Pigeon Forge Part two

Our decision to not go into town on Sunday was a good one but we decided to do a couple of other things, firstly we went to the Great Smokey Mountains National park to check out what walking tracks were within our fitness levels. The other thing for us (Rose) to do was the clothes washing, I am no chauvinist but my sweet Rose has taken to feeding quarters into the washing machine and dryer with such zeal, I dare not interfere!

We went to the National Park and the Ranger station has the usual displays and it's interesting to see they have similar problems to what we have in Australia, that is introduced pests. One of the big ones is a bug that has all but wiped out the "ash" species of tree, such a shame. As its winter most of the trees are bare of leaves and we always comment to one another how beautiful it would look in summer and autumn.



We got the information we needed on walking tracks and would return on Tuesday to do one.

Monday we went to a place within the National Park called "Cade's Cove", we had heard about this place from a number of people and wanted to see it for ourselves. On bloke even said he had seen a bear! We set of at a reasonable hour and it was truly a beautiful drive up, we stopped many times to take photos and admire the scenery. You must keep in mind that the temperature is only just above zero so every exit from the truck required a fleece to be put on.



This next photo was taken at 11am and the ice was still there in the afternoon when we returned. The longest one was about 40 cm long.




We arrived at Cade's Cove to find its a one way loop road with many signs saying "if you want to pull over be considerate and use the lay bay spaces", well obviously no one reads them, this was going to be a very slow 9 mile drive with people stopping randomly in the middle of the road. Now we have not been here to long and we have seen our fair share of dear, they are like kangaroos, they pop up everywhere, including in your headlights towing a 30 foot fifth wheel! Anyway we are in this Congo line of cars and they keep stopping to look at these dear, not on the side of the road but half a mile into the distance, so small in fact you almost needed binoculars to see them. This goes on for miles and I keep saying to Rose I hope this stop is for a bear, nope another dear! Then salvation for Ron a sign saying basically a left here will shorten the drive by 4 miles, a quick turn of the wheel and we are out of the Congo line, yeah ha!

Another left and we are back on the main loop and yep you guessed it in another Congo line of cars which are stopped in the middle of the road! I said to Rose I hope this is for a bear and not another dam dear! Bingo the bloke in front says there is a bear in the woods walking towards us, fantastic I am like a mad tourist swapping lenses on the camera for that all elusive "bear"shot.



Here we see our first wild bear and to be honest he didn't seen to give a toss that there were 10 cars of people snapping his photo, he was more interest in the walnuts that had fallen on the ground, that good for us.

Ok we got our bear shot let's go, yep a few mores stops to look at those lovely dear and we are free to head home. All in all a great drive and we got to see what we came for.

We awoke the next morning to pouring rain and a quick look at one another said no bush walking today, we pulled the doona up and went back to sleep. We can't help the weather. Tomorrow we head off for Nashville Tennessee the Capitol of country music, we are wondering if we should drop in on Keith and Nicole?



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Location:Pigeon Forge Tennessee

Pigeon Forge Part One

We arrived at Pigeon Forge in the mid afternoon after a slight detour to Camping World at Knoxville TN, and yes i missed the entry, BUGGER! I will have to stop missing turns! So we checked out the parking lot at the local church a couple of miles up the road and back to Camping World we went. At Pigeon Forge we were met with a massive traffic jam! Although it was Friday, the day after thanksgiving there was lots of traffic in Pigeon Forge. We picked Pigeon Forge because it was close to the entry to the Great Smokey National Park, that was about all we knew about it. As expected people made a long weekend of it and took Friday off to. After attempting to book into one RV park with no luck we found one a little bit further down the road called "Eagles Nest". It's part of the Passport America club so five nights with full hookup, power, water and sewage, Wi Fi and cable TV for $97 for 5 nights including tax, great value.
All set up at Eagles Nest


Now Pigeon Forge is not what we expected. With the opening of Dolly Partons, "Dollywood" many years ago, Pigeon Forge has been transformed into a tacky strip of theatres, amusement centres, $10 gift shops etc but the people love it and flock here annually. We were amazed at the amount of traffic and the number of people here. The Main Street through Pigeon Forge is 6 lanes wide so it's not a small road by any standards. We found out that they run a "trolley" bus covering most of the places of interest so for a mere 50 cents you can get to most places of interest. So Saturday we decided to make use of this service so we drove to the Old Mill which is the terminus for the trolley service. We got on the trolley bus, paid our money and then the driver announces that due to traffic the round trip will take upwards of 2 hours! 4 people got off, they had a show to go to in an hour. The driver said the trolley was a great way to see things, and we agreed especially since I did not have to drive, but sitting in the one spot looking at the same thing for extended periods of time was not what we had in mind! Several hours later we got back to our trailer and said, we are not going into town until Monday when every one has gone, so Sunday would be a catch up day doing not much except going to the "Dixie Stampede" show.

The traffic was bad



Saturday night was the coldest night we have had so far, a low of minus 4c to a high on Sunday of plus 3c. We were somewhat unprepared for it but did what we could, I drained the fresh water tank completely, left a tap on a fast drip to help stop the pipes freezing but to no avail by 2am all was frozen including the water supply from the park. We were lucky that we did not burst a pipe, so we will be making better preparations for the next time. The next morning talking to others around the park also said it was a very cold one and many had made more preparations than so I picked their brains for some tips. Dwight next door had even gone to Walmart on Saturday night and bought insulation to put around his water pipe but the hose still froze solid!
Even the taps froze solid


We went to the show which is pretty similar to the "Outback Adventure" on the Gold Coast, it follows a them with horses riding in and out of the arena. It was fun as it just been reformatted with a Christmas theme added. Dinner was eaten with your fingers, a whole small chicken each, piece of pork, potato, corn cob. It was a good night entertainment. The street outside was alive with Christmas lights as well.






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Location:Tennessee

Cumberland Falls

We only had to drive an hour and a half to our next stop so a real easy run. We followed our trusty GPS but had been informed by the park staff most GPS's get it wrong so follow their directions, so we did. One thing I am mindful off is missing a turn off as its not the easiest to do a U turn when your 48 feet long, well bugger me I missed the driveway into the park!! So we had to drive another couple of miles down the road to find a spot to do a U turn and back we went again. We got to the park and set ourselves up all OK , fired up the heater and thought about what we would do over the next few days. We were the only ones in the park so Ron won't be chatting to fellow RVers.

The next day we went to Cumberland falls and did I check of what walking tracks were around, we found 2 that we were keen to do, one of 4.5 miles and one of 1.5 miles so about 9.6 Klm all up and that includes hills! We decided we would start fresh tomorrow morning giving ourselves plenty of time to appreciate the walk.

Cumberland Falls


We then went to a town called Corbin the home of KFC, this is where the Colonel opened his first shop and made his millions, he obviously did not leave many of this dollars in Corbin it's seemed like a rather modest place.

Tomorrow is thanksgiving, so in keeping with the when in Rome do as the Romans do we decided to have a roast chicken and vegies not a 20lb (9kg) turkey, so it's of to Krogers. So thanksgiving for us will be roast chicken, roast vegetables and a glass of select red wine from a box.



The next morning at 6.30 am it's still dark and I motivate Rose to get out of bed and be ready to leave by 8 am. We have breakfast of porridge and a cup of tea and we are off. It's only a short drive to the "trail head" and by 8.30 we are on our way, the first mile is all up hill! Being new to bear country we attempt to keep one step ahead of them by frequent stops to listen (catch our breath) and then keep going.




We completed our first walk and headed straight to the second one at 1.5 miles to Eagle falls, not as spectacular as Cumberland but a nice walk all the same.



Our walks completed and its back to our trailer for a hot shower and our roast dinner, the sun was warm and enjoyable, we sat and moaned to one another how sore we were but what good athletes we were. I put the Weber on and got our dinner going, poured a red wine and sat in the sun and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon.

Next morning up at a reasonable time as I wanted to visit my favourite store Camping World at Knoxville.



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Location:Kentucky

Renfro Valley

Our first destination was Renfro Valley in Kentucky and we chose this rather than heading easterly as the highway seemed a bit better than heading east. We did this mainly as a precaution due to my lack of experience with fifth wheel driving. It did not take us to long to get there which gave us plenty of time to set up etc. The park was just off the interstate so it had easy access, as we we were booking in we were advised the water in the park was off as the pipes had been freezing and bursting, great we now had to find someplace to top up our fresh water tank. We went up the road to a "Wendy's" restaurant found a tap and topped up.

We then grabbed a "sandwich" which is a burger, not sure why when you buy a "burger and chips" it becomes a burger but by itself it's a "sandwich" I'll leave that alone. As always the young girl behind the counter was encouraging us to speak as she stated "I love your accent" followed by say this and say that, all very nice but also funny. Especially funny when she said say "Samantha" (her name) I said "Samantha" she was so disappointed it was the same.

Ok to the park, we got our levels set, dumped our black tank after swishing it around for the last 150 miles, sounds rather gross but it helps break it all down and hence easy dump and flush when the time comes. We are lucky in that we have a black tank flushing system which makes it easier. Then drop the grey water and that's the dirty bits done. Next plug the 30 amp power in, put the satellite dish out, power it up, 2 mins later we have satellite TV. Rose is so glad we got the self locating dish, me to. In the mean time Rose has the slide outs extended, un strapped the chairs and we are about done.

Renfro Valley is home to the Kentucky music hall of fame and its pretty quiet this time of year, as with most things they tend to shut down during the winters, this was no exception. So not much to do but rest and relax.

We woke to one of the thickest frost I have ever seen, in fact a water bottle we left in the truck had half frozen! We then put our trackies on and went for a walk around the area for about an hour.

Our day trips included the town of Berea, famous as being one of the first mixed race campus's in the country, it is still unique in that students do not pay but must work 2 hours a day to fund their degree. It could be working in the craft shop, to cleaning but that's the way they pay their way.

Our next stop was the civil war battle field of Richmond which had a great display in an old building built in 1810?,that was used as a hospital during the battle. It seems to work like this, the owners flee the battle, the army moves in, the battle moves on the army leaves and the owners return to pick up the bits of their house that is left. Just amazing to walk on the floorboards that have seen so much history in their time.

Back to the trailer and have a wine with our neighbours, Tom and Anne from Canada and listen to their adventures after 8 years of full time RVing then a simple dinner.

We new the next morning would be a slow start and it was, as we were packing up another RV er came to chat, and chat we did, nearly four hours, lucky for us our next stop was not far down the interstate. Jim wanted to know about Australia and we wanted to know about fifth wheeling and the USA. Jim had what I would call the "Rolls Royce" of trailers it was impressive indeed. Full size double fridge doors, LED "mood" lighting, walk in wardrobe, island kitchen bench, yep I was impressed! We swapped business cards and left on a high, with an invite from Jim if we are in Michigan to stop by, I might keep him to that. As expected we are meeting some really fantastic people and our journey has only just begun.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Kentucky

Things learnt so far

Each day brings a new learning for us so some things learnt so far;

Even though the trailer has a furnace buy an electric heater, why use your propane/LPG when you can use the RV parks electricity which you have paid for.

When a circuit breaker goes you need to push it even further to the left to reset it, then switch it back to the right hand side. This stops Ron having a mild panic!

When your ready to head out with the trailer in tow do at least two walk arounds to ensure you have closed, locked, latched, pushed ,shoved and any other action you can think of to make sure you are stowed correctly. The first drive out we left the handrail out, lucky we only went 20 metres before we realised.

Never run the landing gear past its end stop, even a second over will blow a fuse. Yep left the rocker switch on to long and blew a fuse.

Buy extra fuses, but ask if there are any different sizes that you may need. Only one fuse is a mini fuse and we blew it! Walmart trip required.

RV toilet paper is single ply and must be treated with caution! Just an observation so far.

Ensure the black tank valve is fully closed otherwise the "poo" sits in the drain pipe so when you take the end cape off you get a little surprise.

Have a piece of string handy with knots on it designating the width of your slide outs so you know where they will extend to, this stops you having to re hitch and move 6" to clear a tree. This tip was provided by our neighbour in our Renfro Valley RV park.

A satellite dish works great when you put it on the roof of your Trailer, just don't forget it's there.

Blocks of wood are handy for putting under the jacks to supplement levelling and stabilisation.

Leave your taps dripping in sub zero temperatures to stop the pipes freezing.

I am sure we will find out many more tips as we go.






- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Renfro Valley Kentucky

Bardstown and the Jim Beam Distillery

Some shots of our first destination
Even minus 3 could not deter two Aussies from having a BBQ.



This is single batch bourbon


This is the "distilled" spirit, 300 gallons an hour.


What more can I say.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Bardstown Kentucky

Shake Down Trip Complete

We are now back at John's place after our short trip to Bardstown Kentucky and we are pretty pleased with how far we have come.

The drive to Bardstown was a bit nerve racking due to the fact it rained most of the way there, in fact it poured so hard we had the wipers on fast at one point. I was glad we put new wiper blades on last week. So my first drive with the trailer was in the dark, my second was in the rain and we have arrived at both destinations safely.

We programmed our "RV" GPS for our destination and it worked great, it did not take us anyplace where a rig our size should not go so we were glad of that.
As expected the roads are wide here and accommodate our rig easily enough, although I am sure we will hit some tight spots in the future. One thing we have noticed is that roads don't really have a name it's all basically by numbers which works great once you get used to it. For example we travelled on "68" south. It's not unusual to pull up at traffic lights and see six or seven signs showing route numbers going in all directions, confusing yes for a while anyway but it works.

Once on the main highway the posted speed was 70 mph or 112 Klm per hour we sat on 60 mph or 96 Klm per hour. I must admit the fifth wheel trailer is fantastic to tow, no sway it just tracks perfectly behind our truck. Braking is as expected even though we have trailer brakes, just make allowances for stopping distance and all is fine. Our truck has plenty of power being a 6 litre turbo diesel and pulls the trailer up most hills at a comfortable 50 mph without much trouble, I am glad we went diesel and not gas oops petrol.

Bardstown is famous for its bourbon and the many distilleries that dot the countryside. We have been told there are more barrels of bourbon than there are people in Kentucky! Many of them run tours so we went with the Jim Beam tour a steal at just $8 for an hour and a half. You're tour includes seeing how they make small scale bourbon that is one barrel making one batch of bourbon. We then saw the large still, it's about 5 stories high and puts out 300 gallons an hour of spirit and Jim Beam have three distilleries in Kentucky, I'm impressed! We saw the bottling line in production and it can do something like 20,000 cases a day! There are plenty of stats to be quoted, bourbon must contain 51% corn and be made in the USA not just Kentucky and so it goes on. Finished the tour with a tasting not a large taste due to Kentucky laws.

We did a trolley bus tour around town which takes you to all the points of interest, and at $5 each is great value, we were the only one on the bus so we got the VIP treatment. We went to the "drug" store and had lunch, yep drug store, they have milkshakes to and down the back is the pharmacy area.

We stayed three nights in Bardstown and then headed back to Johns place. The trip home was pleasant, no rain although we had to take a detour as the highway on ramp was closed, so we had to go right through the centre of Lexington. A funny thing happened at this point the GPS was giving us directions, we turned down a street and there was a group of un savoury characters sitting on the corner, I looked at Rose and said "I hope we don't end up like that scene in in that Chevy Chase movie where they steal his hubcaps". We navigated our way through town ok, I kept to the centre lane to avoid all the low tree branches, made wide turns around corners just like a truck, hey I'm getting used to this.

We arrived at John's safe and with no damage, we backed up and set up even better than last time so we must be doing something right.

The next thing to ponder is what can we improve on?




- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Manchester OH

A cold sunrise

Our first morning in an RV park.









- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Bardstown KY

Setting up our trailer

- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Manchester OH

Bourbon

Well today we set of on what we called our shakedown trip, a couple of nights not far from Johns, 180 miles in distance. The purpose of this trip is get ourselves sorted in towing, setting up, the roads and many of the other things we need to learn. Firstly the trip, it rained most of the way so challenging to say the least, our RV sat nav worked a treat no wrong turns. We arrived at our RV park to find out a fuse had blown on the landing gear, so unable to un hitch, so into Walmart again to get a fuse, I did buy fuses last week but would you believe this was a small type fuse, so much for being prepared! The upside of this was we found a better park to stay in so it worked out for the better.

Our park is about 500 metres from the Heaven Hill Distillery so we will be checking that out tomorrow. As for the trailer it went great, truck pulled it no problems. We spent the last week preparing our trailer and it has paid off, no breakages or cupboards wide open when we stopped. We have lined all the cupboards with none slip stuff, including putting it in between all the plates. So all in all our trailer preparation has been good.

We arrived at our alternate park to a chilly 4 degrees Celsius, jackets out! No pull through spots here so I did my first reverse park, and we did well, I say we because it takes two to back this thing. One of the best tips I read was to get walkie talkies, we did, and it was great to speak normally to one another rather than yelling to an unseen person. Instructions from Rose were great we were in with minimal problems, I gave my self a 7/10. Not a harsh word said was said between us in this process.

Setting up for the first time was slow but that said it was our first time and we took our time so we could think about things and not make to many errors. The next problem we had was as this is a State Park things are a bit sparse, including the hookups! Bugger our power lead and water hose were just to short, so set the trailer up and off to Walmart again to get extensions for both.

Ok we are done all hooked up, furnace is on, expected temp is -4 Celsius tonight, brrr. Only two things left to do, dinner and a red wine, cheers till next time.


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Bardstown KY

How to park a fifth wheeler

- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Mt Orab Ohio

The Journey Starts

Our plane takes off on schedule from Dallas, and thanks to the concierge he takes our bags from our room straight to the baggage check in and advises us we have priority status with American Airlines, this is due to Roses frequent flyer status. This allows us priority check in, baggage and boarding all rather mute when there is only 30 people on a plane that holds 100, with this amount of people on the plane everyone is pretty much priority status.

Dayton is a 2 hour flight and John is there to meet us, we grab our bags and its off to meet our truck. It's parked on the top level about the only place it would fit it was huge! John throws the keys to me and said let's go. A quick walk around and off we go, my first drive, a pretty daunting experience let me tell you it's big. We get to the park and pay station and the first thing we have to do is pull both side mirrors in so we can fit through, now I am worried, that coupled with driving on the right hand side of the road has my head really going.

So it's off to meet our trailer, are we excited, or nervous, in fact both. We arrive at Holmans and meet all the great people I have spoken to on the phone this last several months. Bad news, a slight technical hitch and our trailer won't be ready till the next day. Our hearts sank, however there is nothing that can be done about it, we are offered a hotel but we choose to stay at Johns for the night and will be back tomorrow.

Next day we are there ready to take possession. We spend a couple of hours doing our "walk through" learning as much as we can. I must tell you when we went inside my jaw dropped, it was everything I expected and more! We were over the moon! We are shown how to hitch up and we are ready, oh one more thing, the keys and a $100 fuel voucher for any inconvenience, got to be happy with, thanks Chris, cheers.

So we turn onto the highway in our 48 foot rig or 6.4 metre long vehicle and away we go, am I nervous, you bet and to top it off its dark so this adds to my nervousness. Our truck pulls it with ease steady as you go Ron. Driving down the highway we remember that we will need wine to celebrate the trailer, so now I have to drive into a car park, great nothing like jumping in the deep end. I find a spot furthest from the entrance, no one bats an eye lid as we park taking up numerous spots, it happens all the time as fifth wheelers are pretty common here.

We arrive safely at Johns place and I reverse park it, yep reverse it up close to the house in the dark! I get out of the truck and relax finally, its been a big day to start with.



- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Dayton and Bativia Ohio

USA Arrival

Well we have arrived in the USA, whew! Only one minor incident with our flights. On our day of departure from Brisbane we received a text message at 3.30 am in the morning advising us our flight from Brisbane to Sydney had been cancelled! After rubbing the sleep from our eyes it was onto the phone to Qantas to see what was going on. They attempted to book us on a much later flight saying you will still make your connection, yeah right, a quick calculation in our heads said we would be rushing it to connect, no way were we going to start the trip running from one terminal to another. In the end we got a flight 30 mins later than our original flight. Our first hurdle, and we have not even left Brisbane.

A couple of red wines in the Qantas club Sydney and we were ready for the "long" flight. All the usual departure procedures and we were heading down the runway for our 15 hour flight. As we had booked many months prior we booked our seats after a quick check of the Seat Guru web site. We chose the seats near the back, only two seats wide but in the area where the plane narrows, much more space, they were great plenty of room and only two seats in the row.

We arrived in Dallas mid afternoon some what weary but we were here that was the main thing, next step entry to the US. Now from what we had been told and researched we had a slim chance of a 12 month entry, forget it, with a five year visa you get 6 months and six months only. We would have to re apply by May 2013 no worries it was half expected. The only exception according to the immigration officer was a work visa and it had to be authorised by a supervisor. All our paperwork and preparation to plead a longer stay was wasted effort, oh well we might need it for the re application. One thing to note is when the flight crew issue you with your entry paperwork to fill out make sure if you are using a "non immigrant visa" as opposed to an ESTA visa you advise them, it's another form to fill out and will save you getting kicked out of the long line at immigration to go fill it out.

So now we are in Dallas overnight waiting for our connecting flight to Dayton OH.
Update, waiting for our flight to Dayton, Dallas airport is huge!


- Posted by RnR on their IPad

Location:Dallas Texas