good for a roadside repair needing parts.

Now he's going to be insufferable about checking the vehicles and needing more tools!

Gatlinburg

We've spent the last couple of days in Gatlinburg, Tennessee seeing some friends (Ron and Lynn).  None of us had been here before so we didn't know what to expect.  We spent one afternoon shopping downtime and seeing an arts and crafts fair.  I think we were all surprised at how crowded the streets are, but at least they had good fudge!  Oh, and I'm not supposed to tell the story how Ron forgot his car keys and we temporarily didn't have a way back to the RV park.

I took a walk behind the RV park the next morning and saw a small bear!  I'd just heard that the proper way to handle bears was to keep away from them and back away.  The bear immediately ran off into the woods.  At the same time I figured it was time to get back to the RV.  While I was walking away, I was getting ready for the next step where if they threaten you, you are supposed to open your jacket and look as big as possible while making a lot of noise.  Luckily, we both just got away from each other!

The second afternoon we went into Smoky Mountain National Park.  We walked to the top of Clingmans Dome.  It's only a 1/2 mile path but very steep so people were resting on the benches along the way.  Given John's leg, it was quite an accomplishment for him to climb it.  His leg is healing but it will take time.  Great views!  We could see peaks 40+ miles in the distance, though the typical mist that gives Smoky Mountains it's name made it difficult.  From online, "The Smokies are named for the blue mist that always seems to hover around the peaks and valleys. The Cherokee called them ..."place of the blue smoke".

Boondocking and our anniversary

Our first story is getting semi-stuck!  GPS lady (our polite name for this misbegotten technology) likes to take us on the smaller roads at times.  And once in awhile we hear "Please make a u-turn."  While that is OK in a car, our 26' RV plus a dolly and car has difficulties with u-turns.  We ended up turning around in a field with the permission of this little old lady who had never seen such a big rig like ours.  At least we got to meet the locals!  Later we made another wrong turn which required us to disconnect the dolly and car to make the turn.  It was frustrating but we coped.

This week we did our first boondocking.  It was a state park, but no fees and no utilities.  It was dark and quiet early in the evening.  No security lights that shine in the windows.  Definitely more like real camping then the typical RV park.  The park is where Meriweather Lewis (of the Lewis and Clark Expedition fame) died by either murder or suicide. No one seems to know for sure.

Speaking of meeting locals, our neighbor at the campgrounds was a guy that reminded me of my dad.  He put together whatever he had to make things work.  Our camping neighbor put together a truck, camper, a small wagon, along with things like a wheelbarrow to sleep in, mailboxes for storage, and a confederate flag for the front.  He has driven his camper in every state except Hawaii.  His stories were very interesting!

Next day was our 20th anniversary.  We celebrated with champagne, steak and shrimp cocktail on a picnic table outside our RV.  Pretty good!

Technical Comments and Memphis

Thought I'd include a couple definitions and details.  We had a friend ask how to add comments.  As far as I can tell, you need to set up a profile in an account like Google. Go to www.google.com then click "Sign In" near the top on the right. This gives you an option at the top right to sign up for a new account.  You might also need to be a Follower of the blog, but I'm not sure about that one.  Sorry about this, but since the blog is free I can't complain. At least signing up with Google doesn't seem to mean more spam.

I'll use a few RV terms in this blog.  Full-timers are people like us that don't have a permanent home anymore and live exclusively in an RV.  Supposedly there are one million full-timers in the U.S., but no one seems to know where that number came from.  Toads are the vehicle you pull behind your mobile home.  This makes it easier to sight see in the area.  Some people have scooters or motorcycles, most, like us, pull a small car.  Boondocking is camping for free and normally without any electrical or water hookups.  Generally this mean camping away from everyone in places like national forests.  Blacktop boondocking is a subset of the this.  You can stay at many Walmart parking lots, truck stops, or rest areas. 

On to our trip...we are staying near Memphis for a couple of days.  The RV park is situated right on the Mississippi so watching barges go by is a relaxing activity. It's an interesting park.  Apparently it was under several feet of water earlier this year.  Since it floods so often they have things like bathrooms on wheels that they remove during floods.

We drove our toad into Memphis.  We drove past Graceland, since neither of us had a burning desire to take the tour.  Instead we went to Sun Studio.  This is the place that discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis.  Interesting tour!  Besides doing some errands like groceries, we also had barbecue while we were in Memphis.