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| ISBN-13: | 9781491839638 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 12/13/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 43 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
Read an Excerpt
Take a Trip with Us
By J. Ruth Bosley
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2014 J. Ruth BosleyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-3962-1
CHAPTER 1
MARCH 2008 FOR 10 DAYS
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee
We are heading south on I-77 to Columbia and I-26 to a campground at James Island County Park, South Carolina. We went to Patriot's Point today to see the Naval and Maritime Museum which meant about 10 flights of stairs to take us up to the bridge on the USS Yorktown. What a climb, but we were determined! We also went through the Clamagore Submarine which was long and rusty and then on to the Laffey Destroyer.
Now we are headed for the Visitor's Center in Charleston to park the RV and take a sightseeing bus. It was wonderful! Then we left Charleston for the Stage Coach RV Park in St. Augustine, Florida.
Now we are headed to visit Mike's cousin in Orlando. We were early, so a Church Cemetery was interesting to wander through. His cousin, Michael, took us to a Bistro in Winter Garden where we ate outdoors and went through some specialty shops.
From Orlando we went to Bowling Green on route 17 to Pioneer Creek RV Resort. The next day we settled in Woodsmoke RV Camp on Estero Island and our friends, Stan and Phyllis, picked us up to visit them at their time share.
The following day we went to Sanibel and Captiva. We had breakfast at the Tween Waters Inn and arrived at Wesley Chapel at 4:00pm and Quail Run RV Park. I went for a swim before a shower and supper. Later I put pictures from the camera onto the laptop.
Now we are leaving for Gainesville to see my cousins Sue & Ray. But near Ocala we backed into a blue metal box at a Wal-Mart gas station. We hit the same corner on the RV as we had before. Not a bad dent, "Calamity Mike" says "The next RV will have a backup camera".
Leaving my cousins we went on I-75 to Stephen Fosters Folk Culture Center State Park and Carillon Tower. The bells ring every two hours during the day. We enjoyed 4:00pm bells for 10 minutes then went to Kelly's RV Park in White Springs.
We dumped the next morning and stopped at Publix Food Market and Wal-Mart on route 319. We pulled over for lunch in the shade at a closed gas station.
Next we camped at Carrabelle Palms RV Park and enjoyed the beach. The next morning we took I-10N on route 319S down to Apalachicola on route 98. It was a neat town. We stopped at Mexico Beach for brunch in the RV and took pictures. Now we are at Gulf Shores, Pensacola West KOA off 98 in Alabama.
We felt terrible when we saw a very bad accident today with an RV and a car. There is a hard rain as we take off the next morning. Now we have a leak over the shower at the sky light that can be fixed easily. The rain has stopped as we take off on route 98W, but only for a while and then it rains harder again. Maybe we need an Ark instead of an RV! Most of our trips seem to invite rain.
We camped at New Orleans West KOA. A shuttle took us to town and we ate at Two Sisters and took a one half hour surrey ride and then we walked around waiting for the Steamboat Natchez two hour ride where we ate again on the boat.
It is morning, and a usual stop at McDonalds for Mike's coffee for the road. Mississippi roads are bumpy. In Alabama on I-59 we went through Birmingham and camped at Noccalua Falls Campground in Gadsden, AL. A city owned campground, very nice.
The next day is cold and windy as we took I-59 around Chattanooga and north on I-24 to Nashville and Two Rivers Campground. There wasn't much that interested us because it was out of season. So we'll stay tonight and head to Knoxville and Pigeon Forge tomorrow. I had wanted to go to Kentucky but there is too much rain. We are enjoying the beautiful red bud trees all along the sides of the road.
We arrived at Creekside RV Park in Pigeon Forge, very nice. We ate at the Old Mill Restaurant where we have enjoyed their food before. Always a long line but it moves right along. Well the next stop is home after dumping.
Miles 3137 Gas $1,135. Average miles per gallon 9.11
NOVEMBER 2008 FOR 60 DAYS
North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia
Here we go again and expect to be gone two months. Whoops, how did we forget to fill the water tank? Our intention is to do the southern United States zigzagging as weather permits and guides us.
We are going up I-77 and I-40 to Waynesville and Creekwood Farm RV Camp. Very nice! We have been here before. They do not cater to kids so it is very quiet and clean. In tourist season on weekends they serve a free breakfast, Bingo 2 days a week, some music and dancing weekends. Mike got lots of pictures by the creek, and didn't mind when he slipped and got his foot wet.
The peak time for fall colors is over but still they are very pretty. We set our clocks back an hour after Knoxville for the time change.
We went through Cookeville and on to Nashville. Nashville is so clean. We saw the Parthenon which was very interesting especially to Mike being Greek and having been to Greece. Also we toured the Grand Ole Opry Hotel. It is large and has beautiful gardens with a boat ride through them.
We will go north on I-65 to Bowling Green, Kentucky and stop to see the Corvette Museum and then north to Elizabethton and east on the Bluegrass Parkway to Lexington and Kentucky Horse Park. No! We decided not to go to Lexington. We will head for Louisville and Churchill Downs. Mike won the heart of an older lady and she let us in to see a race without a pass. I rode a machine operated horse, but lost the race. So what, I'm a new jockey!
We stayed in Mount Vernon Quality Times RV Camp that night. This place was not in any of the camp books but we spotted an arch like at Churchill Downs and gave it a try. It is old but a nice clean place.
We are following I-65 and I-70 through St. Louis. It is cold! Mornings it is 31 degrees and daytime we are cold even with coats. We headed on to Independence, Missouri, went through the Truman Museum and drove by his home.
Our next state is Kansas. We are seeing more fences then we did in Kentucky, both black and white. We stopped in Paxico but did not stay for the campground. It was like an old west town with antiques galore. A lot of black Angus are in the fields now. We took exit 275 in Abilene on the Chisholm Trail to Covered Wagon RV Park on Buckeye Street. There seems to be only one or two other campers here. It rained all night which makes for a messy camp.
We left camp for McDonalds. Mike got his coffee, then we got gas and went through the Eisenhower Museum. We enjoyed the museum of their life story, saw Abraham Lincoln's Bible and visited their graves. Will Kansas ever end! It is flat and desolate, oil drilling rigs, black Angus cattle and miles between farms. RV places are few also.
We are in Stratton, Colorado and Marshall Ash Village Campground. Then we are headed for Denver on I-70 and I-25 to Loveland Riverview RV Park Campground. We saw our first snow in Limon before Denver and threw snowballs at each other at a rest area. We went by "Home of the First Rodeo" in Deer Trail and now we can see snowcapped Rockies about 50 miles away. We are at the start of the mountains; clean air and 20 - 35 mph wind gusts as we are headed for Estes Park on route 34. Grand Lake is closed with 20' of snow in the pass.
Tumbleweed is blowing across the road. We took pictures of a bighorn sheep we watched climb from the road up the mountain where we see beautiful Rockies!
We are at Estes Park at 7,000 feet and at the entrance to the National Park we got a Senior Lifetime Pass for National Parks. We can go in 9 miles and then the road is closed so we took route 7 to Lily Lake which was mostly frozen over and we saw another ram along the road. When we reached I-70 the wind is 60mph gusts with slight rain, snow and sleet. We are looking for a place to stay.
We found Tiger Run Resort in Breckenridge south of I-70. No one was around. We helped ourselves to a campsite. Mike and two other men took cold showers then we left money to pay.
We are leaving at 6:00am so we can get on the road west before they close the pass to Vail if they are going to. The roads have thin snow and ice. We found Grand Junction KOA after we ran out of snow and cold weather about noon.
I bought sweet potato pies that I thought were pumpkin. Oh well! We are having trouble with two charge cards so Mike called the companies. I guess they are questioning why we stop often to top off gas. We do stop often, not knowing what is ahead. We know now to let the charge card companies know when we will be traveling. The next morning we house cleaned and washed windows from the dirty snowy roads.
Now we are in Utah on route 6NW from I-70. We are 70 miles from I-15 with high winds. We found a KOA in Salt Lake City. Our generator is reading 150 hours which is good. It has helped us in so many ways, especially if we needed power to cook or nuke on the road at noon.
On I-80 we are seeing Salt Lake and the Marina. It is sad to see the lake drying up. Then we found the Mormon Temple. We could hear the choir singing so we thought we were late. We parked and luckily we did not have to level. We raced to the Chapel and had three minutes to spare. We can't believe they moved people to one side and made room for us in the front row. "The last shall be first". The service was live on network television, the choir was wonderful and the word was simple.
We are seeing horses, cattle, emus, llamas and sheep. They really make the trip for us. We found a KOA in Fillmore on I-15 and we are alone on the prairie. So peaceful! Two more campers did come in late. We have horses and cattle in a pasture right next to us.
We came through a corner of Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas traffic and construction was terrible. We are in the center of Vegas at a KOA "Circus Circus" campground. There is a bus called "Deuce" that goes all up and down the strip, you can get on and off wherever you want to.
We went up in the Eiffel Tower, did not go for a romantic gondola ride on the waters through the mall at the Venetian, but we got pictures of others as they rode through while they were serenaded. Don't ask Mike about not going on the gondola ride. It was his fault, he is sorry and I was very disappointed. For lunch we went to "Panda Buffet" and ate. Tonight we went to Sahara and had a $6.99 luscious buffet and then we stayed to see the Platters, Coasters and the Marvelettes.
The next night we went to see the Freemont Experience. "Lights"! Beautiful! Fantastic! There is no way to explain a whole block of ceiling lights over the inside of the mall with all colors? A picture does not do it justice.
Next we went to the Palace to see the "Rat Pack" with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Joey Bishop and Marilyn Monroe. Well it was not really them but the actors were excellent imitating voices and their looks were very close to the real person. A good show!
The Marilyn Monroe part with an older man in the audience was very funny. She leaned over the front of him and sang to him while he turned bright red . We also have free "Rat Pack" T-shirts.
From the bus ride we saw a lot of Las Vegas and when we walked entering different places they make sure you have to walk through the casino hoping you will stop and play.
The next day we left camp for Camping World, Boulder City and Hoover Dam. You go through an inspection before you can drive in by the dam. We toured by our RV around and over the Dam.
Now we are heading back to LasVegas to go route 95 to California. We camped in Beatty RV Park on route 95N three miles from routes 373 and 190 in Death Valley.
Stovepipe Wells is about halfway through Death Valley at below sea level. There is an RV campground and small stores. Gas is $3.49. Mike was leary that what if something happened to the Winnie out here. I think he got so worried he thought something was wrong with the transmission. No problem; all OK. He discovered the radiator fan which has a thermal control on it was being activated by the elevation and air pressure which caused it to falsely expand the blades and in doing so created wind noise which we heard especially because we had the windows open. Now you know I could not explain this alone!
We did have another terrible scare in Death Valley. A fighter plane buzzed us and we never saw it. I guess they do this once in a while for fun. Yippee! We lost at least ten years and gained more gray hair; say nothing of having a heart attack. We would go 15 minutes without seeing another car; but we would go back.
We continued on route 190S to 178W to Lake Isabella and a KOA. This lake is drying up also..
The next morning Mike is cleaning bugs off of the windshield. When I take pictures "on the run" the bugs are showing in our pictures like birds or airplanes. Please excuse any you may notice. Now we are on the road north to Kernville and Sequoia National Forest.
We saw patches of snow on the way up the curvy mountain roads. Our camera battery was low so we charged it and managed to take pictures in Sequoia National Forest on the Trail of 100 Giant Sequoias. Today we have traveled through very hilly and winding roads seeing the lower part of the Sequoia National Forest. We found out they burn the bottom inside the trees for protection from disease. The trees are awesome! Tomorrow we expect to do the upper part where they say the Sequoia are much more abundant and larger.
We have been from below sea level in Death Valley to 14,000 feet elevation in the mountains. After the National Park we took route 198 over to Visalia and a KOA. We only went 162 miles today with all the curvy, hilly, slow roads.
The haze and smell around this area is from the cattle stock yards. It is so sad to see them crowded together in muck and on "death row".
This morning it is very foggy. We did a wash and did not leave until 10:15am to take routes 63N and 180E to Kings Canyon National Park. Here we saw Sherman's Tree, the largest Seqouia. We walked one half mile down to see the tree and then a hard walk back up.
We went through Fresno and Kingsburg and ended back on 63S where we were last night in Visalia.
We left Visalia at 8:25am on routes 99N to Fresno and 41N towards Yosemite in the fog and smelly haze. It was a wonderful trip through Yosemite and more pictures of Sequoias.
We headed north to Lake Tahoe and ended up south of Tahoe in a Post Office parking lot at midnight until 5:00am. Our batteries kept the heat on for us plus we have an electric blanket.
Leaving the Post Office, Mike saw a mountain lion along the road but it was dark and I missed it trying to see the time. We went on to Tahoe and spent time looking around and taking pictures but it was not open season.
The next day we went north to I-80S and found camping at Keystone RV Park in Reno, Nevada. We left at 9:10am after dumping and cleaning. We had gone to bed at 7:30pm and slept until 7:00am. The night before was a short night at the Post Office, plus you are always sleeping light in case someone comes around to question you.
These mountains roads are desolate. There was so much beauty though along the way. We are back in California, and, of course, after McDonald's we are still in the High Sierra Mountains on our way to Sacramento. We are camping at Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga after riding through beautiful grape country on Route 29. How about Zifendale Lane?
Mike is doing a wash while I clean up inside the "Winnie" from all the messy weather we have been in. We watched a video after bean and ham soup and a sandwich for Thanksgiving Eve supper.
"Happy Thanksgiving"! Well, I did not stuff a turkey or fix all the Thanksgiving meal, but we had a good one. We bought the store's last rotisserie chicken, cole slaw, cranberry jell, precooked microwaved mashed potatoes, bread and gravy. Probably Oreos for dessert.
We are going down route 29 to routes 39 and 101S. We are about out of the mountains. Mike has to remember how to drive on non-desolate, non-curvy and non-hilly roads. Now we are at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. We could not find a campsite again. We are just getting into Big Sur where we pulled off to spend the night by a gift shop, "Coast Galley," that was all alone and closed. State Parks have no electric hookups or showers and we aren't finding any RV camps on route 1.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Take a Trip with Us by J. Ruth Bosley. Copyright © 2014 J. Ruth Bosley. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION, 1,MARCH 2008, 3,
Patriots Point, 3,
Charleston, 5,
NOVEMBER 2008, 8,
Nashville, 8,
Truman's Home, 10,
Eisenhower's Home, 12,
Salt Lake, 15,
Las Vegas, 16,
Hoover Dam / Death Valley, 19,
Sequoias, 21,
Big Sur / Elephant Seals, 24,
Hearst Castle / Disneyland, 25,
Grand Canyon / Zion National Park, 27,
Tombstone / New Mexico, 33,
Petrified Forest / Painted Desert, 38,
Albuquerque, 40,
San Antonio, 43,
Atlanta Aquarium, 46,
APRIL 2009, 48,
Washington DC, 48,
Mount Rushmore, 57,
Thermopolis Hot Springs, 59,
Grand Tetons, 61,
Old Faithful, 63,
Crater Lake, 69,
Redwood National Park, 73,
Sign Post Park, 84,
Lower Alaska, 86,
Columbia Ice Fields, 92,
Roosevelt National Park, 99,
Fort William Historical Park, 103,
Kentucky / Natural Tunnel, 108,
Dollywood / Helen. GA, 110,