Home Sweet Home

Well, we arrived home on Sunday, the 8th, at 3:00pm. We both could have kept on going but we have to start another round of doctor's appointments this week.

We managed to travel 3116 miles in 32 days. We used 238 gallons of fuel for an average of 13mpg. I took 962 photos, which are waiting to be sorted and organized and assembled into a slide show.

We stayed at 10 different campgrounds, two of which were private campgrounds and the rest were state parks. I feel that the state park strategy worked very well. For the most part, the sites were better with more room and more screening between sites. Of course, the price was much better. I figure we saved about $500 by using the parks. One thing that really stood out to me was the generally poor attention paid to dump stations. I had several where the dump port in the ground was higher than the one on my camper by the time I got in position. This was most often caused by poor grading around the dump station. Another thing that causes me problems when dumping is the pitch of the road. If I'm pitched away from the dump spot my gray water doesn't dump well. I sometimes had to pull up on blocks to get in position to dump. The folks with the higher placed axles don't have this trouble but I have Mor-Ryde suspension and it puts me lower on the road. This is by intent so that we only have two steps for Diane to climb into the camper, but dumping is the down-side to that.

We visited a lot of places and a great variety of places. We didn't have a lot of preconceptions about what we were seeing and were not disappointed in any of the sites. Some were grand, some gaudy, some somber, some surprising. Since I had been to Nashville, I knew more about that than some of the other places but we saw a lot in Nashville that was new to me. Of all the places we stopped that is the one we could return to most readily. Graceland was better than I had anticipated. Jack Daniels was a little less so. The Pink Palace in Memphis I had never heard of before going there, but it was a highlight of our visit. The Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga was terrific, and I don't generally enthuse about aquariums. Looking back, I think our sightseeing was kind of aggressive, but we did what we felt like doing each day and didn't feel pushed or rushed to see or do anything. In the future though, I would restrain the sightseeing and do more camp time and  maybe hiking or cooking or fire watching. We only had one campfire the whole trip and that was the last night at Lake Hartwell. Of course, the rain didn't help.

The weather was not as good as I had hoped it would be although the last week was beautiful. The rain in the first weeks made everything tougher. Every where we went Diane was in her wheelchair and we mostly managed to get it done between showers, except for Graceland. But the weather is what it is and you just have to keep going.

Anticipating the trip I planned enough to rough out an agenda and possible places to stay and things to see. Some of that worked out and some didn't. I spent a lot of time researching the Natchez Trace, and I'm glad I did, but we didn't spend as much time on it as I had thought we would. I depended on internet access to let me research the next day's activity and that worked well. I was afraid of something bad happening and that led to a lot of anxiety in the first days, especially with our false start and forgetting the medication. Then the rain complicated our moves. The first time I dumped the tanks, leaving Norris Dam, somehow I managed to break the handle off the black water valve and had to open it with vise grips. I guess that set the tone for dumping for the rest of the trip. In Lynchburg we returned to camp after touring Jack Daniels in the dark and pouring rain. I hustled Diane inside and we were sitting ther drying off and listening to the rain and a wind came up and took the awning and threw it backup over the top of the camper. I should have taken it in or tied it down but my mind wasn't where it should have been. So I had to go out in the storm and try to get the awing down and prevent further damage until morning. That's when I knew I should have packed a stepladder as I had no way to reach up onto the roof. I managed to get things under control and patched together enough to continue the trip. Then, the very next day as we pulled into Crockett, I somehow swiped a tree with the right side and wiped out the stove vent and the porch light. I still don't know just where or how it happened.
I only discovered it when I went to set up. Then we made the move to Chattanooga and the truck died just as we got there. That turned out to be a little better than what I feared, but left me wondering for the rest of the trip.

I guess the lesson here is that bad things are going to happen and you just have to be resilient and resourceful and keep on going. Once I realized that I was able to deal with the various situations, I calmed down. But I've also resolved to carry more tools and equipment, especially on the longer trips. One thing that I observed when the truck died is that I had offers of help from several guys at the campground. At the time, I was grateful and I was tired and confused and wanted some help. But the interesting part of the reaction of both the guys at the campground and at the dealership was that I had done something stupid and brought this on myself. The self-appointed mechanic at the campground didn't have a clue what was wrong but he was sure it was because of the additional equipment and switches I had added. And he was quoting thousands of dollars to fix it, including removing the dashboard. That's when I decided to contact the dealer. The firs thing the service manager said was "Did you fill it with gas instead of diesel?". But it all worked out. The next time this happens, I will need to just take a break and let the dust settle in my mind and resist the efforts of the onlookers.

I don't mean to dwell on the troubles we had because they pale in comparison the the good times and the overall experience we had. It's just that I don't see anybody talking about the down sides of their trip and I wanted show that it was not all just flitting from one good time to another.

Thanks everybody for watching and listening. I'll pick up this blog for future trips but for now I'll sign off.