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Ed & Johanne's
Notes from the road

Page 18

July 15th:
Belle Meade Plantation
Johanne made a new friend as you can see. We drove to the other side of Nashville for Ice cream. There was a family event with zoo animals and live musicians as well as the free ice cream served up by members of the police and fire depts, even the mayor and his staff took turns.
This all took place on

.July 30: Left the Knoxville area, again heading east on I-40 and then northbound on I-81. Two hundred miles, a stop for gas and a stop for the night at Fort Chiswell RV Park in Ft Chiswell, Virginia. Nice, full hook-ups with cable and WiFi. Mostly for overnight stays but they did have a pool.

July 20th: Leaving the Nashville area, we headed east on I-40 to the Knoxville area. We parked in another Escapee's members park "Racoon Valley". Small, neat and close sites, but very affordable.
      While here we took a day trip to see Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg and a brief stop at the visitors center at the entrance to the Smoky Mountain National Park.
       A little rain, a lot of traffic and a stop at a Craftsmans Fair where we looked at tons of crafts but wound up only buying some homemade jelly, salsa and pickles.
       One evening we joined a group of fellow Escapee's at a dinner at a Ruby Tuesdays.
       While at this park I did a little bike riding, a little work on the car and a lot of hiding from the HEAT & HUMIDITY.

the grounds of the 1850's mansion, which at one time had 5,400 acres where they bred horses and farmed. They had up to 139 slaves in the early days.

. We explored the outbuildings, gardens and a variety of old horse wagons. We even went back through the ice cream line a second time, but did not stay for the music as the temperatures were rather unbearable for us.
We traveled through the town of Belle Meade and where astonished at the large numbers of huge old homes and mansions, one after another.

      The roughest day was this past Friday evening and most of Saturday, the power went out in the area. Supposedly and pole and transformer got knocked down.
                          NO AIR CONDITIONER!!!
       The advantage of living in an RV is you carry your own power source, the generator and batterys. However you don't run the generator for long periods and definitly not while sleeping.   But........we survived.

.July 31: Another 200 miles and an over night in Edinburg, VA at Creekside Campground also a short distance off of I-81. Nice manager/owner, fairly level, gravel, full hookups with cable and WiFi. Nice little river running behind the RV. Another park best for overnight stays. .

.Aug 1: And yet another 200 miles to Newville, PA. We spent two nights at Dogwood Acres Campground. It is very quiet here, far from highways, trains and such. But as the weekend approached the camp started to fill up. I counted 10 young boys at the pond, screaming and horseplaying.

.Aug 3: A shorter trip than the last three.
    We stopped at a tourist stop Called Roadside America. It is a 6000 square foot train and village layout. It was truly amazing, with moving figures, a hot air balloon, an airfield with a circling plane, tramway going up and down a mountain and much, much more. Every half hour night would fall over the village and the overhead lights would dim and go out, while the lights in the houses and buildings and streetlights would come on. On the far wall various projections would display the Statue of Liberty, the flag all while Kate Smith is singing God Bless America. Very moving display.
     From there we continued another twenty miles to our destination, Pine Hill RV Park. A very nice, neat, well maintained park, although a bit pricy.
      We chose this place in order to visit our friends Linda and Bob T. that we met while we all were volunteering at the Escapee's Care Center.