Rocky Springs Campground

Today we started to come out of the gloomy weather and saw some sunshine. How pretty the road is with the sun shining through the trees. We went through an area where a tornado ripped through. I did take photos, but they were lost along with others of the trace. If I find them, I will post them.

Our drive to Rocky Springs campground was as uneventful as the past 2 days. Lovely quiet, peaceful traffic free drive. I love this road!! Next time we will take it slower and investigate the history a bit more..

Sunshine breaking through

lots of these lovely little bridges. All high enough for us to pass under.

Rocky Springs is one of the free campgrounds on the way. It is a real treat to stay overnight. No TV, no internet, no noise. Just peace and quiet.

Another wonderful campsite.

Grooming Timmy at Rocky Springs

Our next nearest neighbour. another Dutch Star.

Below are photos of one of the historic sites along the way. It is all so well done. Next trip we will take it slower and enjoy the history and scenery.

 

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Further down the Trace

I love this quiet, stressfree drive! No commercial vehicles and almost no traffic. The fall colours are getting better as we go south. Not too far to travel today. We are spending the night at Jeff Busby Campground. It is one of three free places to stay. We could stay here for 14 nights, but it is hard enough to get Michael to dry camp for one night, let alone 14!!

Our site at Jeff Busby. Soooo peaceful.

Michael walking Timmy. The couple in the Airstream were from Ontario as well. We met up with them a littler later in the trip.

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The biggest Tire Dealership we have ever seen!

November 13th-15th, 2013

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.

Michael and Timmy at the entrance to The Natchez Trace Parkway.

Very quiet day on the Trace.

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.

Our eventual site at Thousand Trails.

The attachment points where the cover was ripped off.

The cover. No way to reattach it to the underside of the RV.

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

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In for repairs.

After departing with $50 for the night in the truck repair facility and the 5 minute consultation on the state of the heating core, we made our way to Buddy Gregg RV Center in Knoxville. We checked in just before lunch and were given a site with water and 50amp electricity.

Our free site at Buddy Gregg RV.

Beautiful Newmar Essex parked next to us.

This place is HUGE!!!! There were at least 20 service bays with some very large and expensive RVs waiting to be attended to. We were parked next to a beautiful $750,000 motorhome. The campground has a waiting room with TV, coffee, washer dryer and a bathroom.

The writing room is situated in a small building in the campground.

Michael and Timmy enjoying the comfy chairs in the waiting lounge.

Big TV to help pass the time.

Washer, dryer and dinette.

Just after lunch a service tech came over to the motorhome and told us they were taking it in to see what had to be done. Just 3 hours later it was back with a good report. The indicator problem was a burnt out relay and the leaking core was a loose hose. So $396 later we were given the all clear.

We stayed overnight in the campground. Cold! brrr. But were able to use the heat pump to keep us toasty warm.

In the background you can see some of the service bays.

There we are in among the big rigs.....oh wait, we have a big rig!

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Of washing machines, tires, turning flashers and heat cores....

On Monday the 3rd, we checked into Keystone RV campground so that we could be there when they wanted to instal the used washer/dryer that we had bought online? Well, they couldn't take us on Tuesday! so we had to wait until Wednesday. They installed it without a problem, but for double the quoted price. Still it was a lot cheaper that what we would have paid in Ontario. While were there, a tech gave us a "courtesy" 27 point check. Well, wouldn't ya know, he found that we needed 4 new rear tires and he just happened to know someone who could provide them....no thank you sir. We have Family Motor Coach membership and they have a Michelin Tire discount program.

The dryer vent gets installed first.

We have a hole in our RV!

Ahh! My washer dryer is installed!

After the washer/dryer had been fitted, we drove the 20 odd miles to my sister's house in Keedysville, Maryland. It is always lovely to see my little sis and her family. We stayed until Saturday morning and then drove to Shadrack campground in Bristol, TN. On the way there we noticed that the left turn flashers were not working.

Parked across the back of my sister's driveway.

My sister's very loooong driveway.

There were two other trailers at Shadrack Campground, and it was very quiet and peaceful. This is a Passport America campground and cost us all of $15.00 a night including taxes. we had full hookup so I took the opportunity of doing some laundry in my washing machine Awesome!!

From there were went to a Michelin tire dealer, TCI, about 34 miles south of the campground. They were very helpful, but did not have any tires. Also, they were unable to resolve the turning flasher problem, but they referred us to an RV dealership a bit further south. We got to Tri-Am RV after a quick stop at Pilot for a diesel top-up.

When we pulled into the dealership parking lot, Michael noticed that there was anti-freeze trickling from the heating core up front. WHAT NEXT?????

The RV dealership was unable to help as they do not deal in motorhomes, but they referred us to Interstate Repair in Strawberry Fields, near Knoxville. So off we set once again, this time armed with a bottle of anti-freeze in case we overheated.

At Interstate Repair we told Jack, the owner/manager what problems we had. He phoned around, but was unable to locate a new heater core. He wants to rebuild the one that we have. Not sure that we want this, and so we went online to see if there was a Newmar dealer anywhere around. Guess what! There is one only 27 miles away, so we will go there tomorrow. We are presently parked in the repair shop parking lot with a 30 amp hookup.

Our beautiful view at Interstate.

While we were at Interstate Truck repair, the owner told us about a set of 4 Michelin RV tires that he has on hand. They are used, but if the price is right, we may buy them. We'll have a look at them tomorrow.
So in all, it has been a very frustrating day. Tomorrow a cold front is moving in with the possibility of some snow. Ugh, we have to get south!

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