Enjoying lake view

Wednesday was another day to move on down the road.

We drove a couple of hours to the COE Petersburg Campground and got the site we wanted but for only 3 nights. Nancy was enjoying the view of J. Strom Thurmond Lake.

There are boaters on the lake enjoying just riding and fishing.

Our lawn chairs waiting for us to use while watching the sun set.

Here we are as the sun was setting and a very nice warm breeze that felt so good.

At this point the sun drops very quickly.

Still sinking down in the horizon.

Then the sun is gone but still a beautiful site.

Yes it was the end of another peaceful and beautiful day the we have been blessed to enjoy.
We will have to move to another site tomorrow because this site is reserved to someone else. We have another site we are moving to that is also lake side.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Driving through towns

The Ocoee River where I sat to relax while at Thunder Rock Campground.

The sirloin Steak and fries potatoes all from the grill we had for Sunday supper.

Leaving Thunder Rock Monday we drove through the town of Helen, Georgia.

All the building are built in the Swiss style.  The town was drying up until the town people came up with making it look like a Swiss Village.

Driving through another small town.  This is why I choose two lane roads while traveling you never know what you may see in them.

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Parsons Mountain Lake

Saturday I sat out for a while along the bank of the Ocoee river and watched the water flowing down stream.  It was very relaxing sitting in my chair under the shade of the trees.
I've tried posting photo's but where we are now the wifi signal strength is very week. I'll post the pics later.
Sunday was another day of routine chores that have to be each day.
Around evening time I got a sirloin steak out of the freezer and put in on the grill with a couple of packs of vegetables that Nancy wrapped in aluminum foil.  I also had a sliced up potato on to fry.
Monday we left Thunder Rock and drove to South Carolina to Parsons Mountain Lake for a few days.  This is a little gem of a campground that we found a couple of years ago and really like it.
Its in the Sumter National Forest It is a 23 site campground with a small lake 3 water spigots around a flush toilet and dump station but no electric hook ups but at $3.50 a night with my Golden Age card I'm not complaining.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Thunder Rock

we left Chillhowee Campground yesterday around noon time.

Needless to say we took a different route from the campground than the one we took to get there.
It was mountain top road just like the Foothill Parkway.  The scenery was breath taking beautiful.
We stopped at a couple of look overs that took our breaths away.
We came out to the route that takes you to the Thunder Rock Campground.

This road takes you along the Parksville Lake.

We soon came to the bridge that crosses the Ocoee River and was surprised that instead of a river it was just a trickle of water. That may look like mud but it is rocks.
Another surprise there were only a few sites open as they have gone from a first come to the Reserve America system.  We did get a site and will be here for three days.
These sites are non electric and one water spigot, no dump station.  No over the air tv, we have no phone signal and the Verizon Hotspot just have one bar. There is a shower house with a flush toilet so we are roughing it easy.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Chillhowee Campground

By the time we got away yesterday it was 12:00 pm.
I have never been on the Foothills Parkway so I thought this was the best chance I had.

I took route 321 out of Pigeon Forge that goes through Wears Valley which is a beautiful valley but it is building up and I hope not so much to take away all the farm land.

This road takes you over a mountain road that is narrow and curvy. Yeah curvy like I was coming down the mountain and met a truck in a curve that the driver had to take part of my side of the road. I'll tell you he come as close as I have ever been of getting my mirror taken off.  Anyway we drove through Townsend and on south was soon turning off route 321 and onto Foothills Parkway.

As soon as I passed the sign I was going up, up the hill and up the hill until I was mountain top high.

There are a lot of turn outs where you can park and enjoy the spectacular view.  Nancy and I thought the views were better than the views on top of The Smoky Mountains.

Another scenic view.
Our route soon came out to connect us with route 411 and the route we usually take.
I've read about the Chillhowee Campground that is in the Cherokee National Forest so yesterday was the day to check it out.
Oh my do not take your GPS to get there I repeat don't follow the GPS.
I turned off the nice four lane road onto route 314 after a mile the road started going up hill and turned into a gravel road then a dirt road that twisted and turns with some switch backs and all the dust. One curve I didn't think I was going to make it after getting on the mountain top and driving maybe what seem like 5 miles I came out to a paved road. I met a guy coming the opposite direction flagged him down and asked where the campground was located. He had made the same mistake of coming up the same dirt road as I.
He looked at my motorhome and car and said, "how did you get around that curve"?

All the rough road took its toll on Nancy as she is very sore this morning.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.     

Moving time

Tuesday, Haven and Cherisa invited us to eat with them at the Applebee's Restaurant.
We had a good meal and thank you Cherisa and Haven we enjoyed the company very much.
After we finished our meal they followed us back the motorhome and spent some more time with us.

I thought I would throw in a few more photo's of our trip to the top of the mountain Monday.

I went and got Joe yesterday to spend some more time with us.

Joe and I went to pick up Haven after he got off work to also spend some time with his Dad and us.

A very large tree that they had to cut down by the stream for some reason.

After we all ate dinner and had more conversations it was time to take Joe and Haven home.

At times it is very hard to say goodbyes when you know it will be another year before you see your love ones.
We have enjoyed our time here for the last 10 days seeing everyone and tomorrow it will be that time to move on down the road.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

The Smoky Mountains

The week end was nice and relaxing for us.
Yesterday was a different day but good because we drove to the top of The Smoky Mountains.

Going to the mountains you go through Gatlinburg and they always decorated the town according to what the season is. 

Gatlinburg looked nice as it usually does.

As soon as you are out of Gatlinburg you enter The Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  

The picket fence as you approach the visitor center.

We like to stop at what use to be the Chimney's Campground but they had to close the campground and now it is a picnic area.

The sites looked like they were for tents or small rv's

Due to the lack of rain the mountain stream was small but enough water was flowing that it had a nice gurgling sound, very soothing and peaceful.

After enjoying the mountain stream in the picnic area we venture on up the road toward the top.

First we had a couple of small tunnels to go through. Nancy and I got a jolt as we were in the tunnel.  Someone just entering the other side decided they needed to blow the car horn.

Still not to the top with out pulling over at one of the overview sites.

Finally on the top where the North Carolina, Tennessee line is located.

The view we came up for with what looked like 75 other vehicles park in their spots to take many photos of the mountain tops.
Soon we were on our way back down the mountain and to Gatlinburg to meet up with our son Joe to have supper.
It was a very nice day for us and we had to say that we need to get out more.

 If you haven't been the The Smoky Mountains you owe it to yourself to have a visit with the other millions of visitors each year.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.














 

Enjoying the view

The college football games yesterday were good and as usual the refs missed some of the calls but with about four officials trying to watch 22 players it is hard to see everything.

Our site here at the Douglas Lake Headwaters Campground.  I did get a chance to check where the antifreeze was leaking on the motorhome and it is at the bottom hose coming out of the radiator overflow tank. It looks as though the hose has a hole in it where the hose clamp is tighten on it, I will check more on it today or later.
Driving around the campground I counted 21 empty sites and they used to be full on the week ends.
The Tennessee Valley Authority leased it out to RMM.  RMM increased the site rental  from $18.00 to $25.00 for a night so this might be the reason.

One of the sunsets we had a couple of evenings ago.

This part of Tennessee has been in a drought as you can tell by how low the lake is.

Another shot of the lake with the Great Smokie Mountains in the background.
The forecast for the day calls for some rain and they sure need all they can get.
We will stick around the campground again today because the main roads around will be extra crowded with all the tourist o their way home.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Gas price is up.

Yesterday I went to Walgreens to get my Vytorin medication filled.  They said it would be about an hour and a half before the would have it. No problem I would just go over to Harbor Frieght and look around that is a good place to wait. It didn't take too long to look and see that I wasn't going to buy anything from the Harbor Freight store.  Then I just went next door to Big Lots that is another store where you can browse around for a while.
I then went back to pick up my medicine where they said they only had five pills and I could get the rest of them Monday.  That didn't surprise me in the least bit because most of the pharmacy's tell me the same thing that they don't stock much of it.
Then it was a stop for some groceries at the Kroger and finally I was on my  way home.
I notice driving home that the gas pumps on all the stations had a price of $2.09 instead of the $1.82 when I came into town. Then I remembered Nancy telling me something about the price of gas is going to spike in the east because of a break in the pipe line. That looked more like a stake instead of a spike "WOW".
Well when I get off the main  road and onto the road leading to the campground I thought to myself I'll see what the price would be at the small station on the way.  Glad I did because they still had the price at $1.82 so I filled the car up.
I sure hope they get that pipe line fixed before we have to leave on Thursday.  Of course we all know the price of gas will come back down by the penny instead of quarters.

Today I will just ease back in my recliner and watch a couple of college football games.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Visit and laundry

Wednesday was another day of visiting for us.
After getting ready  for the day we went to Gatlinburg to pick up our son Joe and his new wife Carol to come back and visit with us.  On the way back I stopped at the Walmart to get a couple of roasted chickens, potato salad, macaroni salad and rolls for supper.
Getting back to the house we visited for a short time then Joe and I went to pick up Haven at the movie theater where he works so he could come and have a little time with us.
After getting back we got into the food and it tasted pretty good and the macaroni salad tasted extra good.  We enjoyed all of them being with us for the short time and it was time again to be taking Joe and Carol  back home in Gatlinburg.
Haven rode with us up to Gatlinburg so we dropped him off in Sevierville on the way back home.
Yesterday was a big day for us because it was time to do the laundry.
Boy when we went into the Laundromat where we usually do our clothes did we get a surprise.  The place was a mess like the top load washers where filthy with dirty clothes in them some had dirty water standing in the washers.
So we went to another Laundromat to do our clothes
Getting back home and putting the clean clothes away we had left over pizza a garden salad and some of the good tasting macaroni salad for supper.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Pizza and visiting

By the time we start our day it is usually after 12:00 noon and yesterday was a little later.
Our grandson Haven was coming over with his mother Cherisa for a visit around 5:00 and we had to go into town for a few things.

You can't be in a hurry when you go into town because of the traffic with people driving slow because they are looking at all the attractions that they may want to see.  Like the Titanic that has been here for a couple of years.

Or maybe one of the As Seen on TV shops with the thousands of items that have been for sale on tv.
Most of the time these items are less expensive than the cost of ordering them from the tv channels.
We did end up going to Walmart to get the things Nancy needed.

After leaving Walmart we stopped to pick up a couple of Hot and Ready Pizza's.
Nancy and I were amazed at how much better they were than what we buy in Florida.
These had a thicker crust more cheese and more pepperoni very much better indeed.

We did make it back to the campground before Haven and Cherisa arrived.Nancy and I were glad when they got here we were saying again how Haven is still growing taller.

As we all ate our pizza talking and catching up on the news from the past year and also enjoying the view of the lake looking out our front window.
It was so good to see Haven and Cherisa again and having this time with them.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.


 

 

Douglas Dam

After emptying the tanks at the dump station yesterday and getting back in the motorhome I felt a couple of eyes looking at me so I looked in the bushes ahead of me and saw this dear just staring at us.

A barn and silo as we were getting on I-81 for the short trip.

Ah it will not be long now before we get off the interstate highway.

Time to pull off route 66 for the few miles to the TVA Douglas Lake Headwaters Campground.

Still yet another barn along the way.
I pulled into the campground checking out the sites to see what was open and along came a Nick and Debbie in a golf cart. They are one of three camp host couples here.  Talking with them I find they are a very nice couple of people and host.  I asked them if site 12 was open and they  said it was so that was good and that was one of the sites I wanted since we stayed there last year. I knew I could fit the motorhome in it without any problem and had a clear sky for the satellite dish that is on top of our motorhome.

After getting everything set up on the site and paid for a couple of days we went to look for a restaurant to eat. We chose Steak and Shake for the day. I had the Jamaican Jerk with a load of fries.

Nancy had chicken with onion rings since the starch in the potatoes is not the best thing for her kidneys.
After our meal we went to the post office to mail a letter.  Then to Kroger for a few things.
Getting back home we did a little computer time and watched some television.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.