Our last day working on the build - it went so fast! It has been a wonderful experience and I'm sure we will do more builds in the future (possibly the near future). We met so many amazing people and have made friends that we will hopefully share further adventures with. This was a great way to start our travels. One last happy hour and then we were back to the rig to pack up, we need to get an early start in order to reach our next stop in the daylight.
11/2/13
Ok, we thought we would be out of here fast but being a newbie means you have to really take time and check all your lists so you don't forget to do something silly like hook up the electric from the truck to the rig for the brake lights (not that we would forget something important like that, well almost - but it won't happen again).
After goodbye hugs to our fellow care-a-canners, we were off by 9:30 with a destination of Hurricane Mills, TN, a distance of 377 miles which is a whole lot of miles. We originally planned to never go more than 300 miles in a day but poor planning on my part (sorry, Marty) made this day a long one.
The Loretta Lynn ranch is in Hurricane Mills and there is a campground on the property. It seemed a fitting place to stay since we had already visited her birthplace of Butcher Hollow. We also wanted to visit Mary Jo, Marty's cousin who lives in Franklin, TN.
Once we got out of the West Liberty area we were on interstates for the majority of the day. Everything was going smoothly until the fuel tank got low and my bladder got full. We pulled off the highway looking for a gas station but there were none close by. There was a big empty lot which we pulled into so I could use our bathroom in the rig, how convenient! And now we come to "Lesson Learned #3 - Always make sure your stairs are put back up while traveling! We pulled out of the lot and heard a "grinding" noise, the stairs were dragging along the curb - luckily for us there was no damage and we hurried up and put them back up. If we had gone one more block we would have been in big trouble -the sidewalk was about 2 feet off the ground, that could have been ugly! Ironically, one of our fellow campers, Ricky, had just told us that morning of the same thing happening to her and her husband in Seattle.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and we reached Huricane Mills around 5:15 without too much difficulty. Unfortunately while consulting the road atlas during our drive we discovered that Nashville is not really that close to Hurricane Mills or Franklin Tennessee so we aren't going to see Mary Jo. "Lesson Learned #4 - Always check your gps and maps to determine distances before making plans, I just assumed that Hurricane Mills was right outside of Nashville and it was actually about 1 1/2 hours away. We will definitely be visiting Nashville next time we're in Tennessee.
When we checked in at the camp office we were assigned to site #15 but could take anything that was empty. When we saw #15 we knew we wouldn't fit so we went on to #30 which looked easy to get into (and it was). "Lesson Learned" #5 - Always check the electrical posts before pulling into a site to make sure the electricity works! We pulled in, got set up and then plugged in only to discover that there was NO power at our site. It was just like staying in the Walmart parking lot - COLD! I am really glad that we brought our down comforter. We went down to the office in the morning to let them know and to see what we could do. Our choices were find a site with the 50 amp we paid for or plug in to the site next to us which only had 20 amp. Since we were leaving the next day it seemed silly to pack up and move so we just plugged in to the 20 amp and made do.
 |
| The Milky Way over Tennessee |
Despite the problems with the electricity, this is a really pretty park. Across the road from our site is a valley and the trees here still have lots of color. In the morning the fog covered the valley, I loved it - the foggy morning reminded me of scenes from the movie "Coal Miner's daughter". It turned out to be a beautiful day. In the morning Marty worked on computer stuff and I did laundry. The only place to get the free wifi was near the store and since the laundry was right next to the store I plugged in and took advantage of it. There was a big porch area overlooking the valley so I sat out there enjoying the scenery. There was a man doing laundry who kindly showed me how to start the washing machines (you have to push start). We started talking and it was a flashback to my Cub fan days of the 70's. This man sounded just like Randy Hundley, deep voice and all. I couldn't understand about a quarter of what he said but it was fun hearing that deep Georgia drawl.
After we got our chores done, we hopped on our bikes and rode down to the Loretta Lynn Ranch and Museum area. It was only a 2 mile ride although there was a huge hill at the end so maybe this could count as our Tennessee bike ride. When we got there it was mostly gift shops. There was a "Coal Miner's Daughter" museum but I was too cheap to spend $12.50 each to see it.
The rest of the day was very lazy - we had network tv for the first time in two weeks so we just stayed in and pigged out on television.
No comments:
Post a Comment