The Saga Continues

Yesterday, we made the move from Lynchburg to Chattanooga. The weather cleared out pretty well in the afternoon. We had followed Rt.64 all across TN and did so yesterday until we linked up with I24 heading south. They are widening 64 into 4 lanes divided just as they have done in much of NC. We were in and out of construction all the way from Memphis. The road yesterday was quite good, however, and we made pretty good time, arriving here around 4:00pm. The route in from the West through the hills was very pretty.

I stopped at the office and registered for five nights and they showed me which site was mine. I towed the camper around to it and saw that it was a pull-through site. Moved the camper into place and went to fine tune it and the truck quit responding. It would start and run just fine but I had no gauges and no throttle. A bunch of guys from around the campground pitched  in to help. One found that the armature of the alternator was magnetized, a sure sign of diode failure. So, off to the parts store and put on a new alternator. No luck. Another guy had a fancy laptop analyzer program that he hooked up to the OBD port and showed a whole handful of codes. By now, the armchair mechanics were in full bloom, but no answers. So, I said that's it, wait till morning and it goes to the Ford dealer and we'll just get it fixed. So that's what I did. Had it towed this morning and got it back this afternoon ready to go. It turned out that the shift lever had shorted out inside the steering column and blown a fuse. Who'd a thunk it!

We have been concentrating our stays in State Parks as much as possible. We like the space and the peace and quiet and the rates are great. But  for this stay, we've elected to move to a commercial park. Raccoon Mountain RV Park is supposed to be the finest in Chattanooga. It is pretty decent but a long way from being a polished park. It's fairly old but kept up well. The nice parts for us is that they have full hookups, free high speed WiFi and a whole slew of cable TV channels. The sites are close. If I put my arm out my slide window, I can toast marshmallows on my neighbors fire. There's gravel for the trailer pad and road, but the rest is grass. (Mud when it rains). There's a 14 day limit on most state parks, but here many of our neighbors are here for the winter. Some have fairly elaborate skirts built around them. It gets quite cold here and it snows. Others around us are living here while working in the area. We have several cable installers at the end of the row.

It's interesting to talk with the different folks and see the setups. We enjoy the extras while we have them, but we'd still rather be in the state parks. When we leave here, I think we'll head to north Georgia to Vogel State Park and move East from there.
Tomorrow, however, is the famous Tennessee Aquarium capped off by a boat ride on the Tennessee River at sundown.