Austin Thanksgiving & Cumberland Mt State Park, Crossville, TN

 11/21/2024 to 12/5/2024

        We had a great Thanksgiving with the Coburns and with my sister Kate, who came in from Oakland, CA. The first picture is of John, Katie, Parker, Ryan, and Chad. The second one includes Kate, Scott and me at Cafe Blue. The third one is John enjoying his raw oyster appetizer. 





    Katie was the master chef for Thanksgiving dinner, although Chad, Kate, and I also helped. We had a spatchcocked turkey, which was delicious, along with all the other traditional Thanksgiving sides. Here is a picture of our pies. And one of Parker sampling the Challah. 




        We left our RV at the Cumberland Mountain State Park in Crossville TN while we flew out of Knoxville for the Thanksgiving trip. Annie stayed at the Dog Walk Spa and Resort in Crossville. 

        Our RVing at this park was remarkable because of the unseasonable cold weather. We knew it would be below freezing while we were gone, so Scott had to winterize the RV before we left. We didn't hook up to the park water. We used our fresh water tank instead, until our fresh water pump broke. We were lucky to find someone close by who happened to have a spare pump in his truck. 

         Once we got back from Austin, the lows were in the low 20's or high teens. Daytime temperature occasionally got to 40. We stayed warm inside, and didn't have any frozen pipes. Before we left for Austin, our campground was pretty full. Here is a picture of the empty, cold campground after Thanksgiving. Notice the socks Scott wears for gloves. 

    
        Since the weather forcast for parks we had planned to visit was dismal, we decided that from here we'd make a beeline for the South DC / Fredericksburg VA KOA, which will be our semi-permanent residence for the next year or so. We're looking forward to seeing a lot of Sam, Kara, Maude, Margaret, Walt, Fran and Stevie. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memphis KOA Journey, Marion, Arkansas

Image
 10-24-2024 to 11-7-2024         We traded a beautiful, spacious state park stay for a cramped, parking lot stay at a KOA by a noisy interstate. Reason for this unlikely trade was learning that the state park has no internet and very limited cell service. So we chose the KOA because we wanted to watch the election returns and the World Series.              After we got in the mode of being Memphis site seerers, it turned out ok.  Our first sightseeing walk was the Big River Crossing, the longest (about a mile) public pedestrian and cyclist bridge across the Mississippi. Great views and nice grassy trail at the end.  Entrance View from the river crossing          We went to Tom Lee Park several times, either combined with sight seeing or as the primary destination. It is a long strip along the Mississippi River that's fun to walk. There's a statue of Tom Lee, who saved 32 people in 1...
Read more

Prophetstown State Park, near West Lafayette, Indiana

Image
8/24/2023 to 8/31/2023         The main reason for choosing Prophetstown State Park was its proximity to Purdue University, where Scott spent 5 years in a co-op program (combination work/study) ending with a degree in industrial engineering. We visited 525 Dodge Street, home of the Dodge Street Boys for 4 1/2 of those years. I saw the street where they played four square continuously with loud music and somewhat frequent police intervention. They only went to jail once, and that record was erased with the help of a good lawyer. I learned a lot about Scott's college years as we walked around campus. It was the time of the Vietnam War and lottery system for the draft. He spent a lot of time protesting.  I           Prophetstown is a unique park with a focus on history. There is a Farm at Prophetstown, a small-scale working farm depicting life in the 1920s. There are several Sears Robuck prefab houses on site, furnished from that ...
Read more

Our New Home for the Indefinite Future

Image
 Fredericksburg, VA / D.C. KOA         We arrived in Fredericksburg on Saturday, Dec 7th, after a brief stop in Wytheville, VA, where our RV held up in the 11 degree weather. We are here for two reasons. The most important is to be near Sam and Kara and the grandkids. The other reason is that we have decided not to travel in the RV on a regular basis anymore. It's just gotten too hard.           Maudie was our first visitor. She came on Sunday and helped us get set up. Not only did she wash the windows before we put up the magna shades, she washed the whole RV with the window washer brush. Inside we cleaned out drawers and washed floors. You name it, she did it for us. She also worked hard to vaccum up all the yellow lady bugs that came inside while we were at Natchez Trace. We took a little time in the afternoon to play Oh Hell and let Maudie rest before driving back to Alexandria. The drive took her a little less than an hour...
Read more