Overnight in Georgia

 6-25-2021 - Friday

We are now in the "making miles" mode, so the only sightseeing is what we see from the road, until we stop for the night.  We were next door to a Costco, so we fueled ($2.739) and were on the road by 8:30.  It was 77, a little windy but not bad.  We had a late breakfast somewhere at a Cracker Barrel (they let us in today).  We stayed with I-75 past Knoxville, then went over to highway 411 into Georgia to avoid Chattanooga.  Traffic was heavy on I-75, especially the northbound lanes.  And that situation was not helped by the burned up semi trailer they were loading onto a wrecker.  Coupled with road construction, there was a several-mile long back-up over there.  We felt very fortunate to only get slowed down by road construction occasionally.  We crossed two state lines today: Tennessee at 11:20, and Georgia at 2:30.  We went past the turn-off to Rocky Top, which made me think of my ex-brother-in-law Larry Sullivan, who is not doing very well these days.  He and his band sang that song a lot.

Sometime after we went over to Highway 411, we went through an Amish community.  I missed the first horse and buggy (I was on the phone with Bridgette), but I got the next one, and a business of some kind with several buggies parked in front.

We were also met on this highway by a funeral procession, with cops leading and following the line of cars.  We were happy to see everyone pulled over to show respect -- you don't see that very often any more.  

We see more farmers in the field.  Joe didn't think I could catch this picture of a combine cutting the wheat, but I got it!  He always checks out the farm fields.

Not far past the Georgia line, we came upon an inland port of cargo containers for trains and trucks.  They were stacked pretty high, out in the middle of nowhere.  

Then we started seeing big carpet factories in the little towns we were going through.  We don't know what mountain range we are seeing, but the mountains are hazy, like the Smokies.  Very pretty.

We didn't have a destination in mind, thought about trying to get through Atlanta before we stopped.  I kept looking ahead and would get something in mind, then we would go past that area.  After we passed the area of the first park I had found,  I picked out Fort Mountain State Park in Chatsworth as a possibility.  I said, "it's 3:00, so if we are going through Atlanta, that will be 5:00 at least."  He agreed, mentioned rush hour, so I tried to call the state park, and was put on hold (at least 8 callers ahead of me, the recording said).  Suddenly, Joe sees a campground sign, looks down the road and said it looked nice.  We pulled over and tried to find it in our "tools" but couldn't (didn't have the name right), so he just made a u-turn on the highway and we went back to it.  Fortunately, they had a spot for us (if we had waited much later, I don't think we would have been so lucky).  So we stayed in 411 Rivers Rest Campground, about 9 miles south of Chatsworth.  I told her I had been on hold with the state park, and she said it was a very hard pull up to the campground for RVs.  But this one is really nice, right on a river.

 

I love the way the limbs hang out over the water.

The river is right behind those trees, and fence.

So after we got situated and had a little rest, we drove back to Chatsworth for dinner.  Joe had googled restaurants there and had picked out a couple.  The first one we tried to go to was "closed due to lack of help."  The sign said they would open Monday.  So we went to Edna's, really good food, very busy.  They were short of help too, by at least one bus-person.  And they ran out of several items on their menu.  I think a lot of people who would have gone to the other restaurant moved over to this one.  I felt sorry for the help because they were really working hard.  They also were doing a pretty good carry-out business.  

From there, we decided to go for a little drive in the Jeep, up to the Fort Mountain campground.  On the way we saw a sign that said "auto tour," so we drove that for about 10 miles, which looped us back in town.  I think it was a 53-mile drive, so we missed the biggest part of that, and didn't see anything on what we did drive to warrant a scenic drive.  So back around to our starting point, we took the road to the state park.  It went up in elevation probably 2500 feet, very curvy, a steep pull.  Pretty drive though.

This must be considered a romantic spot, because one guy turned his pick-up around and he and his girlfriend (wife?) sat on the tailgate to watch, the sunset? the moon (strawberry moon was last night)?  They were still there when we came back down from the top, and as we went down the mountain there was a beautiful sunset through the mist from the mountains. 

 I couldn't get a shot through the trees, but I got this when we got to the bottom.

We drove through the State Park, and the campground.  We only saw 3 motorhomes, the rest were pull-trailers, pop-ups, or tents.  It was a long, hard pull.  They had bear warning signs posted, and bear-proof trash cans, so we looked and looked for bears, but we didn't find any.

  

On the sign post, it said "lake," and "beach".  Joe said, "how in the heck did they get a beach up here?"  But there was a lake, and a beach.

The sun hitting the top of the trees behind the beach was really pretty.  

They also had cottages, which looked to us like full-size houses.  We couldn't see inside, but there were several of them, and they looked nice.

The drive up and back to the state park was about 16 miles.  Our little evening jaunt took about 2 hours, and we got back to the RV just before dark, at 9:20.  We drove 289 miles in the RV today.  Bridgette is pressuring us to get to Florida.  I told her we were probably going to camp somewhere north of Atlanta tonight.  She asked me when we would be at her house, the kids are asking (more pressure!).  I told her Sunday or Monday.  She said, "It takes 3 days to drive 600 miles!"  Then she brought the kids into it, reminded them of where they went on vacation last summer (past Atlanta), which they drove in one day.  (I was thinking, 200 miles/day, x 3 days = 600 miles, sounded about right to us.)  So I told her we would probably get there Sunday.  Jeez.  She keeps forgetting we are old.  And slow.  I'm sure she has more in mind for us when we get there than we do.  That's why we need rest every day.

Tomorrow, we have Atlanta first thing (85 miles).  Then we will see where we get.

To Lexington, Kentucky

 6-24-2021 - Thursday

Sadly, we left our Ft. Wayne family and headed down the road this morning.  The good thing is that we are now getting closer to the Florida grandkids.  We didn't have sewer at our campsite, so after we got dumped, we were on the road by 8:50.  It was 64 degrees this morning, but got to 86 by end of day (in Kentucky).  We followed Dixie's directions and got out of town without incident, and headed across the country.  

We fueled in Ft. Wayne, right after we left this morning, for $3.159.  Joe had noticed all the stations in Ft. Wayne seemed to have the same price.  In Ohio, we saw gas for $2.899, then $2.889.  It ticked him off -- he was ready to dump that tank and buy it again!  Then in the next town, North Star, gas was $2.859.  I said, "I'm not going to tell you gas here is $2.85."  He said, "I saw it, but I wasn't going to tell you either."

We passed Grand Lake in Celina, Ohio, a huge, beautiful lake right at the edge of town, and right next to the highway.  Joe thinks he remembers a bad tornado destroying part of Celina some years ago.  

We crossed the Ohio state line at 9:40, and found Hwy 127 before Dayton which kept us off the interstate until just before Cincinnati, so we enjoyed seeing the farm ground.  The farmers are in the fields now, and on the roads in front of us.  The corn and wheat are getting a little taller as we head south.  But no lilacs any more.  Sadly.

Not all of these little towns have the hanging baskets, but some do.  One town had big pots of flowers on the main street through town. 

 Another, Rockford, had a ice cream store with a roof full of flowers.

As we are cruising along, Joe points out a big rooster statue on his side of the road.  I tried to get a picture, but just got a picture of him instead.

I told him he needed to give me more warning so I could grab the camera.  He immediately yelled, "car on post, car on post."  I got that picture!  (It helped that it was on my side of the road.)

We passed another huge building back off the highway a little.  I thought maybe it was a Morman temple because I could see a gold cross on top, but the sign said it was a Senior Living Center.  Very nice looking.

Things were going well, we were making good time, then we come to this!

It took us west about 5 miles, through some little town, Anastoria, or something like that.  Joe mumbled, "We weren't supposed to go to Anastoria today.  It wasn't on the schedule."  The detour brought us down state road 49 to Hamilton, then we cut over to I-75.  That turned out to be a wonderful thing, because look what Joe found, right on the highway.

Joe had said he thought he would like to take a break before tackling Cincinnati, so we had been looking for a restaurant, but he hit the jackpot, cause that's what he really wanted.  And it turned out to be a good thing, because Cincinnati was a problem.  We got along fine until we got to the last 5 miles before the bridge over the Ohio River, and then traffic came to a halt.  It took us over an hour to go those 5 miles.  It took a long time to even to get to the split of I-75 and I-71, but even that didn't improve our two lanes.

  And there was almost a wreck in the I-71 lanes.  It was moving a lot better than ours and cars and trucks were flying through there, then all of a sudden it slowed down too, and one car had to slam on the brakes.  He must have been going 60+ and traffic was a complete stop.  He burned some rubber and managed not to swerve into our lanes but it was a close call.  

We finally got close to the river.  I kept looking for the baseball stadium, and thought I found it, but it turned out to be TQL Stadium, a soccer-specific stadium opened May 16, 2021, with a seating capacity of 26,000.  We couldn't see it very well but it looked pretty impressive.

 I finally got a partial shot of what I think is Great American Ball Park, where the Cincinnati Reds play.  We used to come over to Riverfront Stadium to watch them when we lived in Terre Haute -- they were "our" team (Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, etc.).  I'm not sure if this is the right place (can't see the red seats), but it was at the exit to the stadium.  And I had plenty of time for pictures along here, just didn't have a good view.

I even got a shot of downtown Cincinnati.

We finally got to the river, and the source of the traffic problem.  They are sandblasting and painting the bridge, have it completely covered, and the four lanes of traffic reduced to two.  So now it's like a tunnel.

I got just a glimpse of the river before we entered the covered bridge.

Finally, finally we crossed into Kentucky at 1:55.  It's only about 40 miles from Hamilton (White Castle) to the state line, and it took us 1 hour and 25 minutes.  The back up in the lanes going the other way, going into Cincinnati, was about 6 miles, possibly more.  But we were moving good now.

By this time, Joe thought Lexington sounded like a good place to stop for the night, about 80 miles more.  There is little camping that I found in that area, a horse park with bad reviews (unlevel, muddy if it rains), and a state park I called and found they will be closed until August due to flooding from March.  So we ended up at a Cabela's again, our new best friend on this trip.

One potential problem here, when we turned off the interstate and onto the road to the campground, we came upon this sign.  Joe said, "And they think they have TRAFFIC problems."  

That could be worse than a thunderstorm!  There's a lot of construction in this area, so we will see if we get disturbed tonight.  We pulled into a long parking spot in the designated area, and took a nap.  When we got up, there was a 5th wheel angle-parked right in front of our RV, and a guy with a hose over at an irrigation box right beside us.  Joe kept trying to figure out what he was doing -- finally decided he was filling up his water tank on the 5th wheel -- stealing water?  We had read there used to be a dump station at this Cabela's, but they no longer had it, so Joe finally decided we must be parked right beside that.  By then, the guy is finished and putting his hose away.  Joe finally went out and asked if there was a dump station here, and he said yes, so apparently he had been here before.  Joe thought we should move over a space in case anyone else came in for water, so that's what we did.  Then we left to get some dinner.  Well, that was another experience.  On the way to dinner, I saw this statue -- remember, Kentucky is a "horse" state.   Catalina could have posed for this picture.

I had picked Cracker Barrel (one of my favorites), and it was just back at the intersection we had exited on.  We got there, the patio was pretty full of people in rocking chairs, and there was this sign.

Of course Joe, old "authorized personnel only" disregarder, just heads on in.  But there was a 45-60 minute wait because they were limiting the seating, more than social distancing it looked to us.  Nevertheless, we left there, googled more options, and chose Frish's Big Boy (we had good experience in Michigan at Big Boy, and he liked their salad bar).  So back up on the interstate, down one mile, and exiting again.  We found it, went in, no salad bar (there were only 2 cars in the parking lot, besides the drive-through).  We asked about the salad bar, and the waitress said they were never going to have it again.  I asked if Kentucky wasn't fully vaccinated, and she said no, there were only about 200,000 people vaccinated.  I googled it later, and statistics show 49% for Kentucky.  Anyhow, we drove around the parking lot to a Mexican restaurant, Chuys, and finally had dinner.  And believe me, we wore our masks in.  But this was a good choice, because they had this picture in the lobby.

While we were eating dinner, I checked Brandon, Florida's weather for next week.  I have to question the wisdom of this destination, but that's where our babies are.  Bridgette keeps telling us that it rains every day.  Looks like she was telling the truth.

When we got back to the RV, Joe decided to get the bugs off the windshield.  I had mentioned that those bugs were affecting the quality of my pictures.  (I didn't tell him I just learned that I could "spot remove" some of them, but there were still too many to do that.)  He came in all sweaty, but he got the job done. 

It was a full day, even though we stopped about 3:40.  Bridgette kept checking to see if we were there yet.  We drove 263 miles today, but some of them were really slow.  That was enough for us.

Last Day In Ft. Wayne

 6-23-2021 - Wednesday

We thought we would take it easy this morning and give the Croxtons a break.  Jim had an appointment at 9:30, and we thought Dixie would like a morning to sleep in.  But then Dixie texted us that Xavier, their great grandson, was coming over for breakfast -- actually, to go to breakfast with us, because Dixie does not cook.  So I got Joe up (at 10:00) and we headed over to their house.  On the way out of the campground, I noticed the name of the dog park I wrote about in yesterday's blog is "Camp Canine."  

We briefly visited with our camping neighbors before we left the campground, and they told us about a very nice campground right at the bridge on Lake Huron, right before you cross the bridge into the Upper Peninsula.  She said at night they have a community bonfire, and you can see the lights on the bridge.  I think it is Camp Cook (dispersed campsite) at Mackinac City.  I wanted to make a note of it somewhere in case we get a chance to go there, but I can't find it on RV Parky.   I will have to check further into that.  It certainly sounded interesting.

We got over to Dixie's about 10:30, Xavier came in just a few minutes later, and then Jim got back from his appointment.  We hadn't seen Xavier for a few years, probably 4-5.  He didn't stop growing!  He will be a Junior at the University of St. Francis in Ft. Wayne this fall, and plays on their baseball team.

Dixie modeling my sunglasses.  See how much taller she looks with Xavier sitting down.

Dixie rode in the Jeep with Joe to breakfast, and Xavier drove me and Jim in their car.  There is no dieting going on this week.  Breakfast was good and plentiful!  After breakfast, Joe drove me over to get a hair cut.  We are still looking for Joe an elephant, but I did find him another mastadon.

From there, we went back to Costco to get more strawberries, since Dixie has half an angelfood cake left.  On the way back to their house, on their street, I had seen a house with blue pots and red flowers in them that really looked pretty, so we stopped to get a picture.  And just a little further down the street is a mailbox post with purple vining flowers.  We don't grow these things in Arizona.

I cropped this more to show up the blue better.  It is really very attractive.

So back at the house, we decided to start our game of Mexican Train early, then break halfway through and go to dinner at Coney Island.  This little hole-in-the-wall restaurant in downtown Ft. Wayne is an icon here.  We have been here several times over the years, as has most of our Vincennes family.  We got lucky and found parking in back, and the last table inside.  This place has been in business since 1914, the year Joe's dad was born!  They also are known for their real coke bottles.

When we left here, we drove through Foster Park, another Ft. Wayne icon.  It is a beautiful park, has lots of flowers, a golf course, baseball fields and walking paths.  Lots of trees.  Next to it are beautiful homes, some are probably considered estates, so we checked them out too.  Once back at the house, Joe took Jim a ride in the Jeep, and Joe got to see a bit of the countryside here.  Then we resumed our game, took a break for cake and strawberries, and finished at 10:30 instead of 11:30.   Joe was trying hard to beat me, but I won the game again tonight.  Time to leave town before the tide turns.   We've had a lot of laughs these few days, shared a lot of memories.

We really enjoyed our time here, saw a few family members including the new one, Bryson, Dixie and Jim's great-great grandson.  Jim is suffering from short-term memory loss, so that was sad to see, but otherwise things seem pretty good for them.  They still love their new home, and Dixie is getting to do her gardening again.  We said our goodbyes and hope to see them in Arizona this winter.

So it's time to move on tomorrow, time to head to Florida to see our grandbabies there.  Andrew turned 8 today so we missed his birthday, but we should be there early next week.  We didn't get to see him at all as a 7 year old, nor Catalina as a 4 year old, so we are really eager to spend some quality time with them.  We lucked out with the weather here, had cool, cloudy days, but tomorrow it is supposed to heat up, and starting Friday, they have thunderstorms predicted every day for the next week.  Definitely time for ME to get out of here!  Florida, here we come -- no hurricanes, please.

Another Day with Croxtons

 6-22-2021 - Tuesday

The only pictures I took today were around our campground, Johnny Appleseed Campground.  This is a nice campground, and we have a very convenient site, right across the street from the laundry/showers.

Behind the laundry/shower building is the St. Joseph River.  From our dining room table, I can see the weir under the bridge.  Ft. Wayne has 3 rivers:  St. Joseph, St. Mary, and the Maumee.  The city of Ft. Wayne is currently all torn up with construction because they are building some kind of pipeline under the city to handle flooding.  This is a long-term project.

Beside the river, and the shower house is a dog park, with several benches shaped like dog bones.  It seems to stay pretty busy.

Dixie and Jim met us here at the campground this morning, and we went to breakfast from here (the Lunch Box).  We got there at 11:00, and today's lunch/dinner special was chicken and (homemade)  noodles, so we decided we would come back for dinner.  Joe took over the driving then, so he got to drive their new Honda CRV that they got in November.  He kept trying to figure out how to get "navigation" up on the screen, but was not successful, so Dixie called Paul (who has one similar and helped them purchase this one), and we found out you have to have your smart phone on to get that screen.  That was a surprise.

We then went to Costco, and over to their house.  We bought strawberries at Costco and Dixie made an angelfood cake, so that was our Mexican train treat tonight.  After we drove back to the Lunch Box for dinner, we picked up the Jeep at the RV, and Dixie led us through town to show us the best way to leave here on Thursday.  Then we went back to their house for another scintillating  game of Mexican Train (Jim just wanted to go to bed).  But I won, so that was exciting.  Dixie won last night, so I was out for revenge.  She is the scorekeeper, so I suspect some hank- panky there.

The temperature was great, I think it finally made 70 degrees about 4:00.  Joe and I grabbed long sleeve shirts for the return trip home, again just about midnight.  Wednesday's high is forecast at 75 with chance of drizzle, but it warms up to 84 on Thursday, and thunderstorms starting Friday for the next 7 days, so time to leave!