Monday, May 31, 2021

Family in Tennessee

We stopped in Cookeville, Tennessee for a few days on our Tennessee loop to visit with Aaron's sister and her family.  We stayed at Twin Lakes Catfish Farm (actually in Baxter), which was an interesting experience!  The fishing ponds and restaurant are only open Thursday - Sunday, and thus that is the only time the campground is staffed.  When we arrived on Wednesday (with reservations), there was not a soul in sight and the after hours telephone's mailbox was full.  So we just picked a site and set up.  I left messages every way I could (the normal hours phone and email) and someone did call me back within a couple hours to confirm everything was ok, which made me feel much better!

Campsite a the Catfish Farm

I really enjoyed watching the black vultures at the farm - I'm not clear how (whether discarded by fishers, accidental flopping up from a crowded pond, or actual snatching by predators), but the fish ponds consistently had fresh dead fish around them, which attracted a TON of vultures.  I've never seen so many vultures in one place!

In the morning before the staff arrived to chase them off.  A fake
owl and hanging aluminum pans had no effect at all on the
vultures (to be fair, these were probably placed to keep the songbirds away,
who were also plentiful).  These were a small fraction of the black vultures 
across my whole field of view.

The ponds were well stocked and I could see several fish near the surface, including this guy who seemed to be coming to the surface to drink.

Catfish!

We had a great time visiting with my sister-in-law and her family.  We went to a local park where the kids played in the creek, brought them over to see our RV for the first time, and spent a bit of time hanging out at the house and playing in the backyard.

Aaron playing tag in the backyard

Playing at the creek (pictured: my sister-in-law's family of four plus me)

One of our nephews really enjoyed chasing the vultures at
our campground!


Friday, May 28, 2021

Smoky Mountain Adventures!

We just spent an amazing 8 days in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee!  We've been to Pigeon Forge many times, as it's a quick hop from Charlotte, but we'd only ever been for a long weekend before.  With a long weekend we would have time to hit the highlights (Dollywood, The Island, a dinner show or two), but nothing more.  This time, with over a week, we explored all sorts of new and wonderful things!!

So, first things first, we stayed at Walden's Creek RV Park right in the heart of Pigeon Forge.  This location was extremely convenient and the cheapest campground by far with our Passport America discount.  On the downside, it took several days to actually meet our hosts (despite me checking at the office every day during their posted office hours), and by the time we finally talked to them halfway through the trip we found out they had already charged us $5/day for plugging in our electric vehicle!!  This was VERY surprising - we've been plugging in our electric hybrid car at every campsite with 50amp power for the past 2 years and have NEVER been charged extra.  So the fact that not only did they charge us a rather ridiculous rate for the car but also did so without telling us or advertising the charge rubbed us quite wrong.  However, had I known that was the policy, we just wouldn't have plugged in the car (it is a hybrid after all) and then the rate would have been pleasantly low as expected, and really the location can't be beat and the campground is well kept.  So I'll post a review online to help any other unsuspecting electric vehicle drivers...

Our campsite at Walden's Creek RV Park

Walden's Creek at the campground

We got to add the Tennessee sticker to our map!

We started the next morning with breakfast at Frizzle Chicken.  This very fun restaurant had good down home food and singing animatronic chickens!!

Singing chickens at Frizzle Chicken!  Zoom in and check 
out the names!

Our first outing was to Dollywood - we love it so much, we bought season's passes, so we have to get our money's worth!  Dollywood was holding the Flower and Food Festival, which involved lots of neat shaped plants and a cool umbrella - shaded walk into the park.  These are the only photos I'm posting so as not to be ridiculous, but we went back multiple times during this trip.


I particularly enjoyed the mischievous raccoons

Fun umbrella

On our anniversary (the 20th) we started the day with a vigorous hike to Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.  Fortunately for us, there's a road all but the last 1/2 mile of the elevation.  But that last 1/2 mile...it's a doozy!  Very steep, though flat and paved.  The view was incredible and well worth the hike and drive.  As you can guess from the photo, it was significantly colder up there than down in town.

The view off Clingman's Dome

We stopped a couple other places in the national park before heading back for our reservations at the Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud.  This is one of our favorite places to go in Pigeon Forge, and this time did not disappoint!  Dolly Parton had acquired the show since our last visit, and she made a couple of nice changes.  Overall our anniversary day was a refreshing change from our pandemic-clouded 20th last year!

One of the gimmicky displays outside
the dinner show

Our next outing was a drive on the Roaring Fork Motor Trail in Gatlinburg.  The highlight of this drive was a hike at Grotto Falls.  This trail is unique because it actually goes behind the waterfall.  It was quite a pleasant hike, much less strenuous than the ones we took earlier.  One of the coolest things we discovered here was Le Conte Lodge and the llamas that serve it.  We didn't make it all the way to the lodge, but we saw the llama trailer in the parking area.  I looked it up later and discovered that the lodge is only accessible on foot, and they use llamas to bring supplies up 3 days a week.  They used to use horses, but their hooves tore up the trail, so they switched to soft-footed llamas.  So cool!  It reminded me a bit of our trip to Phantom Ranch on mule back - supplies are carted down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon by mule.  We're still debating whether a trip to Le Conte Lodge should be in our future.

Grotto Falls

Some friends from Charlotte and their kids came to join us on the weekend - they love the area as well!  We all went to Ober Gatlinburg together, where we rode the alpine slide and took the ski lift to the overlook.  Later we went to Paula Deen's Lumberjack Feud show - SO impressive!  There was one lumberjack who could run on floating logs like they were solid ground.  Absolutely amazing.

Ober Gatlinburg ski lift

Looking down the mountain on the ski lift

At the Lumberjack Feud

Our final incredible outing in Pigeon Forge was a UTV ride with Smoky Mountain Adventure Tours.  We had never done anything like this before, and it was such an incredible experience.  We drove up a narrow rutted dirt trail to one of the mountain tops in the Smoky Mountains - guided by someone who knew what he was doing of course.  We were going up and down scarily steep inclines with huge ruts - things we never would have attempted on our own, but where the guide goes, you follow!  I really can't express how much fun we both had with this!  Aaron drove most of the way of course, but I did do the last leg back to the shop.

Driving off the mountain top

One example of the crazy rutted roads.  It's really hard to
capture on camera

Taking a break on the mountain top.  If you look closely
you might see the dirt covering both of us, including a lovely
dusting all over my hair...

Our guide was kind enough to take a picture 'in action'

See, I really did drive!

That wraps up our week in Pigeon Forge!  We had a blast, it was so fun to be back on the road, in one of our favorite destinations, and finally spending enough time at that destination to explore so many things!  Spoiler alert: we'll be returning to Pigeon Forge later in the trip, but don't worry, we have even more adventures planned there!

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Time at the farm for repairs

I had intended to keep more of an ongoing blog of our repair activities this last month+, but we were just so busy!  So here's just one big wrap-up post.

We spent about six weeks parked at our lovely parking spot at the family farm in West Virginia.  My dad had prepared some old plywood siding boards for our backing-in so we could avoid tearing up the front lawn, and they worked quite well.

Moving the boards into place

Parked!  I had to help Aaron with backing up so I didn't get
and 'in-progress' photo, but you get the idea.

Unfortunately, when Aaron went to plug in, we encountered an unexpected repair need...somehow over the winter one of the old wires running through the pasture went bad.  So our first project (and by 'our' I mean Aaron's and my dad's...) became re-fixing the electricity to the parking spot.  They did this in short order and had us up and running within a few days.

Diagnosing the problem

Setting up the tractor to lay another new wire
under the ground in the pasture

Everything was freshly in bloom in West Virginia, quite a nice setting for our work!

Apple trees in bloom

With the electricity out of the way....this repair session our main focus was on making the RV easier to drive - the stress of the driving experience is getting to Aaron a bit.  So we replaced the rear shock absorbers (we did the front last time) and the front air bags (tried to do the back as well but - thanks COVID - we couldn't find the part in stock anywhere), tweaked the steering adjustment to make the steering 'tighter', fixed the wiring for the rear view camera, and cleaned the interior of the driver side window (between the glass) so Aaron can actually see the mirrors.

Aaron had to contort himself in all sorts 
of ways to get the air springs out

The new air springs

Cleaning the window with distilled water and ethanol through a 
hole drilled in the rubber seal

In other repairs, Aaron took off the basement door that we dented at the gas station in Texas, fixed the dent, and repainted the door.  It looks great!  You'd never know that we damaged it. 

Hammering the bent frame piece straight

Fitting the fixed frame piece back in place


Sanding in preparation for paint

All done!

While we were painting, we also repainted two areas whose paint didn't look so great from last time - one other basement door and the black part of our bedroom slide.  I didn't think to take a picture, but after repainting the bedroom slide, the clearcoat and top layer of black paint peeled off like vinyl when we tried to polish it...so we'll have to do that AGAIN.

Painting the basement door

Makeshift painting booth


Painting the bedroom slide

Aaron built a little shield for our tow hitch to help protect it from scraping bottom as we went in and out of the steep driveway at the farm.

Testing the fit

Close up of the shield

We tried to straighten our front door, which catches in the wind on the highway and vibrates a lot and makes lots of noise.  We couldn't do much to straighten the frame without breaking the glass, but Aaron did tighten up all the hinges and whatnot and as a happy side effect the door is a lot easier to open and close now!

Somewhat futile attempt to straighten the frame

And just for fun...Aaron finished my little doorside shelf that he started on last time we were here.  I love it!

Installing the shelf

On a personal note, we had a few adventures.  My Uncle John's ash spreading was right after we arrived - a small outdoor affair.

The small gathering included mostly Uncle John's descendants
and my parents' descendants.  Aunt Jane is in white in the 
center; we are gathered around Uncle John's memorial bench.

We managed to get both doses of our Moderna vaccine, which makes me feel MUCH better about continuing our travels!

Goofy selfie station at the vaccination clinic

We went up to my sister's place (for the last time before they move to Florida!) to help out for a week while my brother-in-law was out of town on business.  We celebrated Star Wars day in style!

Fruit lightsabers!  Photo courtesy of my 6-year-old nephew Luke!

Finally, I started the long process of getting my loose and painful baby tooth replaced with an implant.  For those who don't know, I'm missing 6 permanent teeth (and all 4 wisdom teeth!).  Four of my baby teeth survived to adulthood, but one started wiggling around 6 years ago and I replaced it back then with an implant; this past December, another one started hurting and eventually wiggling, so it's time for it to go as well.  We ultimately decided to go back to my all-time favorite dentist (Dr. Eric Seitlin), who did my first implant, and I should be able to finish the process this summer while we're in and out of my hometown just 3 hours from Charlotte (where he's located).  Seriously, this dentist is amazing, if you're near Charlotte and looking for someone...  I have a photo of my extracted baby tooth that I thought about posting, but I don't want to disgust anyone, so I'll just post this photo of Latta Park where I ate lunch before my tooth extraction...

Latta Park in Charlotte

So that sums up our repair trip!  We're heading to Tennessee for a month-long trip around the state, so we'll have some more exciting photos soon!