Wednesday, August 23, 2006

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation - The Fifth Week

This week brings with it our last days at Creekwod Farm. It’s time to move on, but it’s also a little sad to be leaving. We’ve enjoyed being in this place enormously. Lots of fun stuff to do. The sights have been unbelievable. And there’s something comforting in being in one place for a long time. It’s more like home that way, I guess.

So there was laundry and shopping and packing to do before moving on. We had our neighbors, Ken and Stacy, over for dinner. Plus we four went out to dinner one night. It was a lot of fun.


On Monday evening after dinner, Ken knocked on our door and said there was an impromptu music celebration going on just a few doors down. So we grabbed our lawn chairs and headed down. It was worth it. Turns out it was someone’s birthday celebration and there was cake and ice cream. Along with the live music! It was a great evening’s entertainment.

Wednesday was moving day. We had a nice big breakfast out with Ken and Stacy and then finished all the packing, unhooking, etc. And then we were off.

It wasn’t a long drive, less than 100 miles to just north of Knoxville, TN. So we were there early in the afternoon. It turned out to be a good thing because they didn’t seem to be ready for us. There were issues of where we should park, the electrical service we needed, moving us to another space in a day or two, and on and on. It seemed a general state of confusion for the clerk who checked us in. But eventually, it all came together and we got the type of spot we needed.

Volunteer Park was a fairly nice place. It had level, concrete pads. It had nice tall pine trees and fresh gravel on the streets.


It had a nice laundry facility and served dinners every night for seven bucks apiece. (We had liver & onions there one night.) But the one thing this park lacked was quiet. Our lot backed up against a very busy street. This busy street was used heavily by very large trucks moving back and forth to the rock quary about 2 blocks up the street. It was never-ending!

We had planned to spend ten days here, but after one night it was evident that we just wouldn’t enjoy it. So we spent the morning changing some future reservations and then got out to see the sights. We did a little exploring and had lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s. Then it was a (relatively) quiet afternoon, reading, etc.

On Friday morning we drove north to Norris Dam and State Park. It was really beautiful country – like everywhere we’d been. This is the river, below the dam.


We saw lots of deer while roaming around. I got a couple pictures of them, but they turned out pretty lousy. We also toured the facilities at the park. They had a beautiful outdoor pool overlooking the lake. It was past the season, I guess. There were no people there at all.


We wanted to find some fishing while up here. So we stopped at a general store to inquire about the area and the license issues. It would have been about $30 each for a 3-day license for trout. We weren’t even planning to be in the state that long. So once again, no fishing! I’m seeing a trend here.

On Saturday, we got the routine work done around the coach and then headed into Knoxville to explore. What a hilly town that is! As bad as San Francisco, I think. We walked down to the river walk area and getting back up nearly wiped us out. But while there we saw some dragon boat races and really did have a nice time.

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