Honeycomb Campground, Guntersville, AL - June 12 - 15, 2017

We're home from our first camping trip of the year.  We went to Honeycomb Campground, near Guntersville, Alabama.  My only complaint is that the trip wasn't long enough!  We were too late in deciding where to go, and too late in making reservations, and were not able to stay in the campsite past Wednesday night. 

We arrived Monday afternoon.  Although our telephone map programs estimated that it was a 4.5 hour drive, and although we pretty much drove the speed limit all the way, it turned out to be more like a 6-hour trip, driveway to campsite.  We stayed in campsite #44, which is right on the edge of Guntersville Lake.  It was plenty long enough for our 32-foot camper, plus the truck, with room for at least one more car.  The campground has water and electric hookups, but no sewer hookup.  The park has a poop truck that will come around and empty holding tanks for a small fee.

After setting up camp Monday afternoon, we pretty much did nothing but sit and look at the water.  To me, the area around Guntersville is one of the most beautiful places in the U.S.  Guntersville Lake is HUGE - somewhere around 60,000 acres, if I remember correctly.  It's good for boating and fishing.  We had a couple of rods & reels in the camper, and we broke them out and fished a little.  Unfortunately, the area of the lake immediately in front of our camper was crammed with vegetation.  I did snag one little bass out of the grass, but mostly I caught tree trout, stick salmon, and grass cat.  ;)

Tuesday morning, we drove to Steele, Alabama, where there's a little place called Horse Pens 40.  I have been wanting to check it out ever since I found out about it.  The main reason I wanted to go there was that my daddy's ancestors settled in that area in the early 1800s, and I wanted to see it.  The second reason was that they have music festivals there, and campsite hookups (just water and electricity), and I want to go to one of the festivals.  Besides the music festivals, the main attraction is rock climbing (which you will not catch me doing in this lifetime).  We were not thoroughly impressed with the campsites.  It's not the best place for lazy campers, like us, who just want to sit around and admire the scenery.  The rock formations were pretty unique, though, and the area, in general, is beautiful.  We walked the trails a little bit, took a few pictures.  It was hot, though, and we were there in the middle of the day, so we didn't hang around too long.  One word of caution if you're thinking of taking a camper up there:  don't try to get there from State Route 42.  That way is steep, with hairpin curves that will let you see your own tail lights before you make it around the bend!  Take highway 11, instead; it's must easier.

I said, "Climb that rock and let me take your picture."

This is as far as he got.  ;)

The stage at Horse Pens 40.

When we left Horse Pens 40, we decided to take Highway 11 to see what it was like.  It was just our luck that right up there on top of Chandler Mountain, there is ZERO cell phone service (at least, none that we could find).  When we got to the first intersection, we flipped a coin and, naturally, chose the wrong direction.  Still, it was an interesting drive.  They grow tomatoes on Chandler Mountain - acres and acres and ACRES of tomatoes.  I've never seen so many tomato plants in one place in my life!  Eventually, we found our way out.  By the time we to back to "civilization," we were starving.  We have a road rule:  no eating at chain restaurants while traveling.  This seriously limited our choices in Attalla, the first town we came to, so we kept driving up to Boaz, or maybe it was Albertville (hard to tell where one town stops and the other begins), and found a place called "Bubba Rito's."  Hmmm...why not?  It turned out to be pretty good.  They fixed us a big old quesadilla and a big old burrito that fed us for both lunch and dinner.  Good thing, too, because about all we had in the refrigerator was milk, butter, and eggs. 

Wednesday morning after breakfast, we fished a little more.  Caught a bunch of seaweed again, and two pretty good sunburns, but no fish.  Later that afternoon, my cousin Rhonda, who lives about 20 minutes away, came over with her cute little granddaughter and spent the afternoon with us.  Later, we all went to dinner at Top of the River restaurant in Guntersville.  Her husband, Clay, joined us.  The food was good!  The visit was even better!

Alas, our time was up today, and we had to leave.  The trip home was fairly uneventful, except for the freak rain storm in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, that nearly blew us off the road once or twice.  Almost exactly 6 hours after leaving the campground, we arrived at home.  We hadn't taken much food or many clothes, and so unloading the camper was quick and easy.

It's good to be home!

Louisville, Kentucky - April 2017

The Husband attended a work-related seminar in Louisville, Kentucky this week, and I went along for the ride.  We left home around 10 a.m. Sunday, drove at a leisurely pace, and arrived in the middle of the afternoon.  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency on 4th Street, where the seminar was held.  Our room overlooked 4th street, part of which is sectioned off for pedestrian traffic and live music events.  Restaurants, bars, and hotels lined both sides of the street.

 In the early evening, we met up with some fellow seminar attendees and went to dinner at one of those Brazilian steakhouse restaurants where the waiters come around with meat on skewers and feed you until you can't hold another bite.  After dinner, we enjoyed a few drinks in the hotel bar.  Tired from the drive, I left The Husband in the bar and went upstairs to bed.

While he did seminar stuff on Monday, I drove around Louisville by myself, just arbitrarily taking lefts and rights.  I saw some nice things and some not-so-nice things.  My favorite street was Bardstown Road, where there were a lot of eclectic shops and coffee houses.  Dinner that night was "heavy hors d'oeuvres" and drinks in the seminar conference room, then we went out for drinks at a nearby sports bar. 

Tuesday, I drove around again, looking for something to wear to that night's party at Churchill Downs.  The seminar literature had suggested "Kentucky Derby attire" for the party.  Prior to leaving home, The Husband had bought himself a seersucker suit, and I had made a wide-brimmed hat but had not bought a dress.  Here's a secret:  I hate wearing dresses.  Instead of a dress, I opted for capris pants and a comfortable flowing shirt. 








At 6:30 p.m., we boarded a tour bus with about 50 other seminar folks.  We toured Churchill Downs, enjoyed a buffet dinner in the museum, and tasted mint juleps (plural).  The band was terrific.  I ditched the hat long before the evening was over.

 

Wednesday, while The Husband wrapped things up at the seminar, I headed across the river into Indiana, where I nosed around inside a huge flea market.  They let me out of there for under $50.  ;)  That evening, we had dinner at Guy Fieri's restaurant on 4th street (best meat loaf I ever tasted!) and called it a night fairly early. 

Love the black barns.  This one was NOT on stilts, as it appears.  ;)
 

Thursday kicked off the "footloose" part of our trip.  We visited a cousin in Sadieville, Kentucky, then drove through Georgetown, where we had burgers in a little restaurant on the town square.  Our plan was to spend the night in Lexington, then drive to Shepherdsville on Friday for a visit with our niece.  As luck would have it, some horse-racing track was opening on Friday, and all of the decent hotels in Lexington were full.  Since we discovered this fairly early in the evening, we had time to drive on to Shepherdsville, where we found a nice, clean room at a Best Western. 


After a leisurely breakfast Friday morning, we headed out to tour the Jim Beam Distillery.  We had to kill an hour and a half in order to do the tour.  We did that by sampling the wares - a Jalapeno Fizz and an Old Fashioned - on Jim's porch.  ;)  After the tour, we drove to Bardstown and shared a "hot brown" at the Old Talbott Inn.  Later in the evening, we met up with our niece and her husband and had a nice dinner at a nearby steakhouse.

Back at the motel, around midnight, I was awakened by loud voices.  At first, I couldn't tell whether the sound was coming from the hallway or the adjoining room, but as the minutes clicked by and the noises did not recede, I realized that the couple in the next room was having an argument.  I tossed and turned and finally put my pillow over my head, but even that did not drown out the noise.  A loud thump against our wall made both me and The Husband bolt upright.  I leapt out of bed and said, "I'm calling the front desk!" but The Husband was already beating me to it.  He told the desk clerk that there was a "heated argument" happening in the next room.  Within a minute or two, we heard a knock on the door of the adjoining room.  I could not hear the exact conversation, but I gathered that one of the fight participants had left the premises, and all was well.  The rest of the night was peaceful. 

This morning as we were preparing to leave, we noticed a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door of the adjoining room. 

The Husband stealthily removed this sign as we were leaving. 

It rained on us nearly all the way home. 

We made a couple of detours to inspect some potential camping spots we'd seen on the drive up, which added another hour or two to our travel time.  We had stayed at these parks about 20 years ago, when we had our first camper, a pop-up, and thought we might want to go back.  Unfortunately, the camper we have now won't fit into most of those campsites. 

We rolled into our driveway around 5 p.m., hungry and tired.  And there was no food in the house.

Still, it was good to be home. 

2016 - Petit Jean State Park and William Bankhead National Forest

We haven't gone camping nearly enough this year.

In March, we went to Mississippi River State Park.  Loved it.

In June, we camped at Petit Jean State Park for several days.  I am writing this from memory because I forgot to blog about it.

Petit Jean was a pretty nice park, but not our favorite.  It has two campgrounds suitable for RV camping.  One has water and electric hookups and is nicely shaded, and the other has full hookups but many of the camp sites are not shaded.  There are trails to hike (we are not hikers) and boats to rent for fishing/kayaking (we don't do much fishing and neither of us have ever even sat in a kayak).  Aside from those activities, there isn't much else to do in the immediate area.  We took our 11-year-old grandson with us, and he was bored out of his mind much of the time.

The park is on top of Petit Jean mountain.  The road to the park is so steep that our truck almost over-heated pulling the camper up the mountain.  Not far outside the park is a car museum, which our grandson enjoyed for about 15 minutes (though it is a really nice museum).  We were stumped for things to do.  On day 2 of our trip, we drove down to the closest town to buy our grandson a bicycle so that he would have something to do.  Toward the end of the trip, we drove to Mountain View, Arkansas for the day.  We toured Blanchard Springs Caverns, but the highlight of the day for our grandson was a stop (two stops, actually) at a go-kart track, where kids and adults can drive a go-kart around a bend-y track for 10 minutes for $5.  Our grandson loved it, and begged to go back for one more race before we left town.

Yesterday, we came home from a 5-day camping trip to the William Bankhead National Forest near Double Springs, Alabama.  We loved the campgrounds in this park.  There are two campgrounds with about 50 full-hookup sites.  The sites are spacious, level (for the most park), and nicely shaded.  There are a number of pull-through sites.  The campsites on the Yellowhammer Loop are reservable; the sites on the Firefly Loop are first-come, first-served.  Bath-houses were clean and convenient.

We drove all over the area sight-seeing.  There is a HUGE lake (Smith Lake - 20,000+ acres) in the park, with plenty of water access and boat rentals.  We spent the biggest part of one day just driving around looking at the lake.  Not far from the park is a little town called Houston.  Alabama's oldest jail, a tiny log building, is in Houston.  We ate lunch in Houston at a little place called Chef Troy's Talk of the Town.  The food was very good.

On day 2 of our trip, we drove down to Ashville, Alabama (about 2 hours away) so that I could do some genealogy research.  We drove through Cullman, Alabama on our way to Ashville and saw signs for the Ave Maria Grotto.  We did not stop to investigate this place, and later when we picked up some brochures for Cullman and saw pictures of the Grotto, we wished we had stopped there.

In the tiny town of Double Springs, there was a yarn store - Fine Yarns on Main - which I spotted on the first day.  The store wasn't open until Thursday afternoon, so I had to wait to visit it.  It is a very cool store, and the owner is very nice and very instructive.  Check it out if you knit or crochet or needle felt.

I was not ready to come home when our reservations were up on Friday, but we had to get back to the grind.  It rained on us a good bit of the way home, and so we were very glad to top the last hill and see our little house waiting for us.

Mississippi River State Park Camping Trip March 2016

We un-winterized the camper, laid in some provisions, and packed ourselves off to Marianna, Arkansas for a four-day camping trip to the Mississippi River State Park. 

http://www.arkansasstateparks.com/mississippiriver/

Folks, I gotta tell you, this is one of the coolest campgrounds we've ever visited. It is located on Bear Creek Lake (the fishing is pretty good there, I'm told), about 5 miles outside of Marianna, Arkansas.  The campsites are situated on fingers of land that jut out into the lake.  

If asked for one tip about camping in this park, I'd say, "Make your reservations early."  There are only 14 RV sites, so the campground fills up fast.  All of the sites have full hook-ups - water, electricity, and sewer.  There are two or three pull-through sites.  All of the campsites looked level, with plenty of room to park a long camper and a vehicle or two.  All of them are right on the water, and there are little docks and park benches scattered around.  The campsites are nicely spaced apart, so you're not stuffed up in someone's back door.  We stayed in campsite 14.  It is surrounded by water on three sides.  It had a nice picnic table, a clean grill, and a good-sized fire ring.  We could walk 10 or 12 feet from our camper door and wet a fishhook in the lake.   Site 14 is probably pretty shady when the trees fully leaf-out.  Next time, we're going to try for campsite 4, which looked especially roomy and cool and is semi-secluded.  Campsites 12 and 13 would be great "buddy" sites.  

There are also a number of really cool tent-camping sites on the other side of the lake, all of which are also near the water.  (The RV sites also have tent spots.)

The visitor center at the park has cool books, fishing gear, gifts, and typical park souveniers.  You can buy drinks and light snacks there, but don't expect to find bread, milk, etc.  They'll sell you a 3-day fishing license for $16.  The park rangers put on campfire circles and programs about local wildlife.  While we were there, one of the rangers led a "full moon kayak tour" of the lake from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m.  (We did not participate in that, as the weather had turned colder than a well-digger's hind end, but The Husband says he will do it if we're ever there when it's warm.)

We arrived in the middle of the day on Thursday, March 17.  It was pretty easy to back our 30-foot rig into the campsite, and it didn't need much leveling.  After setting up, we drove back up to the visitor center (a few miles up the road), where we officially registered (we'd made reservations a month earlier when we went over to scout out the place) and bought fishing licenses and bait (they have minnows, worms, jigs, and stinky stuff in jars).  We baited our hooks and went to fishin' the minute we got back to the camp.  The fish were biting slow.  I snagged 4 little bream as the afternoon wore on.  (Kinda hurt The Husband's feelings, because he didn't catch any.  I told him the fish were smart and knew which hook the *real* fisher-person had baited.)  Come dark, the park got quiet as the fishermen went home.  The weather was nice and warm, and we sat outside for a while, listening to the cooing of doves.

Speaking of birds, keep an eye on the geese.  They will hiss at you if you get up close and personal with them.  Also, there's a woodpecker there who drills on the top of a metal light pole; apparently, he just digs the sound.   Bbbbrrrrrrrt.  Bbbbbrrrrrrrrrt.

Friday morning, we got up, cooked breakfast, and went back to fishing.  That day, The Husband caught all the fish, and I didn't catch any.  Fickle old fish.  I gave up, went back to the camper (all of 12 feet away), and dragged out my craft stuff.  It was wonderful to play with my toys outside in the warm sunshine.  As the afternoon wore on, the wind picked up and my supplies started blowing off the table, so I mixed up a nice gin & tonic (shhhhhh, don't tell!) and relaxed with a book while The Husband continued to battle the fish.  By suppertime, the wind was really cold, whipping straight out of the north.  Our cell phone weather maps showed a cloud coming.  Thinking we'd better get the supper cooked before the rain hit, we lit the grill at 5 p.m., but it would hardly stay hot enough to cook our food!  We put on jackets and pulled our hoods up and put our hands in our pockets and hunched our backs to the wind while the meat cooked.  As soon as it was edible, we snatched it off the grill and hurried inside for the night.  We never got much rain, but the wind was fierce, and it broad-sided the camper so hard that it rocked all night.  We were glad that the campsite was ringed with big trees so that if we got blown over, at least we wouldn't go in the lake!

I got up at 7 o'clock Saturday morning, plugged in the coffee pot, and peered out the window.  The sky was over-cast, and the wind was still whipping so hard that the lake was white-capping.  I could see the boat ramp across the lake and was surprised to see dozens of boats in the water, just lined up along the bank near the ramp.  A few boats began to troll the inlets near the campsites.   I could not believe that so many people would want to fish in this weather and worried that there had been some kind of emergency until I realized that there were no emergency vehicles - no police cars, no ambulance.  At a few minutes until 8, all the boats lined up, and at 8 sharp, they all TOOK OFF like rockets in all directions.  Fishing tournament!   You couldn't have paid me to stand up in a boat on that lake, like the fishermen were doing, as cold and windy as it was!   We ate our breakfast and got the heck outta there for a while with a trip to the nearest get-it-all store, 25 miles away in West Helena.  It warmed up a tad and the wind died down a little after lunch.  We fished a little more, trying out the new rods and reels we'd bought in West Helena, but we didn't catch a thing.  We didn't even attempt to light the grill that night.

It was still cold and windy Sunday morning as we battened down the camper for the trip home.  Even though there is not much to do in the area, I could have stayed there for days and days if the weather had been warmer.  As it was, I was glad to start home, and glad that  home was just 2 hours away.

BamaGanza 2015 - Noccalula Falls

For our "FROGgy" friends, some pics from BamaGanza 2015.  We had a great time!  A big thanks to Bob, Dennis, and the many helpers who helped make this such an enjoyable rally.  Another big thanks to the Forest River folks, Hood RV, and Bankston RV for the food and entertainment.

Folks, you gotta watch this guy.  He will steal your grandbaby right out from under your nose!  ;)

Forbes and Forbess.  

Fort Payne and Gadsden Camping Trip – October 11-18, 2015

We just got home from a week-long camping trip to northeastern Alabama. We’d signed up to attend a Forest River Owners Group (FROG) camper rally at Noccalula Falls in Gadsden from Thursday the 15th until Sunday the 18th. Not seeing any wisdom in chopping a perfectly good week of vacation in two, we took the whole week off, left on the 11th, and pulled the camper down to Desoto State Park, right outside Fort Payne, to hang out there until time to move to Noccalula Falls. We had camped at Fort Payne years ago, when we had our first bumper pull camper, and remembered loving the place. We tried to go back a few years later, but the campground was closed for renovation. Since Desoto is less than an hour from Noccalula, we decided to re-visit the place and check out the renovations.

Overlooking the Tennessee River just east of Scottsboro, AL

Desoto Falls

The area along the Tennessee/Georgia/Alabama junction is a seriously beautiful place. Waterfalls, wooded hills, rocks, rivers…. When camping in that part of the world, we spend our days sight-seeing, sometimes with a specific destination in mind, but sometimes driving aimlessly just to see the countryside. On our first full day at Desoto, we made a swing by the "big" Desoto Falls, 5 miles or so from the park, on our way to check out Cloudland Canyon in northern Georgia, just a step over the Alabama line. We were about a week or two too early to see the fall colors at their peak, but it was still beautiful. We went back to Desoto via Mentone, Alabama, which is about as picturesque place as you’ll ever find.



A waterfall at Cloudland Canyon

In Mentone

 This was the second time we’d driven to Mentone. The first time, we stopped to check out the quaint-looking restaurants and log cabin shops that squatted alongside the road, but were disappointed to discover that none of them were open. I don’t remember what day of the week that was - could’ve been a Sunday, or late on a Saturday afternoon, but we didn’t find a soul at home. When we drove through this time, it was 2 p.m. on a Monday afternoon. None of the quaint shops were open. It was like a ghost town. Two restaurants were open, but one had a 30 minute wait and one was almost out of food. We were, like, "Whaaaat? 2 o’clock on a Monday?" Thankfully, a waitress directed us to a convenience store across the road where we ate burgers – none of that bean sprout and avocado and portabello crap – just good old-fashioned lettuce-pickle-onion burgers, in a simple but spotless dining room that might have been a garage, once upon a time. Back at the camp site that evening, we grilled a steak, hooked up the cable, and The Husband kicked back and watched TV while I started the Davy Crockett autobiography I’d picked up in the Cloudland gift shop.

Tuesday morning, I woke up with a screaming sore throat. As we were expecting children and grandchildren to join us the next day, I decided I’d better get some medicine in me. We drove down to a walk-in medical clinic in Fort Payne. The doctor, I’m guessing by his accent, was not native to the U.S. I told him what was wrong. When he reached for his ahhh-stick, I told him to put it away, as I could hold down my own tongue. When he said he was going to give me a shot of antibiotics and steroids, I told him I’d prefer antibiotics in pill form, thank-you, and no steroids, please. When he offered to give me a prescription for pain medicine, I declined. He tapped a few things on his computer, then turned around and asked me if I had a regular physician at home. I said I did. He then asked, without even a hint of a smile, "And do you also tell HIM what to do?"

While I was bossing the doctor around, The Husband was googling something to do in the area. He found a glass-blowing place called Orbix not far away, where you could blow your own glass ornaments, and we drove up there to see it.  http://orbixhotglass.com/   The place was on a breezy green hill in the middle of NOWHERE. We drove up, parked the truck, and walked around the porch. There was an office/shop, but the doors were open in the kiln area, and they let us walk right through the "factory" to some benches along the porch on the other side, where we sat and watched three guys pulling globs of molten glass from furnaces and turning them into impossibly beautiful delicate things. Although they want you to make an appointment if you want to blow your own glass ornament, the main guy would have let us try it and even coaxed me to try it when he found out I really wanted to, but he backed off when I said, "But I have strep throat, and you probably don’t want me putting my mouth on your pole thingy." A rather awkward few seconds passed before he agreed that it was probably not the best day for me to try glassblowing. We said we would just buy an ornament in the retail shop, and hurried off to choose one. There were four elderly ladies looking around the shop, and one of them told us that they’d come up highway 275 to get there, and that it had been a most harrowing drive. After we made our purchase, The Husband felt it necessary to see what highway 275 was like instead of going back the way we had come.  

Think roller coaster.

We passed by one road that bore a sign encouraging people NOT to drive down it. "WARNING: DANGER." Naturally, The Husband had to investigate. At the end of the road, we found a beautiful, serene lake in a narrow valley. 



Little Canyon Falls
 

Had to put the truck in low gear to get back out to 275 again. 275 follows the rim of the Little River Canyon and comes out near Little River Falls. We did not go to the little falls that day, opting to wait and go with the children and grandchildren when they joined us the next day. They arrived mid-afternoon, and we drove down to the little falls. If faced with the choice of seeing Desoto Falls or the Little River
, go for the latter. It is just so beautiful, and if you pick the more difficult walking path and if the water is low, you can walk out on the rocks and dip your toes in the cool water. Careful! Those rocks are slippery.





Noccalula
 

Thursday, we hitched up and moved to Noccalula for the FROG rally. I believe that Noccalula is owned by the city of Gadsden. There are full hook-up sites, and most of the sites are nice and level, but they are very close together. Don’t plan on just dropping by there on a whim and getting a campsite; I’m told it’s booked months in advance. We FROGs almost had the whole thing reserved for this rally. It is a good place for such events. There is a nice pavilion with picnic tables, and a good-sized hall for indoor group functions. I did not check out the bathroom facilities, but I heard they were acceptable. Next door to the campground is Noccalula Falls Park, where we rode a little train around the park. They have a pioneer village, a petting zoo, and several playgrounds that the children enjoyed.

Our Halloween Decorating Contest entry

The FROG rally was fun. There was a Halloween/Fall decorating contest, two group breakfasts sponsored by local RV dealers, a pot luck dinner, and a bbq dinner sponsored by Forest River and the RV dealers. The Granddaughters (with a little guidance from the grown-ups) decorated our campsite with witches and spiders and eyeballs and bats. The winning campsites were announced on Saturday evening, after The Granddaughters had gone home; the girls were delighted when we let them know that they had won the prize (a set of kitchen towels and some scrubbers) for the creepiest decorations.

We pulled out for home at 11:30 Sunday morning. Instead of going back the way we had come (across highway 72), we took the interstate down to Birmingham, then 78 back to west Tennessee. Got home about 6:30. After a week away, it was truly good to be home.

　

　

Old Stone Fort State Park, Manchester, TN June 14 - June 28, 2015

Sunday, June 14, 2015

We have camping reservations at Old Stone Fort State Park from Sunday until Thursday.  

We took our time getting on the road this morning and didn’t leave until about 10:30.  We took I-40 to exit 176, then 840 almost to Manchester.  We arrived before 3 p.m. and had no problems setting up the camper.

Bonnaroo is happening this weekend, and we figured that both the park and Manchester would be very crowded, but evidently the crowd stays confined to the Bonnaroo area.  The park was as quiet as could be, with a few empty spaces.

Dinner was grilled smoked sausages and grilled vegetables at the campsite.

After dinner, we set up a TV that I gave The Husband for his birthday.  To this point, we’ve had a rule against taking a TV on a camping trip, reasoning that we could stay home and watch TV.  But once when we took some grandchildren camping with us and it rained the whole time, we resorted to letting them watch movies on the laptop computer that we take with us for navigation.  It was,

“Move your head!  I can’t see!”

“He won’t move his head.”

Yada-yada.

So I got this TV, thinking we could hook the computer to it to play movies, and maybe, just maybe, get regular TV signals for weather reports, etc., when camping close to small towns.

On this trip, we are just outside Manchester, TN.  Chattanooga is not far in one direction, and Huntsville, AL is not far in the other, but the TV could find no signals.  Ah, well…who needs TV on a camping trip, anyway?

Monday, June 15, 2015

Today’s day trip was to Burgess Falls.  We’d seen pictures, and it looked like it was worth the 1.5 mile hike to see them.  There was a series of waterfalls, with overlook spots at each one. 

 

 

 

It wasn’t a bad hike; it was mildly strenuous only in one spot where there were steps to climb.  Mostly, the hike was just tedious.  There were lots of tree roots to trip clumsy folks like me, but we made it to the end of the trail without incident. 

 

 

 

At the end of the trail, we noticed a gravel road that led to the biggest of the falls.  It would have been a much easier walk to take that road, but we’d have missed seeing some of the smaller falls.

We also checked out Rock Island State Park on the way to Burgess Falls.  The campgrounds at Rock Island were very nice, but I’m not sure our 32-ft. camper would fit in many of the spots.

 

After leaving Burgess Falls, we grabbed a bite of lunch in McMinnville, then drove out to Cumberland Caverns, where Bluegrass Underground is filmed.  Despite the fact that I am completely creeped out by caves, I followed The Husband in on a tour.  The walk is about a mile and a half, and the tour takes about an hour and a half.  Inside the cave, the temperature was 56 degrees, which felt pretty wonderful after our hike in the heat at Burgess.  But it was still creepy to me.  In one place, there are 170 steps (according to the tour guide) that go over rock formations – up and down and back up and back down.  Some of the steps are steep, and this old lady with bad knees had a hard time navigating them.  Plus, I’m out of shape.  By the time we reached the end of the steps, I was wheezing like crazy.  At the end there was a “light show,” which, to be honest, was pretty lame, but it afforded me a few minutes to catch my breath for the return trek up and down those same 170 steps.  I was glad to get out of that cave!

 

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

 We decided to stick around the park today and investigate some of its features.  The “old stone fort” for which the park is named is one of those mysterious Native American structures that no one seems to understand.  It is a wall, a double row of stones filled with earth that goes almost all the way around a 50-acre plateau that sits between two rivers.  The professionals estimate that it was used until about 500 years ago.  The consensus seems to be that it was not an “ordinary” village, as they have not found archaeological evidence of everyday life.  Instead, they believe it to be a ceremonial center.  There is a breach between two mounds in the eastern wall where the rising sun is framed between the mounds on the summer solstice. 

 We walked the trail all the way around this thing, not a difficult hike except for the maze of tree roots and the sweat pouring off my head.  Parts of the trail snaked right along the edge of a cliff, where we could look down and see the rivers.  It was quite beautiful, with several waterfalls visible along the way.  After the hike, we toured the museum.  I was so hot and sweaty and the museum was so cool and wonderful that I did not really pay much attention to the artifacts.  Instead, I asked the attendant to “play the movie,” the type of informational film that always seems to be available in these museums, so that we could have a cool place to rest our feet for a few minutes.

Back at the camper, The Husband stretched out on the couch for a nap.  I traded my sweaty clothes for some dry ones and laid down across the bed to read.  Just as happens at home, the minute we dozed off, our cell phones started ringing.  I gave up on the idea of a nap and went outside to tease the squirrels with peanuts we’d brought along for road snacks.  Dinner was a thick steak on the grill with sautéed mushrooms and baked sweet potatoes, not bad fare for “roughing it.”

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

As soon as we cleaned up from breakfast this morning, we hopped in the truck and headed for the George Dickel distillery just a few miles from here.  Our GPS sent us down a road that dead-ended in a field, but we turned around and soon found our way.  We had toured Jack Daniel’s distillery years ago, and this tour was much the same.  At the end of the tour, we tasted four different types of whisky (that’s the way George Dickel spells it) and bought a couple of bottles to take home.

Our next destination was Bell Buckle, Tennessee, home of the Moon Pie Festival.  This year’s Moon Pie Festival will happen this weekend, but we will be gone home by then.  Bell Buckle is a tiny town, really just one main street lined with old buildings which house antique stores, gift shops, and restaurants.  We had lunch at the Bell Buckle Café then went around the corner for ice cream. 

Back in Manchester, we drove to the site of the Bonnaroo music festival.  It is on the edge of town, on a 700-acre farm.  Last weekend, nearly 100,000 people had descended on Manchester, many of whom camped out in the fields.  All that was left of the festival today were mounds of bagged garbage and a lot of equipment.  On our way back into town, we passed a winery where we bought a bottle of “Bonnaroo” wine and some cheese, which we sampled shortly after arriving back at our campsite.

Tomorrow, we head home, so we spent the afternoon “battening down the hatches” in preparation for pulling out in the morning.  Dinner was grilled bratwurst and chips.  As we were grilling the hot dogs, we heard thunder in the distance.  As I write this, the thunder continues and a soft rain is falling.  It should make for good sleeping if the storm doesn’t get scary.

All in all, this has been a fun trip.  We like the Old Stone Fort park campground.  The campsites are shady and nicely spaced apart.  It is one of the quieter campgrounds that we have visited, partly because the campground is arranged in “loops” with only about 10 campsites per loop.  Our only complaint is that there aren’t any sewer connections.  Today, the third full day of camping, after only two showers each and sparse use of water in the kitchen, our waste water tanks filled up, and we had to use the “turd wagon” to siphon off some of the gray water.  There is one weird thing about them:  the water hookups are on one side of the site, and the electric hookups are on the other.  We had to run the electric cord beneath the camper (which isn’t a big deal, since the cord was long enough) to reach the electric hookup. 

The other thing we like about this campground is that there are a lot of interesting parks and things to do in the area.  Nashville is about an hour north, and Chattanooga is about an hour southeast.  Huntsville is not much farther.  There are a number of state parks in the area.  Rock Island State Park is 30 minutes away in one direction, and Tims Ford State Park is a few minutes away in the opposite direction.  Fall Creek Falls is a little over an hour away.

And did I mention that this part of Tennessee is absolutely beautiful?  Rolling hills.  Waterfalls.  Lakes and rivers everywhere.  And it is glorious in the fall when the leaves turn colors.

Thursday, June 18, 2015 - Home Again

Yesterday at breakfast, we cooked enough bacon and sausage for today, and so this morning, all we did was nuke the meat, toast some bread, and wolf it down.  No sooner had we swallowed our last bites than we started readying the camper for the trip home.

Four and a half hours later, we pulled in our driveway and began unpacking the camper (which is not nearly as much fun as packing it).

Ahhhh, it's good to be home!