Mother's Day

 

Our site tonight at "Desiderata", Boondockers Welcome

Sunday, May 8, 2022

Today was a transitional day. We left Buck Creek State Park at a little after noon, after sleeping late, having breakfast, enjoying a few Mother's Day phone calls, packing up, and then negotiating dumping our tanks and filling up the fresh water. We stopped 10 minutes later at Heart of Ohio Antiques, where I took Joey inside for the first time since last year. I wanted him to see the pedestal I was buying to hold a Roseville jardiniere that Aimee gave me for my birthday. He liked it, so we made an offer to the seller via the system used at the antique center (a manager had to call the dealer and relay our offer, which was about $50 less than the asking price.)

While we waited, I showed him some other really nice pieces of Roseville that I had liked, but in the end, I didn’t buy anything. Joe looked around briefly and left the building, and I waited a little longer before going to the desk. The dealer had okayed our offer, so I paid for the pedestal and a young man carried it out to the Jeep for me. Joe and I spent some time cushioning it and stablizing it for the ride home in the back of the Jeep. Then, it was about 2pm, and we had some late lunch.

By 3:00 we were ready to head for Delaware, Ohio, and tonight’s anchorage in the driveway of another Boondockers Welcome host. You can see from the photo it’s a nice little neighborhood. Our hosts came out to greet us-- the first time in 3 stays that we’ve gotten to meet the hosts! We spent a long time chatting and getting to know each other (Joey and I got a tour of their renovated shuttle bus, which they turned into a fully contained RV by themselves.) I also spent some time chatting with our hostess’s mother, who lives right next door. Her daughter lives across the street with HER children, so there are 4 generations living in the same cul-de-sac. I thought it sounded lovely!

Now Joe and I are just hanging out for the evening. I spoke to Gary, and we will go over there at noon tomorrow to visit and just hang out. Having a low-key no-agenda day sounds good to us!

Driving Again

 

Muskingum River, Blue Rock, OH

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

For a while today, our day was fairly frustrating again, and tiring. It began with us unable to find our spare Jeep key, and we spent 30 minutes searching just as we had finished dumping our tanks and were ready to hit the road. The delay made me nuts, plus we left without finding it. It's important, because the key is needed to operate the auxiliary brake system. We did have Joe's key, but that would mean that if the Jeep decided to lock its doors, we'd be sunk without a way to get in. We finally used his key and left the window cracked enough for him to get his arm through to release the aux brake if it did indeed lock.

Then we hit the road, and the GPS led me a way I had not expected. It wanted me to go back up the hideously steep road we had just come DOWN-- so i went a different way, and i think that added time to our trip because i was facing the wrong way to begin with. I was livid and ranted for the first 10 minutes after that. Then it turned out that the highway we were on, US 40, is so steep going over the mountains that there are signs FORCING trucks over 10,000 pounds to STOP at the top before heading down--the road is so steep and winding! I had the RV in first gear the entire way down, and still had to keep pumping the brakes. It was harrowing-- thank God it was a dry day, albeit not what you'd call "clear"-- the sky was gray all day, and it had rained while we were dumping the tanks (a miserable job in any case.)

But we did get down the mountain safely, and when we reached Washington, PA, we stopped at a Walmart for lunch, and then for a shopping trip. Oh, and Joe found the keys at that point, too (on the floor in the bedroom--they probably fell out of his pocket two nights ago when we arrived at the campground.) It was a long stop, and i was really tired the entire time (I am still really congested--at least i could get meds for that at Walmart.) So Joe drove the last 2 hours of our trip.

I have to say, though, that our site tonight did put me back into a much happier frame of mind. It is a Boondockers Welcome site. BW is a group where people can offer a parking place at their home or property for other RVers to spend the night for free. (We stayed at our first BW site last fall in Chattanooga.) The owner isn't here, but we communicated this morning and he said his plans had changed, but the site was all ready for us. So we followed the GPS and then his detailed instructions, and found this lovely location along the Muskingum River. We are on a dead-end road about a mile or so long, and many of the homes here have boats, as does our host (we can see inside the shed.) His "guest quarters" has a fire pit, a wooden swing, and chairs to relax outside. And it's quiet. It was just so much nicer than we'd anticipated! 

Our site for the next 2 nights--fire pit, swing, and all!

 So we had some dinner, and I've been catching up on my blog now. I picked up some brochures at a rest stop, and now have some other things we can go see in Zanesville tomorrow besides the art museum. I am hoping the weather is nicer than today-- it was occasionally warm, but mostly gray and a bit chilly.

Chattanooga Choo-Choo

Saturday-Sunday, August 21-22, 2021 

We left Betsy and Sean's house in Hendersonville yesterday at about 10:45ish. Although I hadn't wanted to take I-40 all the way west to Tennessee, we took a wrong turn and the easiest and fastest thing to do at that point was get back on I-40. So we drove on the interstates all day. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop near the state border, and we stopped again at a flea market/antique place in Tennessee (which was a waste of time.) We arrived at our Boondockers Welcome host's house at about 6pm.<BR>

 Our host has a very large field of mostly grass behind what looks like some kind of business. There are several picnic tables spread out in the field (along with a bunch of RVs and boats which are obviously being stored here. There is a sweet path that leads from the back of the field down to the shores of the Chattanooga Creek. It's quiet and dark, but there are no hookups here. We got ourselves settled upon arrival, then took the Jeep into the center of Chatta, which was only about a 10-minute drive. We ate dinner at Champy's, which is well known for its fried chicken, which Joey loves. The meal did not disappoint-- the chicken was delicious, moist and fresh, and everything, including our fried pickle appy, came out blazing hot. We really enjoyed the meal, and brought home leftovers.<BR> 

 No hookups proved to be a problem for us, because it is too hot to leave Cassie in the RV while we go explore the Scenic City. I found a bunch of places where we could take her--scultpure gardens, Rock City, and Lookout Mountain. But this morning, it was overcast and rain was predicted. We decided to go to Lookout Mountain tomorrow. Meanwhile, we packed up for a day trip, and went downtown. My goal was the Riverwalk, and the Walnut Street Pedestrian Bridge, the longest pedestrian bridge anywhere. It crosses the Tennessee River, which runs through Chatta and cuts a valley between Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain.<BR>

 We had some trouble navigating the streets, but finally found a parking lot. We had to download an app to pay for it. Then we walked over to the Riverfront, going past the highly recommended Aquarium (which we could not visit because of the dog issue.) We made a loop, not knowing where we were going, but finally got to the bridge. After resting for a little while, we took our photos and then just as we were ready to start walking, we watched a big black cloud head toward us, and it started to rain. We decided to head back to the car instead--it wasn't a rain CLOUD, it was RAIN. By the time we got to the car, we and Cassie were all soaked to the skin. That seems to be the theme of this vacation--too much rain!<BR>

 We were very disheartened, and decided to go back to the RV, because all our ideas of things to do were outside being rained on. We came back, ate our lunches, and then of course it stopped raining. But we didn't want to go anywhere that would be soaking wet. So Joey and Cassie hung out in the RV, and I went to a place about 15 minutes away which had 8 antique centers in one location. I spent a couple of hours walking through the antique stores, but didn't find any Roseville that i needed. I came home, stopping for ice on the way, and Joey said it had poured here again.<BR>

 So we've been here all evening, and we are hoping that tomorrow will indeed be sunny. We want to go up to the top of Lookout Mountain and to Rock City, both of which allow dogs. There is a National Historic Site at the top of the mountain, where there was a major battle during the Civil War. I'm looking foward to all of it, and just PRAY there will not be rain!