From West Virginia to Conneticut

We drove through West Virginia and Virginia on our way to the FamCamp at Fort Meade Maryland to stay for a week or so. We enjoyed our drive through the mountains of WV, what beautiful scenery there. Virginia is also a very pretty place, we took lots of pictures.



We had a great time at Fort Meade last year, so decided to stay and locate a doctor to have our physicals taken care of while we are here. Everything was A-ok, but, we have a couple of followup doctor visits that we are scheduling during our stay in New York visiting family in July.

We spent some time here just relaxing and catching up on some things around the motor home. Our plan is to leave here and travel along the South Coastline of Connecticut and into Rhode Island then on up toward Boston.

We left Maryland and went to Connecticut. We stayed a couple of nights at an Elks Lodge in Milford CT then went on to Mystic Seaport area and found a great campground in East Lyme CT called Aces High RV Park. We only stayed there for one night so we could check out this beautiful old area. We enjoyed this trip along the coast of Connecticut, it is so calm and relaxed here, and the people are all so friendly.

We are heading for Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts now for a few days, then on to White Mountain New Hampshire. We will then be going to Essex Junction Vermont for a FMCA Rally starting June 30th.

Back to Knoxville then Kentucky and on east

We had to go back to Knoxville to have our coach worked on again. We found a few rain leaks during the bad storms in Tennessee so arranged to get those checked out. We also have been without a water pump again, and waiting for the past month, for the factory to decide what to do to try and fix the problem with our water pump. Finely was able to get an appointment at a place in Knoxville, this is the busy season so hard to get in.

Traveling from Fort Campbell down the interstate through Nashville and seeing the damage caused by the floods. Very sad sight, the standing water in all of the parking lots and flooded streets with abandoned cars and trucks. Some of the big trucks were under water with only the roofs showing.

The beautiful Opryland Hotel and Convention center was completely flooded half way up to the ceiling of the first floor. They have a garden atrium in the hotel that we visited while we were there, little shops and restaurants all throughout the flowers and waterfalls, just beautiful. All destroyed, will probably be years before that is back to normal. The pictures below are the before and after pictures of the atrium at the hotel.

We arrived at Knoxville, stayed at the Walmart parking lot just up the street from the repair place, had to be there first thing in the morning. The next day, after working on the coach for a few hours, we found out that we would have to be there for a few days, so found a campground nearby to stay in at night and for the weekend.

By Tuesday they were all done, our water pump was working again, and they fixed all of the rain leaks that popped up while we were in the storm in the Nashville area. So now with pump number nine in and working, we will be heading up through Kentucky, West Virginia and on to Fort Meade in Maryland.

Also in Kentucky, we visited 2 Bourbon distilleries, Four Roses and Wild Turkey. We toured the distillery, and sampled the different types of bourbon. Very interesting to learn how bourbon is made. Bourbon is aged for several years, and can only be aged in new White Oak barrels that have been charred to bring out the sugar in the wood. These barrels can not be reused for bourbon so they are sold and exported to be used for making Irish Whisky and Tequila and Rum. The furniture below is made from the new unused barrels.

We drove through West Virginia and into Maryland toward Baltimore. We spent a week at Fort Meade FamCamp near there. We have stayed there before and it is a great place, we enjoyed our stay. When we left there we headed for the Hershey Pennsylvania to meet our friends Connie and Terry and his sister and her husband. Had a wonderful time there, shopping, eating, watching movies, eating, went to a couple of flea markets, ate some more, when to a Farmer's market to buy more to eat. !!! Wow, what a fun week, but we always have a good time with Terry and Connie.

We are leaving tomorrow and driving through PA and on to the Connecticut Southern coastline. We plan to drive along the Southern Coast of Connecticut.

Vince Gill & the Tennessee floods

When we left Nashville, we went to Fort Campbell Campground, it is located about 50 miles NW of Nashville TN. This was a nice park, near a nice little stream, with a dam upstream about 50 yards from the park.
We are still attempting to find a place to take our motor home to have the water pump replaced, they have finely agreed that there may be a problem causing the 8 pumps to fail during this last 14 months. Hopefully we can find somewhere that can find and fix the probklem.

Since we did not get to see Vince Gill last Monday night, we decided to drive back down to Nashville and go to the Station Inn again. We were so glad we did, we did get to see and meet Vince, boy he is great...he is such a nice man.

Lots of fun....and meeting Vince Gill too. Wow !!!

We got back to the campground and learned that a storm was coming toward the end of the week, and early Friday morning the rains started. By late afternoon we had to leave the coach because of a tornado warning, running through the pouring rain and high winds to a small building at the park, after about 20 minutes we got the all clear announcement and returned to our coach. It rained very hard all day and night and on Saturday morning we could see that the stream had turned into what looked like a raging river and had rose quite a bit too. By afternoon it was much higher and several of the people in the park pulled out and headed for higher ground. We moved up the hill to a parking lot at the top. It continued to rain all night and the next day too. Pictures of the campground after the rain slowed down on Monday morning. A total of 13.5 inches over the weekend.

We finely found a place to have our coach looked at. Bill in warranty said to try a place in Knoxville TN that does work for them. We had called a few places, but could not get in for a few weeks, so these people are willing to work us in on the 6th of May. We will head out in the morning. Some of the highways have been closed, but looks like we can get through tomorrow.

Nashville Tennessee

We arrived in Nashville to stay for a week or so and checked into the campground where we had made our reservation. Small and not very nice, so we will stay for a night or so and look for another one to move to.

We signed up for a couple of tours in Nashville on the first day and set them up for the next day, the first tour for 4 hours, was of the city, the famous places, highlights, and the history of Nashville. It was very interesting and exciting to see all of the famous places that we had heard of. The second tour, in the afternoon, was of the celebrity homes. That was fun too, a lot of great homes to see here in Nashville, wonderful places and beautiful landscapes.

These pictures are of the Ryman Theater, originally the Grand Old Opry that was on television many years ago, you may recognize the stage from the TV show.
Our friends,Terry and Connie, met up with us at Nashville Country RV Park just North of Nashville, and we got to spend almost a week together. We moved up to this campground from one we had been at for the past two nights, it was not nice at all and had very tight spots, so we found this nice park, and asked for two sites next to each other.
We spent one day at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center. Wow, what a beautiful place this is. They have a huge covered atrium with beautiful trees and flower gardens. There is a waterway running through the atrium, with a flat bottomed boat floating through the gardens. Quite a few restaurants, lounges and snack bars are located in this beautiful setting.

We learned about the Ganeral Jackson Riverboat while we were at the hotel, so we signed up for the lunch buffet and show for the next day. That was a lot of fun and the entertainment was good music and comedy, so we laughed a lot and enjoyed the music.


At the RV Park, we met a couple that play music, and they told us about a place in Nashville where Vince Gill plays with a band called the Time Jumpers on Monday nights. This place is a small bar named The Station Inn. Of course the four of us made plans to go there on Monday. We had a good time, but Vince Gill was doing a benefit at the Rydam Theater, so we didn't see him, but enjoyed the band a lot.

We had lots of fun in Nashville, we loved spending some time with Connie and Terry and we were sad to see them leave and head back home. We are going to Fort Campbell Kentucky now for a week or so, and we are still waiting for word from the factory where we can take our motorhome for repair work.