It's April 5th, 2013 and Dave and I are on the road again. This will be our longest RV trip yet, but certainly not the longest one we
want to take! I must give a shout out to my boss,
Loretta Maimone, the best boss ever! She allows me to work remotely sometimes so Dave and I can fulfill this dream of traveling!
Thanks, Loretta....I will be logged into work 8:30 Monday morning from our campsite in Kentucky, then also in West Virginia.
Our first day is going to be long! We are driving straight through from Apopka, FL to Pigeon Forge, TN. The photo just above is what the road looked like early on.....I cannot believe I didn't think to take a photo of the massive traffic jam we got into several times along the way. We literally added at least two hours to our trip because of bumper to bumper traffic most of the way through Georgia!
The traffic was horrible, but at last we made it safe and sound to our campground,
'Up The Creek' near Pigeon Forge, TN. We got our power and water hooked up and had a quick dinner at about 11:00 p.m., took a quick walk around the campground, then promptly crashed for the night! OMG, the bed never felt so good! We have an awesome mattress and the coziest bedding. I think we both slept like rocks!
The next morning we were rewarded with this stunning view from our front windshield:
This place is gorgeous! We had called them to let them know we'd be arriving really late. They left a folder for us and had given us the choice of two campsites (we had already requested/reserved something creekside). It was about 10:30 p.m. when we arrived and checked out both sites. We know we definitely chose the best one though....site 10 if you ever have the chance to stay there. It was a pull-in site so we had to run our water and power hook-up under the RV but that was fine. Our site was on the end so it felt very private. We had a neighbor on the other side but he left Saturday morning.
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| The office |
We absolutely will come back here in Fall to see the leaf color! Great campground just out of the hustle and bustle but close to everything. Full hook-up too....water, power, sewer and cable. All the sites have fire rings or fireplaces...some also have a Summer Kitchen.
Saturday morning we put our TN sticker on our map!
We headed out to explore and stopped at a place my parents recommended-
Applewood Farmhouse Restaurant They have a large store with all their apple products from their orchard, plus it looked like they had two restaurants. We went to the one which looked more quaint. It was like an old farmhouse with a large front porch and there was a wonderful creek across the street.
This restaurant was like a mom and pop version of Cracker Barrel. Once they seat you, they bring you fresh juice, apple fritters with apple butter and then every meal (no matter how many sides it says it comes with) also comes with soup and mashed potatoes, plus another side of your choice. Needless to say, we had a lot of food. I got Chicken Pot Pie and Dave got the Turkey dinner with dressing and cranberry, so after the apple fritters but before the meal, they brought us vegetable soup. Then when they brought our meals, which were huge, they brought a big bowl of mashed potatoes to share plus the additional sides. Mac and cheese and country green beans! Everything was delicious!
Our next destination was
Cade's Cove within The Great Smoky Mountains National Park but it did take a while to maneuver through Pigeon Forge and all of it's touristy attractions.
You know, all of the attractions like the one above, lol! We thought we were back on I-Drive in Orlando!
Once you get past all of the touristy stuff, you can see the natural beauty of the TN landscape. We went to Cade's Cove/Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
We picked up a mascot along the way.....a black bear who reminds us of our kitties who we miss terribly! He is so soft like Indy and black like Biscuit, so of course we are calling him Indiana Biscuit.
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| I just posted this one because Dave thought it was so funny! |
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| Our new Great Smoky Mountains bumper sticker. |
Just up the street from this Great Smoky Mountains National Park sign is the main drag through Gatlinburg. We drove the length of it, then parked and walked the streets checking out some shops here and there, plus stopping in for dinner at The Melting Pot. We just had salad and the cheese fondue since we weren't starving and it was so good! I forgot how good it is. I've got to dust off our vintage fondue pot that my Sister-in-Law Emily and my brother Jeff gave us as a wedding gift.
Our feet were getting sore from all the walking so after one quick air hockey game, we headed back to the car and back to our cozy RV. We had another great night's sleep and woke up refreshed ready for another day of driving. We got up in time to get ready and also log on to our church's live streaming 10:45 service (The Xchange) as we were ready to pull out of the campground.
We hit the road heading towards our next destination, Natural Bridge State Resort Park in Slade, KY.
Again, we hit very nasty almost stand still traffic several times, but as I am writing this right now, we are about 1.5 hours away.
We will be working remotely this week so will only get out to see things around 5:00 (so glad of the time change and more daylight!)
Signing off for now...will post more photos tonight or tomorrow from our new campsite.
Feeling very blessed to be living our dreams!
Blessings~
Misi and Dave
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