Tennessee and Kentucky

14 May – We left De Soto State Park in Alabama and drove to the De Sotto Falls which were beautiful, across the Tennessee River in to Tennessee and a shop at Kimball before going to the Foster Falls Camp ground to find it was closed. Looked at the falls and headed N/W towards Nashville and the Old Stone Fort State Park. We could not find anyone to pay so we chalked it up as a free night.

15 May – It was only a quick blast along the I-24 to our RV Park in Nashville at Two Rivers. At 5:00pm we caught the shuttle to downtown Nashville and Broadway where all the action is. The music in the bars was magic with many bands playing. Our first bar was the Second Fiddle followed by Legends Corner where a girl was playing amazing fiddle. After a hamburger we moved on to Tequila Cowboy, where JD 

Shelbourne’s band was playing country rock.
This is Val with the famous JD. Back to the Second Fiddle bar before catching our shuttle home. There were lots of groups of girls out for a hen’s night in short SHORT skirts and cowboy boots (sorry no photos, morals officer banned them). We rated the Nashville bar hopping experience as the best music and atmosphere so far. Back at “Ernie” we skyped Linley at Hamner Springs where she was celebrating her 70^th birthday with all our family.

16 May – Rain set in this morning and Val caught up with the laundry and met a nice lady from Golden, Colorado. At about 4:00pm we set off to walk to Music Valley and eventually the Grand Ole Opry. Our Head of Communications, Val, had spoken to the couple from next door, Harry and Carma who were also going to the Grand Ole Opry and bludged a lift home with them in their car. We walked thru the Gaylord Hotel, recommended by our shuttle driver yesterday. It was amazing. The hotel consists of 3 huge covered atriums with gardens, waterfalls, rivers, restaurants, bars and even boat rides. The posher rooms have balconies opening onto these gardens. Quite a sight! There were lots of young couples going to their prom in ‘over the top’ attire!  We picked up our tickets for the concert and had a quick burger before finding our seats in the amazing Grand Ole Opry.

What a place. It was built in 1974 so is not the original venue, that was the Ryman Theatre, but what an atmosphere. The show is televised but is very much a live radio show. If you can remember “Radio Times” it had that feel with hosts presenting each part and an announcer reading commercials between each act. The music was great - from the “Sky Riders”, 5 old guys doing beautiful cowboy songs to new artists singing country rock. Our favourite was Mandy Barnett singing in the style of Patsy Cline. What a show!! Fortunately our neighbours were seated close to us so we easily hooked up, and after a small drama finding their car we were back at “Ernie” where we hosted them for a drink. A lovely couple!

                                                                                                          

17 May – We meandered our way thru the suburbs of Nashville and east to a State Park at Standing Stone. On the way we experienced another torrential rain storm which quickly cleared. The road into the Park was restricted to 30ft vehicles and we learned why, when we had a very tight turn onto a narrow dam. After lunch we went on a pleasant stroll down to Kelly Lake and thru the picnic area where some families were having birthday parties. More rain after dinner.

 18 May – We drove 130 miles thru the east Tennessee countryside, passed nice towns and thru many miles of deciduous forests. The colours must be spectacular in the “fall” and we will hopefully experience this when we drive back down to Atlanta later this trip. We are at Cumberland Gap in a National Historic Park right on the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia. We went to the visitors centre as we only had a vague idea as to this area’s significance. There was the usual video which explained that this was a gap in the mountains thru which Daniel Boone lead the first party of settlers from Virginia to Kentucky. We are now in the Eastern Time zone so lost an hour today. We plan to do a long hike tomorrow so will stay here for 2 nights. It rained heavily in the night which may change tomorrow’s plans. I gave Val her first haircut of the trip.

19 May – The day has dawned OK weather wise, so we packed our lunch and set off on what will be a 9 mile hike. The first mile was a climb of 1500ft up to a ridge which divides Virginia and Kentucky. It was a great track following the ridge to a view point at Pinnacle Overlook where we really could see the Cumberland Gap. The Appalachian Mountains run in a series of ridges east/west and the “gap” is a break where travelers can go north. We walked thru a couple of Civil War forts before descending to the actual “gap”. This had been the road but has now been restored to what it would have been like in 1769 when Daniel Boone took the first settlers from Virginia into Kentucky and Ohio. You could really feel the sense of history as we walked the same route. We diverted on to a short track up to Tri

State Peak where the three states borders meet. (Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.) This was our lunch stop. Back on the Daniel Boone trail along a flat track back to our camp. What a great hike!!

20 May – We drove thru the tunnel which now bypasses the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. We are still in the west Appalachian Mountains and we followed a series of valleys between the mountains (really only hills) thru some great forests and small towns and into the coal mining area of Kentucky in the Cumberland valley. Our stop for the night was still in these hills in a very park like setting of an Engineers camp at Carr Lake. It was nice to relax in the shade after yesterdays hike. This is another alcohol free camp so we have to be slightly discreet (plastic mugs) with our drinking!!!

21 May – We woke to a much cooler day with drizzle. Our drive was thru the foothills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains. Real ‘hillbilly’ country - thoughts of “Deliverance”.  Our overnight stop was in the Red River Gorge and Valley at Natural Bridge State Park.

The maximum temperature today was 59F (15C) We got out our jackets for a walk up to the Natural Bridge which is a huge rock arch. At the top it started to rain giving this natural phenomenon a rather eerie appearance.We descended down a very steep track thru a crack in the rocks called Devil’s Gulch. A great short walk and back to “Ernie” with the heater on.

22 May – This is the start of Memorial Weekend so we have a booking in a State Park at Carter Caves. The weather has greatly improved but the first part of our drive was stymied by a low tunnel. We had to abandon our plan to drive thru the Red River Gorge and take the more major road to our camp. The camp filled up and we spent the afternoon sitting in the sun watching large family groups filling every camp site. It is really nice here and it will not be hard to enjoy the weekend. We walked down the hill to the Welcome Centre (really just a shop) to work out what we will do here. The camp has many activities for the holiday. In the evening we walked to the “Shelter” where there was dancing but it turned out it was mostly for children. (Birdie Dance etc)

23 May – A cool start to the day but it soon warmed up. I spent the morning fitting new trim to the back of the kitchen bench. This had frustrated us for 2 ½ years! It now looks much better. After lunch we biked one of the multi use trails. Unfortunately the other users are horses and they cut up the track, so we spent some time walking and pushing our bikes thru huge muddy hoof prints. Very frustrating! We did however discover a natural tunnel under the road into the camping area. It is very mild and we have brought firewood for a camp fire tonight. Unfortunately we would have been better burning the $5 note we paid for the bundle with, as the wood was very wet and we struggled to get any sort of fire going. Eventually the camp host felt sorry for us and gave Val a few dry pieces which allowed us to grill our ‘badders’ (frankfurters) and s’mores (marshmallows).

24 May – A lazy morning. We packed our lunch and set off for a 3 ½ mile hike passed 3 natural bridges. 

The Smoky Bridge is the biggest in the park and we walked under its huge span. We then got slightly lost due to a poor map. (That’s our excuse!) We ended up at the Smoky Lake shore and had to retrace our way back to the bridge and eventually on past two other natural bridges. All quite unusual. A man told us of a spectacular “Serpent Mound” not far north in Ohio which we may look at.

Another lovely evening back at camp without the frustration of a camp fire however. We have not seen the Carter Caves but we are off to Mammoth Caves next week so decided to give them a miss.

25 May – Memorial Day. We left Carter Caves State Park. It has been a great place to spent Memorial Weekend. On the road north and across the Ohio River and into Ohio. We had intended to follow a road along the river but headed further north to see the “Serpent Mound.”  It is the largest surviving example of an ancient animal effigy mound and was built around 1000AD. It is ¼ mile long and is best viewed from a tower built around 1900. It was quite windy and I did not like the feel of the effect on the tower.

(No-one has heard of Cave Creek here!) The mound is in the shape of a snake with the head pointing towards the summer solstice sun at midday. It was very interesting but debatable whether it was worth the extra miles. On the way to our overnight stop at Rocky Fort State Park, up a very small country road, the sight of an Amish man driving a farm cart made up for any disappointment we may have felt over the Serpent Mound. There seem to be a few Amish communities in this part of Ohio.

26 May – On our way back to the main road south we passed an Amish lady in a long black dress and bonnet, driving a great horse drawn carriage. Unfortunately we could not get a photo.

We crossed the Ohio River out of Ohio and back into Kentucky. We are camped for the night at Blue Licks State Park where there was a decisive battle during the war of independence in 1782. We went for a short walk to the museum but it was closed. It started to rain so we headed back to “Ernie”.

27 May – We followed the bourbon trail where most of the good stuff is distilled, to the state capital, the sleepy little city of Frankfort. Why the capital is not Louisville or Lexington, much bigger cities is a mystery. We passed many horse stables and breeders as this is known as race horse country. After a walk thru Frankfort with its impressive state buildings we went to the Buffalo Trace Distillery for a tour. This is the oldest continuously producing bourbon distillery in the US, mainly because it was able to still distill during the prohibition (for medical reasons!) The

tour was great with a short film about the history of bourbon and then an interesting guide took us to the barrel storage areas where the bourbon is aged and into the hand bottling area where the best bourbon is bottled. They go thru 90,000 – 50 gallon barrels a year. They are only used once. If the plant stopped distilling now they could bottle bourbon at the present rate for 18 years. The tour ended with a generous tasting session, including some of their best, and a bourbon cream. We had lunch in the car park (thought  we had better eat something!) before driving 50 miles on to a camp where hopefully we can publish this long blog.

  

The Deep South

1 May – We filled our propane tank before leaving the Memphis RV park and headed S.E. over the Tennessee/Mississippi border to Tupelo (Elvis’s birth place -  thought we were finished with him!) and the Trace State Park. We have planned to follow the  Natchez-Trace Parkway down thru Mississippi.

2 May – We have had a change of plan and now have decided to go south on the Great River Road, following the Mississippi River. This resulted in a slight change of course to the S.W. thru lovely rolling wooded land. Eventually the hills disappeared and the land became very flat. This area is the Mississippi Delta country. Many of the fields have been recently flooded and are now being harrowed and sown with corn, rice and a little cotton. In the slave times this would all have been cotton. The towns are very poor with many rundown trailer homes. Every so often the ground gets slightly higher and plantations of trees (we think walnut) and juniper bushes? (only because we saw a gin factory.) Here the homes and towns are much richer. The State Park, where we had planned to stay, is now for day use only so we continued on to the Leroy Percy State Park for the night. Here we are supposed to see some alligators but we walked the banks of the lake where they are meant to sunbathe and did not see any. Not sure if that is a bad thing! Another picturesque cheap camp site however.

3 May – We drove further south down the Great River Road. The Mississippi is out to our right but in this delta country the brown water spreads and the actual river is ill-defined. We stopped at a huge Civil War site at Vicksburg. In 1862 this was the site of a decisive battle in the Civil war. We watched a video describing the battle. The Mississippi has some large bluffs at Vicksburg and the Confederate Army (south) controlled the shipping on the river. The Union Army (north) realised they need to dominate the shipping on the river to finish the war and tried repeatedly to storm the well dug in Confederate Army. Eventually the Unionists realised they could not win so they starved the Confederates into submission. There was a 16 mile drive around the battlements and trenches of both sides. There are many memorials to the fallen around the drive. The highlight was a restored

Unionist gun boat, USS Cairo. It had been sunk during the war and been salvaged in 1960. A very strange looking stern paddle steamer with iron plating and bristling with canon. We drove further south to another state park where we met an Aussie couple doing a 6 week trip from Orlando to Seattle. They were interested in our trip and we were able to give them some helpful tips hopefully.

4 May – We are getting closer to the coast and the delta country is behind us and we are back into rolling forested land. Over the Mississippi/Louisiana border and around the very huge urban area of Baton Rouge has brought to within 70 miles of New Orleans. We are at yet another State Park. We have booked a RV Park in New Orleans and will head there tomorrow. We went for a short stroll along some boardwalks over the swamps looking for alligators. Still no sign of them!

5 May – It was only a short drive along the I-55 into New Orleans. At one stage we drove 30 miles on a long bridge over the swamps and bayous. New Orleans is sandwiched between the Mississippi and the huge Lake Pontchartrain and is all very low. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina flooded 70% of the city! Most of the city seems to have recovered now, however. We easily found our RV Park where the hostess welcomed us and told us of the shuttle service she ran into the French Quarter and the City park. All very covenient and cheap. ($10/trip.) We spent the afternoon planning our trip to Nashville and swimming in the pool. (first swim this trip). At 5:00pm we caught the shuttle (which turned out to be the family car) into the French Quarter and immediately were drawn into a bar (La Maisons) by the sounds of traditional jazz.

After a beer and some great music we walked the Mississippi River bank to the tourist paddle steamer and then headed up thru Jackson Square and a beautiful church into the main part of the French Quarter. On our way a youth band was parading down the street playing enthusiastically. The buildings are unique with beautiful ornate balconies. We found Bourbon Street and walked most of its length. We were a little disappointed as it was a bit tacky with many strip clubs and mostly loud thumping head banging bands. Not the jazz we had expected.
                                                   

We had a great meal on a balcony overlooking the stream of people on the street with the music of a Jamaican Steel Drum band from below. We walked back to the La Maison bar in Frenchman Street where we enjoyed another traditional Jazz group before catching our shuttle home.

6 May – Back on the shuttle at noon this time to City Park. (the biggest urban park in the USA). We wandered around a great sculpture garden before walking to the trolley car which brought us back to the French Quarter. On the walk we had an authentic New Orleans fast food lunch and passed some beautiful typical New Orleans homes. Our impression of Bourbon Street was not any better in daylight but we stopped 

at the Legends of Music courtyard where a Dixieland band was playing. Our next stop was a bar with a country rock band. They were very good. We walked a few streets away from Bourbon Street and the class of the restaurants and atmosphere improved hugely. Back to our favourite Frenchman Street and a different bar with a great swing band playing the classics. Our shuttle picked us up at 5:00pm.

7 May – We had booked a Swamp Tour a couple of days ago, so we set off east over the bridges out of New Orleans for our noon adventure. We were issued with coloured wrist bands designating which boat we would be on. 20 to a boat and all the boats split up so we felt that we were the only ones on the swamp.  We sped up the muddy Pearl River and drifted down a series of narrow backwaters into the swamp. We saw racoons, alligators, wild bores, snakes and some great birds.

Our guide was very good with a humorous and informative patter. He feed the alligators which were up to 5 feet long and jumped most of their length for the offered marshmallows. The swamp was beautiful, very peaceful and we have never experienced anything like it. At the end of the tour we passed a Cajun village on the river banks with shrimp boats and craw pots. The 2 hour tour was great value for $25 each! Back on the road and to our next stop at a State park back in Mississippi situated right on the Golf of Mexico again.

We had a great 15 mile bike ride along the beaches. It was good to get on the bikes and blow out the over indulgences of New Orleans.

8 May - We left the State Park and drove along a road following the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. The sand was blindingly white but the sea is still muddy and uninviting. There are remnants of many old jetties presumably swept away by hurricane Katrina. It got more populated as we passed Gulfport and Biloxi with casinos, convention centres etc.

Across some more huge bridges and we joined the I-10 to cross into Alabama. There are a few state borders in this part of the USA as each state seems to want to have access to the Gulf. We bypassed Mobile and found the Meaher State Park on Mobile Bay. This was an expensive state park but we had a great view of the bay and enjoyed the sunset.

 

9 May – We continued along the I-10 east towards Florida. The traffic increased and we crawled thru Pensacola and its beaches. The sea is now a nice blue/green colour and this area is called the Emerald Coast. It is Saturday and getting very hot (90F – 33C) so everyone is off to the beach. Eventually we reached the State park at Henderson beach but the camp was full. Some quick re-planning and we ended up at another State Park at Rocky Bayou. We have booked for 2 nights as we will hopefully renew our vehicle registration on Monday. The camp backs onto a large inlet where we had a swim despite the sign!! It will be a nice place to relax.

10 May – Pancake Sunday, Val is a real dab hand at making them! It’s Mothers Day so I should be making them perhaps.

We decided to go back to the State Park Beach at Henderson where we tried to book into yesterday but just for the day. The beach was spectacular with unbelievable clean white sand and beautiful emerald green warm water. There was quite a crowd enjoying Mothers Day. We returned to “Ernie” for lunch and then back to the beach for more sun and swims. Certainly one of the best beaches we have ever been at. Back to the other state park and a relax in the shade. Probably had too much sun today!

11 May – We headed north away from the Gulf to Crestview, our official USA home.

Explanation: When we bought “Ernie” three years ago we needed a residential address to register it. We “bought” an address from a company called “My RV Mail” and it is based in Crestview, Florida. We were able to register “Ernie” for 2 years saving us all the hassle of getting the registration posted to us. We also called into “home” and picked up our mail in person. Nothing exciting however. We continued north across the Florida/Alabama border and stopped at a Forest Park called Open Pond where we were almost the only campers. We are very conscious of the weather west of us where there have been some damaging tornados. We are on tornado watch!

 12 May – Back on the road north. We need to be in Nashville by the weekend. We drove thru the State Capital, Montgomery. This is where Rosa Parks defied the racially divided bus policy causing the bus boycott which had a huge influence on the civil rights campaign. It’s all in a great film called “The Long Walk Home” starring a young Whoopi Goldberg. We are camped at a huge State Park at Lake Martin. Again there are only a few enjoying the now mild temperatures and this lovely lake. We had a nice swim in the warm water. As there was some firewood at our site we had our first camp fire of this trip.

13 May – We meandered our way north mostly on the “9” thru the beautiful Alabama countryside. The trip was mainly thru forested areas and some cute little towns. There seems to be plenty of money in N.E. Alabama. We have spoken to a few people in Alabama but we have to really concentrate on what they are saying. The southern drawl is very hard to understand. This is our last night in this state and we are at yet another state park at  Fort Payne. Surprisingly this park has internet so we spent some time booking a State Park in Kentucky for Memorial Weekend in 2 weeks. Everyone goes camping on this weekend and finding a site can be diabolical. We went on a 2 mile stroll thru the park where we were meant to see a couple of waterfalls but they were almost dry. The Azaleas were very pretty however. As we have internet we will publish this blog tonight.