Arriving in Florida (10/1/2015)

Our plan to meet Kayla for breakfast this morning got us off to an early start.  We pulled out of the campground before full daylight (7:10 a.m.), and met up with our own Duck Dynasty.

We met up with Kayla and had a really nice visit with her.  I'm sure she had some misgivings since she had only met me once, briefly, and I don't think she had ever met Joe.  But she put up with us, and the restaurant worked out great, had enough room for us to park everything.  Kayla is a busy gal, working two jobs and signing up for a full load of fall classes this morning.  Should help make the 6-7 months that John is deployed go a little faster for her.

When we left her, we fueled for $2.119 and got on I-75 at 9:55 for the last leg of our journey back to Florida to see Andrew and his mommy and daddy.  We crossed the Florida state line about 10:15, with about 200 miles to go.  We got to John's about 3:00, parked the RV in their driveway, and waited for everyone to get home.  Andrew was shy when he got out of his daddy's truck, but it didn't take long for him to warm up to us.  He soon started bringing out books for Grandpa to read to him, until it was time to go eat.

The next morning started out with more books.  The stack below is what Andrew and Grandpa read before breakfast!

John took the day off, but Bridgette had to go to work, so we hung around the house for a while, then went over to Day Care to get Joe and I signed up as "authorized personnel" so we can pick Andrew up next week when John is out of town.  We met the rabbit and some turtles, but didn't get to see the goats.

Andrew has changed a lot since we left here in June.  He's talking up a storm, full sentences, and most of it we can understand.  He's big on rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses, and he wants to know what sound everything makes -- most of them he knows.  He is so funny.  Bridgette is still in the throes of the first trimester of pregnancy so she's nauseated and weary on a daily basis.  Hopefully, we can ease her load while John is gone next week. 

It's hot and humid here in Florida, we are hoping the weather breaks pretty soon.  I think I will take a break from the blog while we are here, and maybe pick it back up when we head west, in a couple of weeks or so.  No one would want to see all the pictures of our grandson that we will be taking, I'm sure.

Leavng McRae's (9/29-30/2015)

Tuesday -- Time to get back in travel mode for tomorrow.  I did a little cleaning in the RV, and Joe got the oil changed in the Explorer.  We seem to be in pretty good shape to pull out tomorrow.  After dinner, we had our nightly game of Hand and Foot, with the new cards again, and the guys won again.  Definitely time to leave here!

Wednesday -- Mike decided to fix us biscuits and sausage before we hit the road, but we were still able to get an early start (7:35).  We drove separately up to the gas station, where we fueled, got sodas, and hooked up the car.  We were on I-75 by 7:50, with lots of miles to go today.  It was misty-rainy, and when we got to the top of Monteagle, we hit some fog. 

But as we came down off the mountain, the fog was just in the valleys and we were good to go.  As we neared Chattanooga, we changed back to the Eastern time zone.  And I-75 dips into Georgia, then back in Tennessee, before we leave Tennessee behind for good.  So that was about 8:45 the first time into Georgia, then 9:05 the second time.  We hit Atlanta at 11:45 EST, staying with I-75 all the way through, rather than taking the bypass.  Some road construction and traffic slowed us down, but not too bad. 

Atlanta

Once we saw that Valdosta would be a good destination for the day, I made contact with our great-niece, Kayla Coulter, to see if we could visit with her.  Her husband, John, just got deployed this week so we will miss seeing him, but they are stationed at Moody Air Force base, so we really wanted to at least stop by.  After several texts, we made plans to meet her for breakfast in the morning.

We are camped at Hahira, Georgia, about 10 miles north of Valdosta.  After we got set up, we went for a drive, past the Air Force base, and past the Coulters' new home.  Even though Kayla was at work, we at least got to drive by and see their place -- very nice.  When we finally stopped for dinner, Joe had ordered a baked potato with his meal, and the waitress came back and said they were out of them, so he had to order something else.  When she brought the check, she said the manager had found out about the baked potato, and in fact they were not out of them, there were 2 in the drawer but the cook just didn't want to fix it, so they gave Joe a baked potato free, to take home with him.  He said he had never had a free baked potato before, and thought I should put that in the blog.

We drove 396 miles today, all interstate, but a lot of truck traffic.  We had one pretty good 5-minute shower, then the sun came out and it got hot and humid -- we can tell we are in the South.  We found gas today for $1.929, but the price seems to be creeping up the further south we get. 

We should be holding our grandson tomorrow night -- looking forward to that!

Sunday-Monday at McRae's (9/27-28/2015)

We loaded up this morning and headed back to the Flea Market, after a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast sandwiches.  David went with us today, he likes to help his Grandpa look for bargains at the flea market.  The guy who was supposed to bring the gourds didn't -- said it was raining when he got home.  Apparently, he must have had to go pick them.  Anyway, that was the main reason we went, but we still stopped.  There were a lot more booths and tables today than yesterday, and we all found something we thought we needed.  After our scenic drive back to the house, I got to watch the Cardinal's football game.  A great game to watch, since Tiffany, Eric, Cody and Kaylee were all at that game back home (I never did see them, but they said they made the teletron at halftime), and a nice win for us. 

Then it was off to the Elvis concert.  Lisa and David were outside when we left, working with Spot.

The Elvis concert was different from any others we have been to.  This was not an impersonator, it was the talent from the local Arts Center in a tribute to Elvis, with two narrators telling his life story, and different members of the Center performing his songs.  While they didn't try to imitate him, they did sing his songs like he sang them, within their range.  And one woman came out in constume -- I've never seen the "Elvis cape look" on a female, so that got a good laugh.  It was very good, with pictures lit up behind the stage of Elvis, some of his movie and album covers.  Two and a half hours of listening to Elvis songs -- not a bad way to spend an evening.

When we got back home, Nancy had to get to bed because she still has a J O B (only for about 2 more months, then she is retiring), so Lisa filled in at the card table.  Another fun evening.

Monday Joe and I got some chores taken care of.  First was laundry, but then I started trying to get the RV back in some kind of order to travel on Wednesday.  Joe worked on his "fix-it" list, with Mike's help, of course.  So it was a productive day.  And I baked a cake, and had dinner ready (ham and beans) when Nancy got home.  We had an early card game, but it wasn't without its moments.  Joe had complained (imagine that) about the cards sticking together, so they broke out new decks, which of course are slick.  He dumped them once (we are using 4 decks), and Nancy did too, so we spent some time picking cards up off the floor.  But the guys won, so I'm sure they think it was due to the new cards.

Another dreary day here, and it rained in the early evening, and probably during the night.  Temperatures have been in the 60-70 range, so we haven't had to use too much of Mike's electricity to keep the RV cool, which is a good thing.  Maybe we will get invited back.

Arriving McRae's and Friday at McRae's (9/25/2015)

As predicted, we woke up to rain.  Joe had hooked up the car last night and dumped the tanks, so all he had to do was unhook the electricity, and it actually was barely sprinkling then so we were good to go.  We were on the road at 8:10, pretty early start.  We got back up on I-40 and followed it to Crossville, TN, where we picked up US 70 and headed southwest.  We missed our turn in Sparta so we ended up on 111 to Spencer, then took scenic 30 back to 70/55, which took us right to Manchester.  It rained all morning and into mid-afternoon.  We arrived at Mike and Nancy's at 12:20, and Mike was sitting in the garage waiting for us.  They got a little damp getting the RV situated next to the driveway, but then we were set up.  We drove 195 miles today.

Nancy was still at work, so while Joe and Mike visited, I took some more cold medicine and took a nap.  We collected our packages of prescription medicine that we had ordered to ship here, so it was good to get that taken care of.  Surely, we now have enough to get us home.  Eventually, we went out for dinner, and played a game of Hand and Foot before calling it a day.

On Friday, we woke up to rain again. I did get some pictures of our camp site between raindrops.

 Mike fixed his famous biscuits and gravy for breakfast, then we headed out to the Top of the Mountain to the Flea Market.  Unfortunately, it is only open on Sundays now, but there was a farmer's market behind it that we shopped a little.  Mike has set up his own table here in the past so he was familiar with the guy running it.  We picked up some tomatoes, blueberries and peaches.  Joe asked about gourds (for his birdhouse plans when we get home) and the guy said he would bring some tomorrow, so the plan is that we will come back here tomorrow when the Flea Market is open.

There was another Flea Market on the other side of town, so we hit it, but they didn't have very many booths open.  I assume they will have more tomorrow as well.  Then we stopped at a garage sale on the way home, so it was just a "thrifty" day.

After dinner, we played Hand and Foot again.  We laughed and laughed -- it is never good to get Joe and Mike together.  Lisa and David returned home from their mud bogging weekend while we played, but I think we were probably a bit too much nonsense for Lisa. Of course, Mike and Nancy have to take cigarette breaks every so often, so we all spend a lot of time in the garage.  But a good time was had by all.

Tomorrow is a full agenda -- back to the Flea Market in the morning, and to the Elvis concert tomorrow night.  Hope to get to watch a bit of the Arizona Cardinals football game in the afternoon, but it probably won't be shown here.  Go Cardinals!!

Arriving Tennessee (9/24/2015)

We were up and on the road early today, back on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We got on the road about 7:30 (amazing!!), and were on the Parkway by 8:20 (we had to stop for breakfast sandwiches at Sheetz, which were not very good), and crossed the North Carolina state line at 8:40.

Although we had spent the last two days in North Carolina, we went back to Virginia to get back on the Parkway, at the same exit we got off.  Our plan to get an early start was twofold -- to make up for the miles we didn't travel yesterday, and to hope to see some wildlife.  And we were successful at both.  By 9:00, we had seen 9 deer and 3 turkeys.  We saw one more turkey later in the day, but our early start paid off.  We were also hoping to see some fall color in the leaves, and we did see a lot -- they are not fully turned yet, but we took lots of pictures trying to capture the colors, and the pictures don't do justice to them.  Some of the hillsides were really beautiful.  We stopped at a few overlooks to try to get better pictures.

 And another pull-off.

We had been seeing a lot of big leafy bushes, and Joe was trying to figure out what they were.  We stopped at Craggy Gardens pull-off, and our Milepost Book said there are lots of pink and purple blooms of Catawba rhododendrons that bloom here in the spring, so that mystery was solved.  That was one of the flowers Joe suggested.

Although we had seen then all along the Parkway, they were really thick here.  It would be great to get to see them in full bloom.

Our next viewpoint (we didn't stop, so Joe tried to snap a photo out his window) was of this pretty lake.  We saw a few lakes along this route.

We exited the Parkway at Milepost 382 about 2:30, and skirted around Asheville.  We hit the Tennessee state line at 3:40.  We held out to fuel until we got to Tennessee, which was good because we found gas for $1.929 (whoop whoop).  Another 10 miles and we found a campground for the night at Dandridge, TN.  Joe spent a lot of hours behind the wheel today.  From 7:30 a.m. to 4:25 p.m.  And we covered 284 miles, most of them below 45 mph.  But we enjoyed the Parkway, all 382 miles of it that we drove. 

My cold is better, not completely gone but I'm not blowing my nose as often, although my normal cough has started up.  We got the RV set up and I laid down for about 30 minutes, then we drove into town for a pizza.  We hope to make it to Mike McRae's tomorrow, but they are forecasting heavy rain -- I think mostly east of us -- so we will see how our progress goes.  Mike has tickets for us to see an Elvis impersonator on Sunday, so we definitely need to keep moving along. 

Exploring Mayberry (Mount Airy, NC) (9/23/2015)

Well, in my ongoing battle with my crummy cold, the cold is winning right now.  But we did manage to go into Mount Airy and explore Andy Griffith's hometown.  We started at the Museum

No pictures were allowed inside, but they had lots of memorabilia and photos of not only the Andy Griffith show and Matlock, but also the movies Andy was in -- probably the most famous was No Time for Sergeants.  Also here in a separate room were exhibits of the Siamese twins Eng and Chang who, although born in Siam (hence the origin of the word "Siamese") in 1811, they settled here in the late 1830s.  They lived, co-joined, until 1874, at age 62.  It was later discovered at autopsy that they shared part of their liver.  Amazingly, they married sisters and produced 22 children between the two families.  (I don't know the answer to that unspoken question, so don't ask)

Next, we drove by Andy's boyhood home.

Next, we drove down to Wallys Service Station, which was pretty authentic looking, even though it was basically a gift shop.  Parked outside were Barney's squad cars, which you can ride downtown in.

Next to Wally's were storefronts of many of the buildings brought to life in the Show.

 We liked this "sign".

The Courthouse and Jail were part of this strip of buildings.  Joe took up residence in Otis's cell, while I took the other one.  Then Joe assumed his official capacity, first as Sheriff, then as Justice of the Peace.

We drove downtown Main Street and found a parking spot, then walked the 2-3 blocks of the shops.  Spaced around town were 3 guitars all painted up -- Bluegrass music is famous in this area.

We also went into the Earle Theater, where we could come back in tonight for a double header -- Harper Valley PTA and Chattanooga Choo Choo.  Too bad I'm sick.

We eventually stopped for lunch at Snappy's Lunch, but by then I was so tired I could hardly hold my head up.  Snappy's was here when Andy was growing up here.  Next door was Floyd's Barber Shop, and the actual Floyd was sitting in here.  He's either 92 or 95, and cut Andy's hair when he was a kid.

We went in and out of lots of antique stores and gift shops. Mayberry Days started today, and the big celebration and parade are this weekend, but there were lots of people in town.  We actually had to move campsites because our space was rented out for the weekend (we checked in for only one night, but decided to spend another day). 

Mount Airy is part of the Wadkin Valley Wine Region, home to over 35 wineries, but we skipped all that.  We finished up about 3:30 (oh yeah, we bought candy, fudge and ice cream cones at Opie's Candy Shop), and headed back to the RV, where I took another cold pill and immediately went to bed.  We drove back into town for dinner, and called it a day.  I sure hope I feel better tomorrow.

It was cloudy this morning, but this afternoon the sun came out and it was a really nice day.  However, they are predicting heavy rain on Friday, and I'm not sure if that is going to hit the area we are heading into or not.  But we hope to make a little more progress tomorrow.