Monthly Archives: August 2014
Until Next Year . . .
After a lot of hugs and a few tears, we parted ways with our friends, Nick and Terry Russell for this year. We’ve been traveling together this year since May 17th and it’s going to take some time to get used to going it alone again.
And of course, no more warm loaves of homemade bread and plates of delicious cookies. At least til next year.
And at least now, all of our faithful blog readers will now be getting two blogs again instead of just one.
After Nick and Terry pulled onto the roadway in front of us, got hooked up and pulled out. we were right behind them, getting out on the road about 10:15. We took I-71 in toward Cincinnati, and then headed south on I-275. Normally we would have just stayed on I-71 until it hooked up with I-75 and we crossed the river into Kentucky.
But Nick had noticed the other day that part of I-71 was closed for construction for the next few days, so we avoided it by taking the long way around via I-275. About 130 miles down the road, we stopped off at the Pilot near Pendleton, KY.
This was the perfect fuel stop. When you pull into the Auto/RV entrance, the RV pumps are directly in front of you. So no twisting around trying to get lined up. My RV PLUS card worked perfectly, and I got about 50 gallons at $3.72 per gallon. They also had a long-handled scrubber/squeegee there so my windshield got sparkly clean too.
And it about 15 minutes we were ready to go. But before we hit the road again, we closed the windows and turned off the fans. The temperature in the rig was up to about 78° so we cranked up the generator and turned on the AC’s. We’re far enough south again that we’ll probably be doing this every trip day until we’re back in Houston.
My Silverleaf computer display said we’d gone about 400 miles and used a little over 50 gallons, so that’s about 8 miles per gallon. Lower than normal for us, but we’ve been in all this hilly country and it does take its toll.
About 25 miles before we reach our stop for the night, we passed back into the Central Time Zone where we’ll be for the rest of the year.
We pulled into the Singing Hills RV Park about 2:30 and got checked in and set up.
Singing Hills is on the road leading to Mammoth Cave National Park, but you have to know it’s here to get here. There are no signs out on the Interstate, or even along the road leading to the park. The only reason I found it was that it’s a Passport America Park and showed on a Delorme Street Atlas map overlay. At $18 for a Full Hookup site, it looked good, but we’ve been fooled before, so it was off to rvparkreviews.com to check it out. And it still looked good, so we had our stop. And since it was summer time, and the Mammoth Cave area is tourist bait, I called and made a reservation this past Monday.
Turns out the place is a 44 site family-run park with all pull-thrus, perfect since we planned on eating in the rig tonight and not unhooking the toad.
Nick called about 6:45 our time to say that they ended up not stopping along the way, but made the entire 450 mile fun to the Thousand Trails Park in Hershey, PA.
Tomorrow we’ll make a 190 mile trip to Athens, AL to spend 5 days catching up with all my relatives there, before heading down to spend a week in Gulf Shores, AL, where I grew up.
Really looking forward to seeing all the family.
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Thought for the Day:
“Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves [emphasis added]. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” – Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)
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Told Ya!
Today is our last day here in Ohio for this year, and the real bummer, our last day with Nick and Terry for this year.
But Terry got the day off to a great start by calling me over to their rig about midnight to bring home a couple loaves of her delicious homemade bread and a plate of wonderful cookies.
And after a nice, slow morning, we all headed back over to Lebanon, OH to check out some of the shops and old homes. But what we found was a large street fair and car show going on the downtown.
So after avoiding the $5 and $10 parking lots, we finally found a parking spot and walked around for an hour or so, checking the shops, stands, and, especially, the cars.
This is one that I haven’t seen before. It’s a very nice 1929 Essex. Made between 1918 and 1932, Essex started out as a Hudson Automobile subsidiary, before becoming just another model in the Hudson line in 1922.
In fact, by 1929 Essex was third in sales behind Ford and Chevrolet.
When Nick and I caught a glimpse of this one as we drove by, we thought it was a Chevy, but when we got close, found it was a 1933 Plymouth.
This photo doesn’t do this 1939 Ford Coupe justice. It looks white in this photo, but it’s actually a deep lustrous pearl. Coats and coats of pearl lacquer.
This beauty is a 1948 Buick luxury touring model, and even has power windows.
In 1948!
This 1976 Stutz Blackhawk is the first one I’ve ever seen in person. Manufactured from 1971 to 1987 by the Stutz Motor Company, the body was handcrafted in Ghia in Italy and then shipped to the US where it was mated with a GM chassis and engine.
The body had 22 coats of hand-rubbed lacquer that took six weeks to apply. The Blackhawk was so prized that they were reserved years in advance. In fact, Elvis Presley outbid Frank Sinatra for the first one. And at one time Elvis own 4 Blackhawks.
Other notable owners included Lucille Ball, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lewis, Liberace, and Willie Nelson. The Shah of Iran reportedly owned twelve of them.
Although very popular with the rich crowd, they were finally done in by changes in US auto safety laws.
This is a 1951 Chevrolet Coupe pulling a 1976 Jayco camper.
I like the period radio on the shelf.
After driving around a while longer, we stopped off at a nice used bookstore for a while, before ending up at the Acapulco Mexican Restaurant about 4pm. This is the same place we ate at this past Tuesday with the Boggs family of The Boggs Family Ministries, and it was so good we had to do it again.
Jan had her Pollo Loco and I had the Carnitas Acapulco, both the same as last time, while Nick and Terry went with the Shrimp Quesadilla, which they said was really good.
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Under the heading, See I Told You They Were Good For You, a recent study shows that the main ingredient in chili peppers, dietary capsaicin, significantly decreases the chance of colorectal and bowel cancer, lowers blood pressure, boosts memory, and increases longevity as much as 30%.
And all ya’ll thought I was just crazy. Not saying I’m not, but I was right about this.
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Thought for the Day:
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.” —Abraham Lincoln
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