Trek to Brigadoon

Final 2008 update- North Georgia

2009-06-28T15:40:00.009-04:00

As we slowly head south toward home we stopped at the Mountain Creek RV Resort near Blairsville, GA for a two week stay. We enjoyed the Mountain Creek Resort but have since learned that they have finantual troubles and are no longer open. We hope they can reopen someday.

While in the area we went to Helen,GA to see the german alps styled town. It is a tourist trap but a fairly nice one as far as these places go. Besides the town pictures I've included one photo of a one man band. If you have not had the chance to see one of these guys they are quite interesting. They have cables attached to feet, legs, arms, and hands which can activate the various instruments attached to their bodies. And he was good.

2008 trip update 2- Smokey Mtns near Marion, NC

2009-06-28T15:13:00.006-04:00

From Bristol we traveled to the other side of the mountains to the Marion, NC which is about 30 miles northeast of Ashville. We were there while the leaves were changing. We drove up on the Blue Ridge parkway to Mt. Mitchell and were able to get a number of fall folage pictures.

Our campsite was immedeately adjacent to a mountain stream and I've included a couple of photo's of that as well.

2008 trip update- Bristol, TN

2009-06-28T13:35:00.011-04:00

Well I've been given the business by a few people for ignoring the blog. They are right.

So I will do 3 posts to update our '08 trip prior to starting the blog with our 2009 trip.

My last post was news that we were in PA and were hit with the tail end of hurricane Ike. The area was hit with winds up to 80 mph which took down many trees and powerlines. We went 4 days without power and my mother went without power for a week. I located a generator for my mother's use and had to service it twice a day to keep power to her home. It's ironic that we leave Florida during hurricane season and get hit with one in PA!

After leaving PA we headed south and stopped in Bristol, TN. While there we toured the Bristol Motor Speedway. The tour there was better than the tour we got at Daytona. They walk you around the stands and into the track owners suite. Then load you into a van and go around the track at the minimum speed necessary to keep you up on the lowest portion of the banked track. You also get to see the world class drag strip that is also at the facility. Here's a few photo's of the track and one from the old railway station in Bristol. As always click on the picture if you want a larger view.

Ike's tail and other things- overdue update

2008-09-17T07:15:00.003-04:00

We were last heard from while we were in northern Michigan on the Leelanue peninsula but we fially had to say good-bye to our friends in the area and head south. We look forward to returning next year prior to a trip out west.

From northern MI, we went south to the Kalamazoo area to visit with Linda's mother and brother Mike. Mike was kind in allowing us to park the RV in his drive and hookup to his utilities for a few days.

Next we went east back to western PA for Labor Day and to visit with Terry's mother and brothers during the holiday. Brother Dan flew in from Las Vegas and brother Tim came over from north central PA. We spent Labor Day trimming trees and other yard work.

Next Linda and I moved the RV to Hershey, PA to attend the "largest RV show" as they bill themselves. We stayed in the Highmeadow campground where we were packed in like sardines.

On the Tuesday before the RV show we drove to Gettysburg to see the new visitors center at the battlefield. The center is very nice but we missed seeing the new cyclorama section of the center which does not open until Sept 27th. The next day we attended the RV show and found it to be large but definitely not to the scale of the Tampa RV Supershow that is held every January.

When we departed Hershey, we attempted to go north into north central PA to the Foote Rest campground. There are few campgrounds in north central PA that appeal to us but we have been to the Foote Rest before and liked it. However, I could not get in contact with them by phone. No one answered the phone and they did not return my call even though their message said they would. Oh well, we went elsewhere.

So we ended up at the Kalumet Campground near Cooksburg, PA. Kalumet is a vey nice campground but we had no cell phone service or internet connection. We stayed a couple of days and headed back to the Mercer KOA.

During Hershey trip we developed a problem with our electric steps that are on the RV at the entry door. The steps normally extend or retract without incedent. Now the steps only partially extent or retract and make a very loud grinding noise. I believe the gears are out of alignment. I'll tackle that problem after we have finished with Ike's problems.

Eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania suffered the effects of the tailend of hurricane Ike as it pasted through the area. The big problem was high winds knocking down trees and taking out power lines. By Florida standards this is a small event. But by their standards (or lack there of) this is a big time event here that has left thousands without power. The lackluster emergency respone to restore power and help citizens would never be tolerated in Florida.

Anyhow, we have been out of power since Sunday along with thousands of the locals. My (Terry's) mother also has no power and has been bailing out her basement subpump by hand so that the water would not flood the basement. It took a couple of days to locate a generator, but our friends Lyle and Sandy Johnston (of the Johnston;s Apple Castle) were kind to lone their generator for my mothers use. Good thing, as there are no generators available in the area.

Well that is the catch -up for now. Sorry for no pictures. Will change that in the near future.

Signed- powerless in PA.

Charlevoix revisited

2008-08-15T13:53:00.010-04:00

A few posts ago we made reference to the beauty of the village of Charlevoix. Due to circumstances we were not able to get photo's during that trip. This necessitated a return trip!

As previously noted, the main street is lined with flowers, so to save a thousand words here are the pictures.
The marina in Charlevoix is second to none in my book. The marina sits in Round Lake between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix. The west exit of Round Lake takes you out the cut to Lake Michigan and the east exit of Round Lake has you exiting into Lake Charlevoix, which is a substantual lake itself (15 miles long and over 2.5 miles wide). I've tried to capture some of the water sights here. The picture with Linda is the water front area immediately adjacent to the marina.

Of course there are some fantastic homes near the marina, here is one example.

This is the cut from the marina/Round Lake to Lake Michigan.

The Emerald Isle, a passenger and vehicle ferry, heading out onto Lake Michigan to go to Beaver Island thirty five miles away.

The next picture is the exit of Round Lake to Lake Charlevoix. The exit is in the backround of the photo.

Lastly, we include a sailboat that is coming in from Lake Michigan to the marina. There are many fine sailboats all around the state. This one is even equipped with solar panels which indicates to me that the crew spends a significant amount of time on board.

All this maritime stuff here has me (Terry) wanting to buy a good used boat (with galley, head, and sleeping quarters) and keep it in Michigan for our use in the summers!

Boat Show part II

2008-08-14T15:46:00.015-04:00

Blogger is a pain to work with pictures, so I divided up the pictures from the boat show for easier posting. Here are more wood boats.

Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show

2008-08-14T15:23:00.007-04:00

The annual boat show held at the Hessel marina in August is a fine display of wooden boats and one of our favorite festivales. Of course, there are plunty of booths selling other things but the spotlight is the boats.

Most of the boats are made by Chris Craft with boats from the early 1900's to the 1970's in attendance. The owners of many of these boats have spent hundreds or thousands of hours in the boats restoration. And they look it. Some of them are better than new.

Speaking of new, we discovered that you can buy a brand new custom version of these fine wood boats if you have the cash. Hacker Craft makes hand made reproductions and had one on display at the show. If you have a spare $170,000, one can be yours! By the way, that's for a 22 footer.

So it's time for some pictures.

Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum

2008-08-14T14:32:00.009-04:00

The museum is located northwest of Sault St Marie and is located on the grounds of the Whitefish Point Light Station. The museum is one of several that pay tribute to sailors lost in the Great Lakes. It has been an eye opener as to how many ships and boats that have been lost to the lakes. Most people are familiar with the most famous sinking (in our times), the Edmund Fitzgerald, but there have been hundreds of sinkings over the last 200+ years, sometimes with the loss of more lives than the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The musem highlights several of the shipwrecks but contains an item that is of special interest to your photographer. A fresnel lens from a lighthouse. I think these lenses are artwork. Hopefully the pictures here will be of good enough quality to back that up.

Cedarville RV Resort

2008-08-14T13:25:00.015-04:00

This is our 3rd stay at the Cedarville RV Resort. The campground is right on the waters of Lake Huron and is very picturesque. For the week we were there the resort was full, a product of the Boat Show weekend. The photo's from our campsite are actually on Lake Huron but appear to be a smaller body of water due to the water curling around the campground forming a small bay.
It is very quiet here. The villages of Hessel, Cedarville, and DeTour have populations of a few hundred each but the area is a boaters dream. From Cedarville eastward to Detour there are miles of pristine shoreline- a rarity in the US these days.

I'm guessing the winters have contributed to the lack of developing along the shoreline.

That's a good thing.

Cedarville, DeTour, and Sault St. Marie

2008-08-14T11:13:00.017-04:00

Well it has been a while since the last post primarily due to a poor internet connection. The wifi at the Wild Cherry Resort near Suttons Bay is usually good, but we took a week and traveled over the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula and had no internet connection. So this post starts a series of catch-up posts.

The main reason for the trip, was to go to the Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show that is held at the marina in Hessel, MI. The show is held annually the 2nd weekend of August. We attended the show a couple of years ago and were quite impressed with the quality of the boats. More on this in a later post.

To get to the Upper Peninsula (UP) from northern Michigan requires a drive accross the Mackinac Bridge. The bridge is 5 miles long and rises 199 feet above the water. Lots of steel cable was used to construct this suspension bridge- 42,000 miles worth to be exact. Those cables weigh over 23 million pounds and the bridge total weight is over 2 billion pounds. All this to go across the Straits of Mackinac. It is one impressive structure. Here are bridge pictures of our crossing.

Our campground was located in Cedarville about 4 miles from Hessel the location of the boat show. Cedarville makes for a good central location for exploration. One of the side trips took us to the Village of DeTour located at the east end of the UP. Traveling farther east than DeTour requires a ferry ride to Drummond Island. We have done that in the past and decided to not take the ridethis time. A couple of pictures of the ferry tells the tale.
Another side trip was a drive to Sault St.Marie and a visit to the locks on the St. Marys river. We always enjoy watching the ships "locking through" the locks. We lucked out as we got to see 2 ships lock through within 2 hours.

The first photo's show the empty lock, a ship entering, and the ship fully in the lock. This ship is 712 feet long and 72 feet wide. The second ship pictured is one of the Great Lakes big boys. It is 1000 feet long and 105 feet wide. This is the first time that we have had the chance to see one of the big ones- what a sight. Click on the full length view for a good look.

Bay View and Castle Farms

2008-07-30T14:47:00.019-04:00

This past weekend we pulled up stakes and moved the motorhome to Petoskey, MI for the weekend. It is about a 2 hour drive from Suttons Bay northward up the coast and takes you through the small city of Charlevoix.

Charlevoix sits between Lake Michigan and Lake Charlevoix. The city is one of those picturesque places that makes the local chamber of commerce's job easy. It looks great from any angle. The main street through town is lined with flowers, the businesses all face and partially surround the bay, and the recently updated city marina is close to the restaurants. To draw a better mental image, imagine the main street running north with the businesses and restaurants (several with outside seating) on the west side of the street. On the east side of the street the city has a narrow city park area with benches. Right at the park area is the marina, so when you are seated at an outside eatery you can gaze past the flowers to the boats that are only about 150 feet away. Very nice indeed.

So where are the pictures you may ask? Well, Charlevoix was in the middle of a celebration and street fair, so there was no parking available for anything the size of our motorhome. We hope to return to Charlevoix for pictures before we leave Michigan.

We arrived in Petoskey and set up shop in the Petoskey KOA (Kampgrounds of America). The campground was absolutely packed with campers and RVers. Each campsite was equipped with at least 8 kids and all their toys. Each evening the campers fired up their camp fires and created so much smoke we thought the campground would make the TV news as a wildfire. We were glad to stay only 3 nights at the KOA.

We did go to the adjacent community of Bay View, MI. Bay View has many old homes worthy of a stroll and viewing. We had a pleasent smoke free walk and aquired a few photo's. Here are some examples of the homes in the area.
We also made a trip to a place called Castle Farms.

Castle Farms is styled after midevel-style castles and although it is modernized, you can see the influence. There was a Fiber Arts Festival in progress at the facility which included all kinds of spinning related gear and supplies, a sheep herding dog demonstration, live entertainment, etc. The sheep herding dogs were something to see- those dogs are remarkable.

Castle Farms:

After our weekend trip to the Petosky area, we returned to Suttons Bay and the Wild Cherry resort.

We will now have to relax and recover from our KOA experience.

Old Mission Peninsula

2008-07-29T15:00:00.012-04:00

Have I mentioned that this area is really a neat place? Well we continued our exploration by taking a trip to another nearby peninsula, the Old Mission Peninsula.

A few posts ago I provided some maps to pinpoint our location. If you were to go back to those maps you can locate the Old Mission Peninsula. The one map points to our location on the Leelanau Peninsula. Looking to the right (east) of the Leelanau Peninsula, and extending northward from Traverse City, is the Old Mission Peninsula.

The maritime influence is strong here just as it is throughout the region. There are small marinas all along the shoreline. Homeowners all along the shoreline have beautiful views out on the water and many have their own docks.

Old Mission Peninsula resembles the Leelanau Peninsula in the fact that the interior regions contain the cherry orchards as well as vineyards. Both peninsulas are similar in respect with a narrow coastal region that immediately turns into hills as you go inland.

We enjoyed the scenery so much, I didn't take pictures until we got to the end of the peninsula and found the lighthouse at the end of the road. An old log home was there also, so I did take photo's there.

Harvest Time

2008-07-29T14:26:00.009-04:00

Harvest time has come to the Wild Cherry Resort. It involves an interesting process.

Some unusual equipment is used to get the cherries to drop off the tree. The harvesting machine reaches out with an arm that grabs the tree while some angled panels also extend under the tree. The operator then activates the "arms" which then shake the beegees out of the tree. The high speed shaking causes the cherries to come loose and fall onto the angled panels,and then roll to the bottom of the panels. At the bottom of the angled panels is a conveyor belt which transports the cherries up to a container that has water. The water is used to cushion the cherries falling into the container. A worker stands at the container and uses a racquet ball racquet to fish out leaves and twiggs that also fall off the tree. When the container is full a tractor takes the full container away and places a new container in place. Hopefully the following pictures will tell the tale better than my description.

The harvest period for the farmers is a very busy time indeed. It involves many hours in the orchards from daylight to midnight on some days.

I get tired just watching them.

45 North

2008-07-21T19:54:00.022-04:00

Life at the 45th parallel is good. Actually we are just north of the 45th parallel in the Wild Cherry Resort. Our rv sits at exactly 45*00'29.08" North latitude and 85*40'59.5" West Longitude. If you punch that in Google Earth, you will be looking exactly at our rv site, however, it's an old picture taken prior to the construction of the rv resort being completed.

One thing that we noticed that differs considerably from South Florida is how light it is late in the evening. In the summer in South Florida daylight is gone by 9 pm. Not here at 45 North. It stays light until well after 10 pm, plus it starts to get light at 5 am! That makes for short nights. Oh well, that's the price you pay for being closer to the north pole than the equator in the summer.

As I write this at 8 pm on July 21st, it's 70 degrees, 50% humidity with a light breeze. It is so darned comfortable I can hardly stand it. But enough gloating, on to other things.

The hike that never was.

We decided to take a hike in the Leelanau State Park in the northern part of the peninsula. We went with our neighbors in the rv resort, Jim and Jacque Crehan, to the state park to take the 3 mile trail through the forest. We used up the last of Jim and Jacque's bug repellant prior to heading out into the woods. As soon as we stepped into the woods we were swarmed by mosquitos. We braved it for about 100 yards but the the little biters got worse, bug repellant not with standing. At one point I looked at Jacque and saw no less than 12 mosquitos on her back! We fled for safety and called it a day.

However, we then decide to explore the area by auto and made a stop at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse also within Leelanau State Park. The photo's tell the story.

Next we went to the village of Northport.

Northport, like most of the villages in the area, decorates the town with flowers. Since we could not excercise by hiking in the woods, we went to Barb's Bakery instead for pastries! Barb knows how to make them! Here are some of the flowers outside of the bakery.
Besides cherries, the area is becoming known for it's grapes. At last count there are 15 wineries in the region with 3 more scheduled to open in the next year or so. After the bakery stop, we traveled to two of the wineries for some wine tasting prior to going to the village of Leland, home of Fishtown. We had lunch in Fishtown and I acquired a couple more photo's for the blog.

After lunch we hit one more winery, the 45 North, which is across the road from the Wild Cherry Resort. They were free pourers with the wine. Shortly there after it was nap time.

So ended the hike that wasn't.

I'll end this post with a picture of a neat stone building; the local airport runway and terminal; and a 1936 Ford truck. By the way, if a couple of the pictures are not up to standard you can blame the dummy who took the photo's with the wrong setting on the camera.

Smart travel

2008-07-18T08:40:00.007-04:00

Like everything else in America, bigger is better. Or is it?

For us Rvers the rv's have become quite large. This is partly due to our expectation of having all of the comforts of home wherever we travel. That's why we call it Rving not camping. I'll admit I like that. However, could we have all those comforts in a smaller and more efficient package?

In the case of one couple that showed up at the Wild Cherry Resort smaller is better.

They arrived in a 30 foot Trek motorhome, which is several feet shorter than the typical class A motorhome, and they were towing a trailer which carried their Smart Car and a scooter.

We and our neighbors went to take a look at the Smart car and were given a tour by the owners. George says that he typically gets 42 to 45 miles per gallon and can just about get 50 mpg if he drives carefully. He also said that he can get 90 mph out of it if he wants. I was impressed with the interior room of the car for the driver and passenger. There's also room behind the seats for groceries. So for an around town runabout and grocery getter, this may indeed be one of the cars for people without kids.

Fishtown and Sleeping Bear Dunes

2008-07-16T09:14:00.017-04:00

A few miles from our camp is the small town of Leland which sits on the shore of Lake Michigan. The town relies heavily on tourism for income and has a downtown area primarily made up of shops. Typical of the towns in the area, flowers are used generously to enhance the visual appeal of the streets and buildings. Here are a couple of examples.

The original town of Leland was known as Fishtown. This indicates the original purpose of the area. Fishtown still exists within Leland and has shops as well as the fish docks. You can charter a fishing excursion right from Fishtown or you can just go to the store and get fish there. The smoked salmon is the best that we have ever tasted. They also have smoked trout and whitefish but we did not try them. There's another small but nice marina adjactent to Fishtown, just like most of the small towns on the peninsula. Here are a couple of photo's of Fishtown.

Our next adventure was a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore. Sleeping Bear Dunes is located near Glen Arbor and, of course, is along the Lake Michigan shoreline. It got it's name from the Chippewa and Ottawa Indians that thought the dune with trees on top looked like a bear. According to Indian lore the mother bear was on the shoreline looking for her two cubs, in the form of the North and South Manitou Islands, that are within sight of the dune.

There is an auto road, the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, that passes by several points of interest. Point number 9 is a walking trail that takes you out on top of the dune and has great vistas of the lake. At observation areas along the trail, you are 450 feet above the water of Lake Michigan. One area actually has beach access if you want to descend the dune. The trip back up is tough so the Park Service discourages the adventure. As a matter of fact, upon our arrival at the dune, we were caught up in a small traffic jam due to traffic being held up while the Park Service rescued one such climber that could not make it back to the top. I've included a few photo's of the dune area, but they do not fully illustrate our distance above the water.

The last picture is a barn that is along the main highway in the area. We just thought it was neat so we include it here. There are quite a number of barns in the area but this is one of the best.

Leelanau Peninsula

2008-07-11T11:11:00.016-04:00

First off, my apologies to those who placed comments on the blog. I'm still getting used to this blog thing and I guess I just didn't pick up on the comments. Linda spotted them today and called them to my attention. I will follow up with emails to a couple of you with a response.

We are in the Leelanau Peninsula northwest of Traverse City, Michigan. Specifically we are 3 miles northwest of Suttons Bay in the Wild Cherry RV Resort. I've included a couple of maps to pinpoint our location. Low tech but effective.

The Leelanau Peninsula is an orchard region that produces cherries and grapes on a large scale. Throughout the peninsula are miles and miles of orchards. Cherries are just coming into the harvest season.

The Wild Cherry Resort is actually on a working cherry farm. There are cherry orchards on two sides of the resort and are available for picking your own, for a nominal fee naturally. You can't get them any fresher than that! Here's a few photo's from around the campground.

As always click on the photo for a larger view. For those who enjoy closeup detail click on the dandelion picture.

The last picture is a boat we came across parked across from a marina. It's styled like a small tugboat but has sleeping quarters, a gally, dining area, shower/toilet area and can be equipped with air conditioning and other goodies. What a great way to explored the bays and lakes.

National Cherry Festival

2008-07-08T08:12:00.022-04:00

The National Cherry Festival is held annually in Traverse City to celebrate the areas hugh contribution to the cherry crop of the nation. The area supplies 25% of the nations sweet cherries and 75% of the tart cherries. When you drive around the area you certainly can believe it. Miles and miles of cherry trees.

The festival is a 9 day long celebration which includes many activities including pie eating contests, cherry pit spiting competition, live entertainment in the evenings, a beauty contest, and a car show to name just a few.

The crown jewel of the festival, and the real crowd magnet is the Festival Air Show. This year the headlining show was put on by the US Navy Blue Angles. Additional demonstrations by the prop driven group of Aeroshell Aerobats was also a crowd pleaser. Top that off with flights of an A10 Warthog and an F-15D Eagle and you have one awesome airshow. Here are the pictures.

If you have never attended one of these airshows featuring a high performance jet, you need to go to one some time. The show and sound are incredible. The tight turns that the F-15 can complete at hundreds of miles per hour are amazing. My favorite manuever has the F-15 pilot turning the jet straight up and lighting the afterburners and rocketing nearly out of sight!

The Blue Angles and the F-15 did a couple of speed runs past the crowd at about 600 mph. The crowd was impressed but I wonder how many know the same jets can actually go about 1200 mph! Now that I would like to see!

Catching up post

2008-07-08T07:07:00.032-04:00

I'm going to use this post to try and make us current on our trip.

Our last post had us in the New Wilmington, PA area. We stayed at the Mercer KOA which is south of Mercer along Rt 208. The KOA had a special in June on their rv sites so we took advantage of that and upgraded to a patio site. It is a very nice site complete with wood deck and swing. I've included a couple of photo's of the site.

Next we traveled to the area of Three Rivers, Michigan which is south of Kalamazoo. We stayed on a lake front site at the Klines RV Resort and had a great view. Couple that with absolutely fantastic weather, we had a great stay there.

We came to the area to visit with Linda's mother and brother who live in Portage and Schoolcraft, MI. I've included two photo's of our rv site and a picture of a neat stone church that we came across in the town of Mendon.

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Michigan has many inland lakes with lots of great lakeside homes and cottages. We spent time touring some of the lakes in the area and picked out a number of lakefront homes that would be very comfortable for homesteading. If it wasn't for those winters...

Michigan also has many great shoreline communities along the Great Lakes. One such touristy town in southwestern Michigan is Saugatuck. I'll let the photo's of Saugatuck speak for themselves.

From southwest Michigan we traveled north to the Leelanau Peninsula which is located northwest of Traverse City. This is one of our favorite places in Michigan. More on this area in future posts.

New Wilmington, Pennsylvania

2008-06-25T08:49:00.018-04:00

New Wilmington is the area where I, Terry, grew up. The town is largely surrounded by farm land of which a very large portion is Amish. The Amish of the area are an old order which means they are stricter about their lifestyle than some of the Amish in other areas such as Lancaster, Pa. or some that are in the northern Indiana area. No cars, phones, electricity, etc. here. They also do not like pictures taken of them so in respect for their beliefs there will be no pictures here of them. However, I’ll post a couple of pictures of their farms.

New Wilmington is also home to Westminster College, a private college that has always been an integral part of the community. The campus is beautiful making the educational process a great experience.

The surrounding farms and the many back roads of the area make for a great place for exploration. One such neat place is a covered bridge, still in service, that is located about 4 miles out of town.

Another place to visit is Johnston’s Apple Castle. The Johnston’s orchards are located along Rt. 18 south of Rt. 208. Besides apples they sell lots of fresh vegetables of which their corn is of special note. They have a nice store that anyone can stop by to browse and pick up items: canned goods, apples, veggies, and baked goods. Stop by, you will not be disappointed. By the way, they have a festival in October. We have not had the opportunity to attend, but we hear it is a good time.

Now if New Wilmington just didn’t have typical snowy winters it would be perfect!

Jonesborough, TN

2008-06-22T15:21:00.012-04:00

Having some free time today, I decided to start taking making some posts about some places that we did manage to visit but did not get posted. Today will be about our stop in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

On our way north, we stopped for 6 days in the Johnson City area of eastern Tennessee. This is an area that we have read about and will consider as a new home area should we decide to move from South Florida. Our initial visit to the area was positive so we are planning to return and stay for a month to get a better feel for the area.

Linda likes the mountains, so we concentrated our looking in the Jonesborough area which is about 6 miles southwest of Johnson City.

Jonesborough is Tennessee's oldest incorporated municipality and was once the state capitol. There are numerous old well kept buildings in town with shops, a few restaurants, and most important of all (to Linda) a quilt shop. Of course this is not any old ordinary quilt shop but a shop with one of the best fabric selections in the nation. We did not get in and out of there for free. Linda also found another of her favorite places, a coffee shop! We didn't get out of there for free either.

The next few pictures will show the downtown area of Jonesborough including the main street, the county county court house, and a very old hotel and a couple of other buildings. These are my first post of pictures and I had some

difficulty in positioning things. I'll have to go back to the tutorial to figure this out. Click on any picture for a larger view.

Restaurants of western PA

2008-06-21T16:10:00.003-04:00

Our time in western PA has largely been used to help my mother clean up the basement of the house and garage. This has been time consuming. We even started trimming trees in the front yard that need such attention. This left little time for other activities but we did visit a few restaurants in the Mercer and New Castle areas, and I’m glad we did.

Over the years we had lamented the fact that there were few really good restaurants in the area. We compare the restaurants that we visit in our travels to the restaurants we frequent in our home area of South Florida. South Florida has many fine restaurants with Chefs that do an amazing job with preparing fine food for your enjoyment.

One local PA restaurant that we want to mention is the Springfield Grille, 1226 Perry Hwy, Mercer, PA, 724-748-3589 (this is Rt. 19 south of Mercer and south of I-80). We enjoyed ourselves so much we went to the Springfield Grille 3 times in two weeks!

Our first surprise was the ability to get a Mojito for a drink. Mojitos are not unusual in South Florida but was a real surprise for us when in western PA. Our bartender, Alexia Zdral, who has honed her skills in the Washington D.C. area, made us a mojito as fine as any we had ever had anywhere. But it did not end there. Alexia had something special for us to try.

Ever had a Besito? Who would ever guess you could make a mixed drink with basil and vanilla vodka and have it taste so good. How about a Pinecone? A cocktail made with sage and gin! Alexia fine tuned the Besito but collaborated with Chef Nate Barker on the Pinecone. It is their original recipe and only available at the Springfield Grille. So there you have it, health drinks!

Speaking of Chef Nate Barker, you have to try any of his entrée’s that feature lamb. We zeroed in on the lamb and had two versions of lamb on different nights. The food was fantastic and I’ll say again, a surprise for western PA. We also enjoyed a spinach artichoke dip that makes for a fantastic appetizer. You can also have crab added to the dip to take it to another level. Lastly, don’t forget the turtle soup. The farm raised turtles used in the soup are delicious. The soup is served with a shot of sherry that you pour into the soup and adds just the right additional spice to the mix! We will be back to try more of Chef Nate’s preparations in the near future.

We also want to thank Teresa Decker, General Manager of the Springfield Grille, who came by and talked to us and made us feel welcome in her establishment.

The Springfield Grille is the type of place you just want to go back to every chance you get. Good food, fine drinks, and new friends- it just doesn’t get better than that.

Nailed; plus 1944

2008-06-06T21:21:00.004-04:00

Our stay in western PA has me working hard in Florida like weather. It was in the high 80's the last couple of days and 92 today. We are helping my mother clean out her garage and basement of 49 years of accumulation. My father did not throw anything out. Might need it someday.

My mother rented a 15 yard trash/junk container and we have pretty much filled it up. During the process I stepped on a board with a rusty nail. The nail penitrated my shoe and into the ball of my right foot. So I had to make a trip to the doctor for a tetnus shot.

By the way for you people who have Cigna health care. I called them to find out which doctor to go to. Cigna said it didn't make any difference: I didn't have any standard health coverage since I was out of my home area! However, I could go to any emergency room! So for you fellow Cigna people, don't travel out of you home area, you have no standard health care coverage- even if you are in a Cigna area other than your home area.

We are taking the weekend off to go do fun things, then back to work on Monday.

Now for 1944. While going through some of my fathers papers, I came across his federal income tax return from 1944. My father, age 22 at the time, spent '44 as a bomber pilot in the 15th Air Force first based in North Africa then based in Italy. He flew combat missions over the Alps to bomb Germany. For this he was paid $870 for the year. He was an officer/pilot and supposedly paid more than GI's. I can only imagine what the infantry was paid.

Lastly, let's not forget the tremendous bravery and sacrifice made by Allied Forces on D-Day, June 6th, 1944. American casulties exceeded 5000 that day . The Brits and Canadians also sufferd heavy losses. We owe them more than we can express or repay.

Electrical problem: converter

2008-06-03T07:28:00.006-04:00

I realize that so far I’ve not posted lots of fun stuff, but it will come. However I’m documenting the way it is with life on the road. Same as at home, the house needs maintenance and is part of the trip. In this case it was an electrical problem.

In short, our converter quit working. So what’s a converter you might ask? (You experienced RVers or boaters hang in there for a minute).

Most RV’s are equipped with two voltage systems, a 110v AC system and a 12v DC system. The TV’s, air conditioning system, washer/dryer, convection microwave, and outlets on the walls are the 110 volt system everyone is used to at home. The 12v system runs the controls for the refrigerator, the furnace, the hot water heater, and the interior lights. The 12v system works in conjunction with 4 house batteries to provide the 12v. The converter takes 110 power and converts it to 12v power and charges the house batteries. If the house batteries are not charged, the 12v appliances in the coach will not work.

This is a simplified view but good enough for this post.

I noticed that our battery gauge that we have in the coach was going downward indicating that we were losing charge from our batteries. To shorten up the story, through lots of testing and work, I confirmed that the converter had failed.

After calling the few local rv stores in the area, no replacement converter could be located. However, they would be glad to order one for me.

It was time to call the manufacturer of the converter, Iota Engineering located in Arizona.

Good thing I did. I talked to Jay in the technical advice department. He explained a common problem that I might be able to tackle that might fix the converter. Following his instructions, I opened the converter, located the offending part, made a jumper that by-passed the problem, soldered it, and placed the repaired converter back in the RV.

I’m happy to report the converter is converting and charging our batteries. Not exactly heart surgery, but I’m proud of myself none-the-less.

Plus I didn’t get electrocuted in the process.

Fuel!

2008-06-02T15:47:00.003-04:00

I was really going to rant about fuel costs, so I waited a couple of days and decided to tone it down.

We filled up the coach with diesel prior to leaving Coral Springs. The next fuel stop was in Wytheville, VA, 986 miles later. The cost, $543 for 119 gallons of fuel! That's $4.65 per gallon and the price is still rising. I remenber the days when diesel was only... well it doesn't matter now.

Everybody wants to blame somebody for the current fuel situation. But us Americans can only really blame ourselves. How's that you may ask? Well we let Congress get away with listening to the wacko leftwing enviro-terrorists....oops, sorry, I said I wasn't going to get carried away. Congress and former President Clinton refused and Congress currently refuses to do what is needed to be done. We need to drill in Alaska, drill off the west coast of the US (thats right, near the wacko republic of California) and drill off the coast of Florida (thanks alot Gov. Bush) and any other place we may find oil.

When the enviro- extremists start screaming about the caribou, polar bears, or the endangered trowser lice, we have to be aware that they are complaining about the oil industry drilling practices of 50 years ago. Modern drilling techniques are vastly improved and can be done with very little impact to the animals or their enviroment. Somehow Congress just can't get that.

We need to drill, drill, and then drill some more. Yes it will take several years to get things going, but there's no better time to get started than right now. While we are drilling, we should build 3 or 4 more refineries. Everything could come together in 5 to 9 years and reduce our dependancy on foregn oil. If Pres. Clinton had done the right thing 10 years ago, we might not be in this current situation.

Speaking of refineries did you see where the govenor of Kansas just stopped two gaint construction projects in Kansas., one of which was a 15 billion dollar refinery. She did a double wammy on her state- a loss of $25 billion in construction and the loss of employment for the people of Kansas. Not to mention a swift kick to the rest of us in the loss of future refining capacity.

Well, all of this has caused us to alter our travel plans. We originally were going to travel to PA and MI for the months of June and July. Then we were going out west to Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, etc. We would have returned home early November. Traveling out west would, at the current price of nearly $5 per gallon of diesel, would have cost us $3000 in diesel fuel alone. We have decided to eliminate the western part of the trip, stay east, and pocket the $3000. We still plan on returning home November 1.

I hate the enviro-wackos, I hope they get a bad case of trowser lice!

I've been a bad blogger

2008-05-30T16:13:00.002-04:00

I had no intentions of letting this many days go by without an entry, but it happened anyway. I’ll try to not let this happen again. So here goes the catch-up entry.

We did have a great time at dinner with the Mullicans at the Irish pub. Love those fish and chips, and also the shepards pie.

The next day we traveled to the Savannah, GA area and stayed at the KOA campground. We went out to get some supplies and decided to stop at a Beef-O-Brady’s for dinner. Inside were a bunch of Brits watching a championship soccer match on TV that was taking place in England. What a rowdy bunch. Almost as enthusiastic as Steeler fans!

The next day we moved the coach to Columbia, SC for the night and the next day on to the Johnson City, TN area. We stayed 6 days over the Memorial Day weekend to sit tight during the holiday and to look the area over as a potential place to move our homestead. We liked what we saw, particularly in the Jonesborough City area, and plan to return to stay for a month to get a good feel for the area. This is the first place that we have visited east of the Mississippi that we like enough to take a second look. We lucked out with chamber of commerce weather- 70’s in daytime, 50’s at night and blue sky.

From there we stopped one night in Flatwoods, WV at what was the Days Hotel Campground, but is now the Flatwoods KOA. To you RVers out there, you know what that means- higher prices! $40 a night and no cable TV!

Today we made the trip past Pittsburgh and have stopped at the Mercer KOA for the next 17 days. My mother lives in the area and we will be visiting her as well as helping her clean out the cellar, garage and closets. My father past away this past January and Mom has decided to start cleaning out the house and we are going to help.

The price for this is some of Mom’s home cooked meals, just like I used to get when I was a boy. Linda and I cook many fine meals but they are generally of a different type than what we will get here. Yep, that means more calories!

The next entry will be a rant about fuel prices and how they will affect our contribution to the economy.

The Launch- Glad it’s over

2008-05-20T14:48:00.003-04:00

Well the last 3 days prior to leaving were very busy. At times it seemed that the travel gods did not want us to go.

Last Thursday we received a call from Independence RV saying that the motorhome was ready for pickup at noon on Friday. That meant a trip to Orlando to pick it up and return home. That also meant that I was going to miss the granddaughters (Morgan) championship playoff softball game. I’m proud to say that Morgan’s team won the game and the league championship! Morgan’s team only lost one ballgame during the season. Way to go Morgan! Unfortunately, I missed the game due to the 420 mile round trip to Orlando.

Saturday morning we pulled the coach up in front of our home to load all our stuff except food. During the loading I noticed oil was dripping from the rear differential of our Jeep. Closer inspection revealed that the leak was coming from the pinion seal where the dive shaft enters the differential. I do a lot of my own mechanic work but this is more than I want to tackle. Off to the Jeep dealer we went. Thankfully, the local dealer, Maroone Jeep, has Saturday service hours. We got the Jeep in about noon hoping they could work on it. The service writer, Dino, was very helpful. It turns out Dino is a Jeep owner and enthusiast and after I explained our trip launch schedule, he kind of pushed through the work on the Jeep. The Jeep was done by 2:30 pm! Thanks Dino!

Saturday evening was my retirement dinner. We spent the evening with friends and had a great time. But that closes the last chapter on that part of our lives and now we are excited about making new chapters, which starts with this journey.

Sunday we pulled the coach back in front the house and finish loading and stocked the frig. I say pulled back in front of the house because we cannot store the coach at our home due to city regulations. We have to keep it in storage facility that is located about 3 miles from home. Not the most convenient setup, but that is the way it is. Sunday afternoon had me out in the hot Florida sun putting up our storm shutters. They will be in place while we are gone.

Monday- launch day! We loaded up our laptops, cameras, some final various items and our 2 cats, LeMeiux and Hurakan. The cats have travel with us for the last 7+ years and travel well. They are Burmese.

We were down to the last 5 minutes prior to driving off, and were in the process of unplugging TV’s, computers, etc, when we discovered a leak in the water hose that leads to our ice maker in the home refrigerator. So that was a 45 minute delay to cleanup that mess. So with that cleaned up, away we went.

Whew, that was easy!

Fortunately, our first days trip was only 180 miles to the Great Outdoors RV Resort in Titusville, Fl. We will stat two days to rest up from launch preparations. Tonight we meet with friends Carolyn and Jim Mullican at the Irish Pub for fish and chips. We have not had the pleasure of their company in a while and look forward to dinner.

Motorhome repairs done!

2008-05-15T20:36:00.003-04:00

Independance RV advised by phone that the paint and other items have been completed. The coach will be available for pickup at noon tomorrow. I'll be there at 11 am.

So our new launch day will be Monday the 19th. We are looking forward to heading north, but there will be lots of work to prepare the coach and our house for the extended trip.

One thing that is new for us is a change to on-line bill pay. I know that we have been slow to get with the times and should have done this a long time ago, but we just started last month and it appears to be working smoothly. I'm also having billers eliminate paper bills which will please me to no end. Less paper in my mailbox!!! Yeah!

Last year we joined Life Lock to protect our credit and a side benefit with that is almost no more "pre-approved" credit card offers. We will will not miss Capitol One, Discover, and a couple of others with all of their monthly mailings.

Now if we could just eliminate all of the bills themselves, we would really be on to something.

The wait for the motorhome gets longer

2008-05-13T22:42:00.002-04:00

We have been waiting for the motorhome to have warranty work and body repairs completed. However, as is all too common when dealing with rv dealerships, the work is taking much longer than anticipated. Originally the dealership said one week for the work and it's already going on two weeks. I now habor little hope that we will launch our trip on the 18th of this month. The dealership says they might be done on Friday the 16th- maybe. I'm not counting on it.

However, we continue to get things ready to go, hoping that we will minimize the stress of loading when the time comes. We actually had to take stuff out of the motorhome in order to have the new carpet installed, therefore, the loadup for the trip will be much more involved than normal.

Normally we only have to load food, camaras, and the laptop, (and the cats) to go on a trip. The motorhome is otherwise completely stocked with all utensils, clothes, and all other day to day items. This time we will have to load some furniture, cat stuff and a number of other items in the 90+ degree heat that S. Florida is enjoying now.

It's time to head north to find some cooler weather!

The Big Trip

2008-05-11T16:31:00.003-04:00

We have been lucky to be able to take fairly long trips throughout our working careers. Since the late 90's we have been able to travel in our rv for 5 to 6 weeks on average and actually went for 7 weeks the last couple of years.

Additionally, we traveled by rv somewhere in Florida for a long weekend almost every month for the last 8+ years. This allowed us to average 90 days per year in our rv's. Not bad for working people!

Now we enter a new stage of rv travel. We can go for as long as we want. Our "want" this year is going to be close to 6 months. This is partially a test to see if we want to become full time rvers and live in our MH year around. We will see what we think by the time November rolls around.

So our planned trip this year includes the following.

We are starting out nice and slow and are leaving South Florida (did I mention it's already 90 degrees here in May?) and going north to Titusville (FL) to stay at the Great Outdoors RV Resort. We like it there and we like to get the fish and chips at the Irish Pub in town. Our last trip to Titusville found us attending an airshow at the airport- I'll have a post later about the awesome show the F-15 put on for the crowd.

From Titusville we will spend a couple of days going north thru GA, SC, NC, and landing in the Johnson City, TN area. We will hole up there for a week during the Memorial Day weekend. We will be about 3 miles from the Bristol Motor Speedway- a good thing for us NASCAR fans.

From TN we go to PA to visit my mother, then over to Michigan to see Linda's mother and brother in the Portage, MI area.

Next up to Suttons Bay on the Leelanau Peninsula for 3 weeks. We will be there for the Nation Cherry Festival. There's another airshow featuring the Blue Angles at the Festival. Did I mention that I love high-performance military aircraft?

After Michigan we will spend time in Custer, SD; Cody, WY; eastern Idaho; Ouray, CO for a month; then thru Uath for Bryce Canyon; Las Vegas to visit family; Arizona to visit our son who's in the Army; over to New Mexico in the Ruidoso area for a Newmar Kountry Club rally (for owners of Newmar MH's); a few days near Ft. Davis, TX; Fredericksbrug, TX for a week; a stop in Houston for the International Quilt Show; then we work our way back to Florida for the winter.

Wow, I got tired just writing that!

Motorhome work

2008-05-11T16:16:00.003-04:00

Friday I called Independence RV to check on the progress of the work being done on our motorhome. The original plan called for the new carpet to be installed over a 3 day period, starting this past Monday. Then on Thursday the MH was to go to the body shop for 2 days for repair and paint. I thought I'd be picking up the MH on this coming Monday so that we could start loading for our 5 month trip that is scheduled to start on May 18th.

Silly me. I had forgotten what it is like to deal with an RV dealers service department. They just finished the carpet install on Friday and plan on starting the body work this coming Monday. If all goes well, they hope I can pick up the MH on Thursday, May 15th. That's going to make for lots of work to get things loaded and ready to go by Sunday!

Right in the middle of this prep for launch is my (Terry) retirement dinner on Saturday night. I'm excited about attending but this will be a very busy week for us to get everthing done.

First Post

2008-05-07T15:47:00.002-04:00

Well I finally got around to our first post. I had promised friends that I would start posting in January but life got in the way and there have been big delays.

Unfortunately I (Terry) had my father pass away in January only 10 days after a close friend had passed away. During February and early March we had two close friends that lost parents, also. So we were tied up with funerals for weeks.

That put us weeks behind our preparations for our extended trip that starts May 18th. So I have been getting the motorhome ready by changing the engine oil, hydraulic oil, transmission fluid, rear axle oil, generator oil…

I do these things myself so that I know that they are done correctly. That also lowers the cost by doing the labor myself. Plus I use synthetic products for superior lubrication.

Right now we have the motorhome in Orlando at a Newmar dealer for some warranty work- new carpet, replacement of the living room slide out cover, a new kitchen cabinet door, the frig needs a new control panel, and a couple of other things. Additionally, there will be some bodywork done to fix some damage inflicted on the driver’s side rear corner of the rv when the main pilot (me) rubbed the rv against a guardrail while trying to maneuver into a tight area to get propane.

Now we are tied up preparing the house for our extended absence. So with 11 days to go for launch we have been busy.

Speaking of cats, we took the cats to the vet for their annual physical, shots, etc. While there the vet casually said that the cats were due for a blood test to make sure everything
is working well. We had never had blood tests done on the cats before, so we said sure, why not. Well the why not is $168 per cat! After all was said and done, we were out of $751! Anyone want a free cat?

Well this has not been the better of first posts but at least it gets things rolling. I plan on making a couple of posts per week, which will include pictures as well as commentary, on whatever our trip and life brings.