Right now we are watching hurricane Frances to see where it's headed. We would like to leave here today, Labor Day, but it looks like Frances is headed directly toward Tennessee, which is where we want to go. What we need to determine is if we can get there ahead of the storm or if we should wait and let it pass. We need to decide in the next couple of hours.
Our best to you all.
Friends & Family...
We will remember September as the month of the hurricanes. We started the month off by lingering in south-central Virginia at Cindi's sister's house to allow Hurricane Frances to pass through to the west of us. And then less than 2 weeks later we had to skedaddle out of Nashville, Tennessee with Hurricane Ivan bearing down on us. But thanks to our house being on wheels, and keeping a constant eye on the weather channel on TV, we had another month of very pleasant weather. Not counting Seattle, where it rained every day we were there, we have averaged about 1 rain day a month since we left San Diego. Which is a very good thing. Rain makes it impossible to keep the RV clean, both inside and out.
Our ultimate destination this month was the Motosat DataStorm (our internet satellite) rally in Kerrville, Texas, just west of San Antonio. We debated between taking the southern route along the gulf coast and stuffing ourselves on gulf coast shrimp (yum, yum, yum) as we went along or to cross the length of Tennessee to see friends and the sights. Considering how weather events unfolded, we made the right choice by going across Tennessee.
We decided to spend as much time as possible in Tennessee because we both think eastern Tennessee is one of the most beautiful areas we have ever been in. It might even be a potential "winter over" place some year. So we came across the bottom of Virginia and entered Tennessee at Bristol, the most northeast tip of the state. We stopped at the visitor center there and were told that instead of going to Knoxville, we should head south to the little town of Pigeon Forge, tucked up against the northern foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So that's what we did. It was a beautiful drive through beautiful country. It turns out that Pigeon Forge is famous as the home of Dollywood and a ton of other entertainment venues with a country theme.
As luck would have it, we were there the weekend they were having their annual Shades of the Past automobile rally. Thousands of people from all over the east coast were there showing off their 1925 to 1975 cars. Pigeon Forge has a four mile long, four lane divided road right through the middle of town. The road is lined with motels, restaurants, shops, amusement parks, and theaters. During Shades of the Past week, visitors line both sides of the road with folding chairs and sit there all day, and most of the evening, watching the cars cruise up and down the street. Since we aren't "car" people, we spent our time in Dollywood and saw a couple of evening shows. One of the shows we saw was a troop of Chinese acrobats. They were pretty amazing, but the thing I remember the most was the family sitting next to us. They were obviously local people with southern accents to prove it. They had a really cute four year old adopted Chinese girl with them who spoke with a perfect southern Tennessee accent just like her parents. It sure was cute to hear that voice coming out of that face.
We had our first car trouble of the trip in Pigeon Forge. When we came out of a dinner theater one night, our car wouldn't start. It acted exactly like it was out of gas, but I knew that wasn't the problem. Naturally, the sight of me standing there with the hood up while scratching my head, and other body parts, drew a crowd of "car people". Everyone agreed that whatever the problem was, it wasn't going to get fixed at 11:00 p.m. in the theater parking lot. So I called a tow company and had it taken to the local Chevy dealer. Then I hitched a ride to the car rental place. The amazing part of the story was that we were able to find a car rental place open at that time of night. The rental company was one of those places on the edge of town, up a dirt road, that rents all kinds of things to all kinds of people. We got their last available car. A 10 year old Crown Victoria that looked like it had been in at least two wrecks. But it did run. Too bad none of the lights on the dash worked considering it was DARK and we had to drive through the sticks to get back to the RV. When we went to pick up the car at the Chevy dealer the next day, we learned that the problem was that the electronic ignition system on the steering column was not "reading" the car key properly, so it thought we were using a "fake" key to start the car. The result was that the engine would turn over but it wouldn't start.
Our next stop after Pigeon Forge was Nashville. If you like country music, you HAVE to go to Nashville. The WHOLE city evolves around that industry. Cindi and I are not "fans" so 99% of the country stuff was lost on us, but we did go to the Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame, Ryman Auditorium (original home to the Grand Ole Opry), and a host of other country music venues. I would say we got our fill of country music between Pigeon Forge and Nashville. But we liked Nashville a lot, and it's too bad we had to out-run the hurricane and leave before we got to see the non-country music things like the riverboat, Jack Daniels factory, and The Hermitage. But I'm sure we will return to Nashville, it's a very cool place. As we left town, we could see Ivan in the rear view mirror quickly approaching.
Memphis was our next stop. It's on the Mississippi River at the southwest tip of the state. The western half of Tennessee is flat and uninteresting, completely different than the eastern half. Memphis is noted for Blues, BBQ, soul music, and Graceland. We were very disappointed with the place. It seemed to us to be a city that is WAY past its riverboat glory days when cotton was king. Now it has a rundown look and feel to it. There doesn't seem to be any money or vibrancy in the city. However, if you liked Elvis, you will LOVE Graceland. It is a whole museum complex. We aren't Elvis fans, so we only spent a couple of hours there, but I can see how a person could spend a whole day. We were surprised at how modest of a house and compound Elvis lived in. We know lots of people who live in nicer houses than Elvis lived in. We enjoyed the Gibson guitar factory. The factory is downtown, so we took a tour, and were very impressed with their products.
Memphis is also where we hope to have finally gotten our leaky roof problem fixed. When an RV is moving, especially at very slow speeds going into places like gas stations, parking lots, and the like, each of the wheels leave level ground independently of each other which causes the RV to twist and otherwise deal with a lot of stress. In a car you don't notice. In the case of an RV, it means that the frame and the roof flexes and twists. This in turn causes the sealant that covers the fasteners (screws) to get stretched and develop cracks. We have been having intermittent leaks in the roof for almost a year, and each time we discover one we have it "patched" on the top where we think the water was getting in. It's hard to solve these kinds of problems because we are in rain so seldom, and when the roof does leak, it doesn't necessarily follow that the leak is directly above where the water is coming in. So when we got to Memphis, we left it with an RV dealer and told him to caulk the whole damn roof. And then we went sight-seeing. Next time we're in rain we'll see what happens.
After Memphis, we drove diagonally southwest across Arkansas until we got to Texas and then on to San Antonio. It would have been nice to have enough spare time to spend a day or two in Arkansas, but as it turned out we only stopped once for lunch and gas, and that was it. In San Antonio we, of course, had to see the Alamo and the Riverwalk shopping/restaurant complex. Both were well worth the visit. They have done a good job of restoring and presenting the Alamo buildings, grounds, and story. The Riverwalk is a great shopping and "date" place. They did a real nice job of making the downtown area an inviting place. We were also able to visit with our niece, Amber, and nephew, Scott, for the first time in years and meet their spouses.
The last few days we have been at the Motosat DataStorm rally in Kerrville, Texas which is about 70 miles west of San Antonio. The DataStorm system is the internet access system that we use in the RV. It has been very, very cool to be in an RV Park with 85 other DataStorm users and attend the seminars being presented by the Motosat company officials. They