Thursday, October 26, 2017

Wednesday morning, Oct 25, we woke to a dry day, though not sunny.  As we drove in windy conditions, we could see fall colors but they could not successfully be photographed without good light.  We drove on interstate highways in Indiana and Kentucky, surrounded by large trucks driving far above the speed limit, risking their lives and the lives of everyone on the highway around them.  With strong winds jostling vehicles around, this is very unnerving.  We finally made it to a surprisingly pretty area not far from the interstate highway in Georgetown, KY.  It was cold and clear.  The two managers of the RV park were preparing to leave next week, one headed to Yuma, AZ and the other headed to Ft Myers, FL.  The park stays open year round, so someone else will be managing the park soon.

This morning, Oct 26, we woke to a bright sunny day, but chilly.  It was a joy to see a sunny day again.  The wind was not as bad, so I was able to drive around 60 mph most of the day.  However, the level of traffic on I-75 was awful, with an endless stream of large trucks in several lanes of the highway.  The excessive speed and risky driving on their part continued today, and we often found ourselves in between two lanes of trucks edging closeby as they passed.  The driving experience in Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee on the interstate highways has been so bad that I hope I never drive that area again.  Today after we entered Tennessee, we encountered a long poorly marked area of construction that lasted for miles as the road twisted and wound its way around hills.  It was hard to know what was holding up traffic for so long, stop-and-go.  After miles of this, with more large trucks than any other vehicle on the road, we found that we were being funnelled into one lane.  Fortunately we were in the correct lane, but we only guessed this due to the odd behavior of Tennessee highway patrol cars driving backward on the right shoulder of the highway.  We were left to guess what this meant, but pulled to the left lane on supposition.  It was already a taxing drive, then topped off with this.  Thankfully it was only a few miles more to our exit for the RV park where we are staying tonight.  It is Volunteer Park Family Campground, a dump of a place.  The driving lanes are narrow and hard to navigate, the parking slots are not level and short, and we were not even escorted to our slot by management.  For the first time I used some 2X6 boards to place under the leveling jacks in the front.  Trees are close to the sides, so we had to position our motorhome carefully to allow the slideouts to extend.  At least we have full hookups with 50 amps, especially important since it was warm enough to need both air conditoners to be run to cool off the motorhome inside.  Have not used AC for quite a while, but now that we are heading south, it may be needed on the remainder of the trip.  Since we left the UP of Michigan, the trip has not been as enjoyable, mostly due to the change in weather, but also having to enter very crowded highways.  We look forward to arriving home in November.

Tomorrow, Oct 27, we leave for Bristol, TN, next door to Bristol, VA where old friends from St Augustine will greet us.  Felix and Kathy Kozielski have moved there from St Augustine, and we shall stop by to spend time with them on our way back to St Augustine.

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