We need to head west to Tennessee so we won't miss seeing Tennessee and Kentucky. It rained all night but cleared when we left Virginia. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Virginia and West Virginia. Both states are tree covered hills and lots of farms with green fields and cattle. As we crossed the border into Tennessee we stopped for lunch at a rest stop. We had trouble with the power in the motor home, the lights and water pump, so decided to take it to a RV dealer and repair shop in Knoxville. The rain is really coming down and the wind is blowing so hard our windshield wipers are getting stuck. We finally got there late in the afternoon so they put us in their campground by the service center. We have electricity and water and are comfortable. Hopefully they will be able to work us in tomorrow.
Nov. 17
It's sunny and nice today. We get the motor home ready to be moved to the service area and we leave to go see the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We drive to the town of Pigeon Forge where Dollywood in located. What a tourist area this is. Motels and about every restaurant we have ever heard of is located in this town and the next town of Gatlinburg. In the summer it is very crowded.
We take the Newfound Gap Road which is the main road across the mountains and is a famous scenic drive. The Smoky Mountains are higher than the Blue Ridge Mountains which extend from Shenandoah in Virginia to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina. There was a skiff of snow at the top where we crossed into North Carolina and crossed the Appalachian Trail. At the end of the National Park we drove along the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 15 miles to Waterrock Knob. The visitors center there was closed so we turned around and went back through the Cherokee Indian Reservation and the town of Cherokee. There are large hotels and casinos and gift shops in this town. We went back through the Smoky Mountains on the same road and had lunch in the town of Gatlinburg on the edge of the park. We went back to Knoxville and our motor home was parked back in the campground. They had worked on some of the things we needed repaired.
Nov.18
Got the motor home ready to go into service again today and we decided to drive up to Kentucky. We went to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park which was an important place of westward migration. At the visitors center we watched a film about Daniel Boone and how he and others blazed Wilderness Road through the gap in 1775 opening Kentucky lands to settlers. They battled the Cherokee and Daniel Boone lost his son during Indian fighting. From 1776 to 1810, 200,000 to 300,000 settlers cross Cumberland Gap into the Ohio Valley. The Cumberland Gap is one of the very few natural corridors through the Appalachian Mountains. By the 1830s the Gap declines in importance as canals and railroads improve east-west travel elsewhere. In 1861-65, during the Civil War, the Gap was considered strategic by both sides. It changed hands several times but saw no major action.
We got back to Knoxville and they had worked on the motor home and it was back in the campground again.
Nov. 19
We are still at the RV repair. The pac break is not working on the motor home so we are waiting for that to be fixed. They don't work on it today so looks like we will be here through the weekend.
Nov. 20
We decide to drive the Jeep to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky and stay in a motel tonight. It's a 3 hour drive and we get there before lunch time. We go to the visitors center to purchase a cave tour and get a 2:00 tour. We have time to have lunch and check into a motel before our tour. We are staying in the little town of Cave City which is close to the park. We go on the New Entrance tour which has 500 stairs and takes 2 hours to complete. Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave on Earth with over 365 miles of surveyed passageways. It was formed by the slow dissolution of limestone by groundwater. It was a great cave with very narrow passages and some low ceilings. We started the tour with a multi story stairway down into the cave. We saw large slabs of rocks that had fallen from the ceiling and places where the ceiling was smooth. We saw stalagmites, stalactites and flowstone. I'm glad we got the chance to see Mammoth Cave.
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| Mammoth Cave |
Nov. 21
It's sunny and nice today. After breakfast we started back to the motor home. We stopped briefly in Bowling Green at the Corvette Museum and checked out the gift shop. We went through Nashville on our way home. We will have to come back this way some other time to check out Nashville.
Nov. 22
It is nice and sunny again today. We got the motor home ready to go into service again today. After lunch we did a little shopping at a string of stores that runs for about a mile close to where we are parked. There are all kinds of stores and restaurants so we have plenty of choices for food. They finally took the motor home in around 4:00. Still not sure what is wrong with it.
Nov. 23
We have been here for a week now. Not a bad place to be though. We have everything we need and they have been very nice to us. Today they took the motor home into service first thing in the morning. They worked most of the day on it and are narrowing down possibilities of whats wrong. I bought a small live tree and I'm decorating it for my Christmas tree. We had a good dinner at the Olive Garden.
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| My Christmas Tree |
Nov. 24
They took the motor home into service first thing this morning. They think the problem is a box that communicates between the transmission and the pac break. They are ordering the part which will be here on Monday. We will be spending the weekend here. The people are so nice here. They had a turkey and ham dinner at lunch time today and invited us to join them. One night we will go back to Pigeon Forge area and see the Christmas lights and maybe visit Dollywood. That catches me up on my blog. We hope we can move to North Carolina next Tuesday and get on with our travels. Definitely Happy Travels, Barb
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