After leaving Buddy Gregg we continued West along I40 toward Nashville. We had looked up tire dealerships who participate in the Family Motor Coach Association, and found a dealer near Nashville. the name of this dealership is Best One on Menzler Blvd. Not exactly confidence building, but off we went and found this humongous place. You drive your whole rig inside the workshop, which is an enormous building covering several acres of indoor tire activity.
We asked a technician to come and take a look at our tires and tell us if we need to change them. He came out with a scanner which measures the rubber and the cracks. He said that the cracks were normal "dry rot" and we still had a few more miles on them. This gives us a breathing space before we need to panic about forking out $3000 on 4 new tires.
I am sorry, I totally forgot to take photos.
We were on our way once again, this time to hook up with the top end of the Natchez Trace Parkway. i have provided the link to National Parks site. Do yourselves a favour and browse the site. It is much better at explaining what this area is about than I.
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| Michael and Timmy at the entrance to The Natchez Trace Parkway. |
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| Very quiet day on the Trace. |
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| No commercial vehicles are allowed on the Trace. A lovely quiet, relaxed 440 Mile drive. |
Our first stop was Natchez Trace Thousand Trails Park. a very old, very dilapidated campground.
To get to the Thousand Trails Park, you have to pass under this bridge which is only 11 ft high. Our RV is over 12 feet high. Luckily they had made a little detour off the road so that tall vehicles can pass under.
After driving from Nashville, we arrived fairly late in the afternoon and it was getting dark. There are a few "pull though" sites and Michael tried to pull into one, driving over the fresh water pipe in the process. The pipe ruptured, and water bubbled up like a spring. There was nothing we could do, but straighten up on the site, put down the jacks and hunker down for the night. Of course there was no water, but luckily our fresh water tank was half full.In the morning we packed up and tried to find another site. In the process, Michael drove into a ditch on the awful parks roads. A cover under the RV was ripped off. It is not desperate as it just covers some filters under the battery compartment, but we will have to replace it. We did find another site and stayed put for a total of 3 nights. The only good part of this story is that the campsite was free. |
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| Our eventual site at Thousand Trails. |
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| The attachment points where the cover was ripped off. |
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| The cover. No way to reattach it to the underside of the RV. |
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| The cover goes over these filters. |
While we were here I had a small medical problem which had to be attended to. Through my travel insurance I saw a docter in Hohenwald, who prescribed an antibiotic for 3 days. Problem fixed!
In between RV mishaps and doctor visits we did actually get to go to Lewis Merriweather Park and see remnants of the original Trace. I know I took photos, but they seem to have disappeared. Maybe my iPhone was full and they did not record.....
Tomorrow we head to a free campground, Jeff Busby, on the Trace where we will be dry camping for a night
Posted with Blogsy
Sorry to hear about the mishaps, but glad you are making progress in your travels!
ReplyDeleteGlad they made that little detour for you guys to get under, we had to turn around and find another way when we were in NY. Glad you're feeling better and hope nothing else happens. Sounds like a "lovely" campground.
ReplyDeleteWe drove much of the Natchez Trace Parkway, but we must have missed that bridge. The way they did it is creative but a bit scary.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your little incident. It is always something. Glad you are feeling better.
Paul and Marsha, that bridge was on the way to the 1000 Trails campground. We are very happy they came up with the solution that they did. It works!
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