July 2016 – The Adventures of Tracey and Ed

July 4th – July 12th

Monday
We left Harvest Moon RV Park, Adairsville, GA at noon eastern time and headed west to Tullahoma. We arrived at Tim’s Ford/Fairview Devils Step State Park Campground in Tullahoma around 2:30pm central time.
We chose site #19 because it is one of their longest sites 60 feet long. The site is gravel and little up hill.

We paid about $21 a night for electric and water using the senior discount. They do have full up-hook on some sites but they were not available. We are staying here for four nights. They do not have free wifi or cable. Fairview is a newly renovated campground that opened in October 2015. The campground is located on the south side of Tim’s Ford Reservoir about 6 miles from the Tim’s Ford State Park visitor center and main campground. The Fairview campground has paved driveways with gravel site pads and most of the sites can handle a larger rig up to 50ft. They are nicely spaced with some shade and some sites backed up to the lakeshore. The main campground has smaller sites and can handle up to 35 ft rigs and does not back up to the lake.

Fairview is a nice campground but their bathroom could use some improvement. The ladies bathroom needs to be cleaned daily not just every other day. The shower heads are so close to the wall that it is difficult to wash your hair and body. I don’t like touching my face or body to a public shower wall. Yuck!

So, thumbs down for the bathrooms but thumbs up for the large sites and view. I have been going to June’s (Ed’s sister) house to take showers and to do some laundry. Thank you June!

In the evening we watched a movie and stayed inside while the fireworks were going off in the campground. We didn’t feel like going out watching the show. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July weekend!

Tuesday
Today we went to Ed’s mom’s old house to do some laundry, paper work, shower, and wifi stuff. Then we went to our storage unit and got some stuff for the RV. I had packed stuff in boxes and labeled them to be used in the new RV. Well, I discovered I don’t need half of the stuff that I thought I would need. So, I am in the process of reorganizing the RV and storage. I am pretty sure I will be reorganizing the RV again and again as we rearrange stuff.

Later in the afternoon Ed went fishing on the lakeshore. He fished for about an hour. He came back with a story. He said he caught a bass that was about eighteen inches long. He tried to take a picture of it but he slipped and dropped the fish in the water. He made me smell his hands to prove that he really caught a fish. I said nice story honey. lol I told him to go fishing again and this time don’t drop the fish and take a picture of it. He has been trying ever since and no fish yet.

Thursday
We watch Zooey all day while Trevor went to work. I took her shopping for clothes then to lunch at Chick Filet in Tullahoma. I sure missed her simplicity and joy of life. She is full of energy but with such grace and calmness of it all. We had a great time together.

Zooey laughing at me while I was making faces at her while she was eating Cheerios.

Lunch with Zooey at Chick Filet in Tullahoma

While I was out with Zooey, Ed moved the DRV to the new site all by himself. He did a fabulous job. We extended our stay here until July 15th but had to move to a different site because site #19 was already reserved. The only site available for the dates we wanted was a handicap site #27 and they said that it was okay for us to use. Most of the campgrounds we have seen have handicap sites that are paved and very close to the restrooms. At this campground they have two handicap sites with gravel and close to the restrooms but site #27 was gravel and far away from the restrooms. I am not sure handicap people would want a gravel site and bumpy road to get to the restrooms. Maybe that is the reason it was available. Anyway we are glad it was available for us to enjoy the view of the lake.

Ahhh lake views are the best.

Later Trevor came over for dinner and picked Zooey up. It was nice catching up with him and hanging out with my favorite people!

Friday and Saturday
We drove around town and checked out some other campgrounds. We checked out Henry Horton State Park in Chapel Hill. The campground was a little tight and small for our rig to fit. It is a nice park but we will pass staying there. We drove to Barton Springs Campground in Normandy and checked for dates and sites available for us to stay there after the 15th. We made reservations to stay there for a couple of weeks.

Ed went fishing again. He is still trying to catch the bass so he could get a picture of it. lol

Sunday
Today was a nice relaxing day. June came over to see our new rig. She was surprised how big it was. She said the pictures I posted on the blog does not do it justice. It is big, beautiful and feels like home. We hung out by the lake, ate dinner and played Sequence. It was a nice evening together.

Monday
Today Ed went over to June’s house to clean out the shed and go through his mothers things. She had a lot of boxes that he and June will need to go through before they settle the estate. Good thing Ed had practice with our old house. lol I went out to lunch with my friend Phillis friend at Ruby Tuesday in Tullahoma. I forgot to take a picture of us. Later we just hung at our site and enjoyed the lake view and lovely weather.

Tuesday
I didn’t want to go anywhere today. So I hung out at our site all day. I did some writing and relaxing by the lake. I sure enjoy being by the lake.

Ed went to the dentist, took a nap and went to June’s house to do more decluttering in the shed.

Well that’s it for now.

Thank you for reading and responding to the blog. Big hugs to you all!

See ya’ll later!

June 26th – July 3rd

Sunday
Today we drove two hours away from Ocala to visit my family in Riverview near Tampa. We hung out all day with my mom, Ginger, with her bird tweetie and my brother, Scott, with his girlfriend Michelle.

Scott, Michelle, Ed, Ginger and me

It was a very nice and relaxing visit. Scott barbecued some pork chops and Michelle cooked some potatoes and green beans. It was a delicious meal with some fun company.

My goofy brother, Scott

Monday
At 8:00 am the service tech, Jeremy came by our rig to diagnose the problem with the hydraulic landing gear. He checked for fluid leaks in the line and there were not any. He suspected the valve is the issue and needed to be replaced.

The extended warranty that we purchased when we bought the rig covered the cost of fixing the valve for the landing gear. Jeremy came back by around 1:00 pm. They had a replacement valve in stock and installed it in about 15 minutes. They were happy I left the truck hitched up otherwise they would have had to use jacks to support the front of the RV. After replacing the valve the landing gear was still deploying without being commanded. Jeremy found a bleed valve that was not fully closed so he tightened it up and it fixed the problem. Next we had to cycle the landing gear a few times to work the air out of the hydraulic system. Around 5:00 I started to unhitch the truck but the hydraulics were making a loud squealing noise. I suspected the pump was cavitating. Jeremy was just leaving to go home and he drove by and heard the pump. He stopped and checked a couple of other things and asked if I could leave the truck hitched up until tomorrow morning. He wanted to talk with Lippert controls in the morning. We hung out at the campground all day so Ed could watch what Jeremy did.

Tuesday
Jeremy did a couple more things with the landing gear and retested it again. Lippert confirmed it was air in the system and only needed to be exercised to purge the lines. Now it is working great with no issues and we can get on the road to our next destination.

We left around 10:50am at 90 degrees and headed north to Adel, GA. We took I-75 most of the way. We made it out of Florida!! YAY!

We made two stops for a bathroom break and a lunch break. We arrived at Reed Bingham State Park in Adel, Georgia by 2:10 at 95 degrees and high humidity.

We checked in and picked a pull through site #33 with the view of the woods. Ed’s truck stayed hitch up to the RV since we were pretty level and just in case we decided to leave in the morning.

Originally we made reservation to be at this park for Friday the 24th for two nights. Since we had mechanical issues with our rig and had to go back to Ocala to get the landing gear fixed, we had to cancel our reservation. Most Georgia State Parks do not refund you for a cancelled reservation. The manager of Reed Bingham State Park, Rose, was nice to not charge us for cancelling and offered to move our reservation to Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We accepted her offer even though we didn’t know if our rig would be fixed by Tuesday. Well, it worked out great and saved us a little money as well. Thank you Rose!

With our Friends of Georgia discount we got 20% off $38 a night with full-hookup and cable. They have 46 RV and tent sites. Not all are full-up hookup.Reed Bingham State Park is less than six miles from 1-75 and surrounds a 375-acre lake. The lake is popular with boaters and skiers, and fishing for bass, crappie, catfish and bream.

They have a mini golf course, playground, volleyball, beachside pavilion, picnic shelters and group shelters and offer canoes and kayaks rentals.

Minuture Golf

They said there is plenty of wildlife here to see such as gopher tortoises, American alligators, yellow bellied sliders and indigo snakes. During the winter there are some bald eagles and black and turkey vultures overhead. Below is a picture of a Gopher Tortoise that Ed took near our site. We saw at least 10 dens in the middle of the campground and they can run fast. lol

While we were setting up our rig, I notice a lot of gnats! Urgh! So we just hung out inside most of the night. It was nice to just relax and have the view of the woods from our window with no gnats buzzing in my ear, nose and face. lol

Wednesday
This morning we searched for places to stay for the 4th of July holiday weekend. We knew many state parks and RV parks would be full. It would take about 6- 8 hours to get to Tullahoma from Adel. We were planning to park at Ed’s sister’s house for the 4th of July weekend in case we didn’t find a place to stay along the way. We bought a gas generator yesterday to use at June’s place. It is a Champion generator set rated at 3650 watts continuous that we bought at Tractor Supply in Tipton, GA. It is sufficient to power our lights, refer, and one air conditioner. We could also use it to charge our batteries. We don’t know how much we will need it but thought this would be a good way to test our needs for future boondocking (also known as dry camping). The plan is this small generator set will be a backup for the solar system we are hoping to have installed in the near future.

To me, 6 to 8 hours drive is way to far for the cat and pulling the rig. We found a place in Adairsville which is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Adel for Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. We decided to stay at Reed Bingham State Park for one more night and check out Friday morning and head up to Harvest Moon RV Park in Adairsville, Georgia. Now we are set for the weekend and will be in Tullahoma on the 4th. Whew!

It is not easy to make reservation months ahead if we don’t know where we will be during the busy holidays. I am getting used to not knowing where we will be staying for a couple days at a time. It sure teaches me to be in the present and not to worry about tomorrow or the next day. lol It’s like the saying goes, life is about the journey not the destination. 🙂

Later in the morning we went on a 3.75 mile bike ride around the park. It was hot and humid but nice to get out in nature today. Then we stopped at the office and got some ice cream sandwiches to cool off before we headed back to the RV.

Later, Ed went for hike on a couple of trails. They have several hiking tails, the Coastal Plain Nature Trail and Gopher Tortoise Nature Trail wind through a cypress swamp, sandhill area and other habitats representative of southern Georgia.

You could walk as little as a third of a mile or you could string several trails together to walk as far as 7 miles. I walked the Little River trail over a boardwalk built over the swampy area along the edge of Little River. It was very peaceful and I saw a few deer watching me, chipmunks, squirrels, and many birds. The trail connects with the Birdwalk trail to form a 3.2 mile loop. At the point where they connect another trail, the Yearling trail, heads north through the pine woods until it connects to a 0.6 mile loop. You have to return back down the Yearling trail to get back to the Birdwalk trail. The Birdwalk trail takes you back toward the parking lot. I enjoyed my little walk in the woods but the part through the Georgia pine woods was hot. There was at least 8 degrees difference between the swamp and the pine woods.

Thursday
Today was a beautiful day with a light breeze and temperature in the low 80s. Ed and I went for a walk on part of the trail that Ed hiked yesterday. We walked on the boardwalk trail that was about a mile long.

We only saw one couple walking on the boardwalk before us. It was a very nice and peaceful walk in the swamp area. Ed wanted to surprise me with some of the critters he saw yesterday. Here is a couple of them.

Wow, wait a treat to see this hummingbird sitting in her nest

I have no clue what kind of spider this is. Do you?

We didn’t see any alligators or snakes. Good thing cause Ed wanted to play with them. lol We did see and hear cardinals, brown thrashers, and pileated woodpeckers.

After the walk we went back to the RV and had lunch. Later we went for a nice long bike ride around the campground. Then later in the evening we walked around the campground and sat outside for a couple hours until the gnats found us. We truly enjoyed our day being out side in this beautiful weather.

Friday
We left Reed Bingham State Park campground around 8:35 am. We headed north on I-75 for about an hour and stopped for diesel/gas in Vienna, GA at a Pilot gas station. Wow, Pilot gas stations are busy! Ed got diesel in the truck section and I got gas in the car section. We met up on the road and headed back on I-75 north toward Atlanta. Oh my goodness, I really hate driving through and around Atlanta! We did take I-285 around Atlanta and then back on to I-75 to Adairsville. It doesn’t matter what time of the day you drive around Atlanta it still sucks! I told Ed I don’t want to do that again. I’d rather Ed drive and I’d sit in the passenger seat and sleep through Atlanta! lol I learned many drivers do not respect trucks or RV drivers in giving them time to stop and space to change lanes. I did not like seeing drivers getting off the ramp and driving real fast to cut Ed off in front of him instead of waiting to pass behind him. They don’t understand that it is hard to stop quickly when pulling a heavy rig behind you. Geez, idiot drivers! I will say Ed did a fabulous job driving through Atlanta without changing lanes a lot. I am glad I was not in the truck with him because he would of been seeing me tense up and hearing me cussing at the idiots drivers! lol Ok I’m done talking about it now.

We arrived at Harvest Moon RV Park in Adairsville around 2:30pm with temperature of 95 and HOT! They gave us a a long pull through site #11. Harvest Moon is owned by a couple of veterans. They have a circle of flag poles at the entrance each one for a branch of service; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. Through out the camp ground you can spot many other veterans staying there by the flags they display, license plates or bumper stickers/window stickers declaring their branch of service.

Site #11

The site is gravel and a little up hill. Our site had two hook-ups for people that wanted to share one site. They gave us this site because it was the last one available for the 4th of July weekend and Ed mentioned to them that he wanted to stay hitched up if possible. So they gave us their longest site in their campground. Well, Ed couldn’t stay hitched due to the site being up hill. In order to level the rig he had to un-hitch. We used all of our blocks to level the rig with and still could use a couple of more. Ed had to use at least four blocks for each landing gear because he needed to make sure he would be able to hitch back up.

Without the blocks the landing gear would not be able to go up high enough for Ed to hitch up to his truck. So parking up hill is not our best friend. lol We like to find a site that are a little more level than this one but we do what we can with what is given to us. Really it is not too bad but I would not want to park on a higher hill than this next time.

We ate dinner, walked around the campground and cleaned the front cap of the RV and truck so the bugs would not stick to the paint. It has been a long day of driving and all I wanted was to drink my full glass of Baileys on the rocks, watch TV and chill for the rest of the evening. So that is what I did and lets toast to that. lol

Saturday
Today was a lazy day of not doing much of anything. We went shopping at an outlet mall in Calhoun for a couple of hours. Then we went out to lunch and grocery shopping. Around 4:00 pm we went to the campground’s annual 4th of July barbecue in the chapel located on the campground.

Harvest Moon Chapel

They had shredded pork, ribs, fried bologna, and lots of side dishes and desserts. Everything was delicious! I think most of the campers were there because it was a full house. We met a nice couple that were RVing full-time for about 18 months. They just bought a house in Rome, GA to be near their daughter and will continue RVing part-time. They told us about their love for stones and fossils and their rock hunting out west. They invited us to their rig to look at their stones later. After the barbecue we went back to the RV. I wrote on my blog and Ed took a nice long nap due to eating way to much. lol

Sunday
Today we went to North West Georgia Science Museum in Cartersville about 15 miles south from the campground. It was a nice small museum. They had dinosaurs, transportation, aerospace, rock, minerals and kids zone.