Friday July 8, 2011

Since we stayed at Maumelle Park an extra day we skipped my planned stop at Cherokee Landing in Tennessee.  That meant we had to drive 450 miles to Cave City, KY.

We got up at 6 AM and were on the road by 7:30.  I had to stop for fuel not long after.  I figured our fuel consumption for the first time on this trip, 9.9 mpg.

We had a rain storm near Nashville, TN and again near Cave City, KY.  During a stop after Nashville I noticed some water on the front of the slide behind my seat.  When I braked at the off ramp in Cave City, I was drenched on the right shoulder with water from the top of the slide.  Add that to some electrical problems and my computer only running in the Safe Mode.

The rain stopped as we arrived at the Singing Hills RV Park and Campground.  We were assigned space 41, a pull through.  We were parked and set up by 4:45.  We had no plans to go anywhere so I didn’t unhook the Jeep.  This is a nice park with a friendly helpful manager.  I took a couple of pictures including one of the sun going behind the trees.

Thursday July 7, 2011

It was overcast and windy this morning, but still pretty warm.

In the morning I did three nearby caches, all within .25 miles.  The first one was very difficult, I left it, bagged the other two and came back.  A very cleverly done cache.  I met some other cachers before I left. Later I went out to mail some letters and get gas in the Jeep.  I did another very clever cache that was a hollowed out bolt and nut on  a chain link fence post.

The breeze died down and we all sat out for awhile before supper.  We saw birds, squirrels and mallard ducks.  One mallard walked up to us, I think he was begging, but we didn’t have any food.

Tomorrow we need to get a fairly early start, with about 450 miles to Cave City, KY.

July 5/6, 2011



Tuesday July 5, 2011

Alice and Keith Kerslake

Another lazy day.  I hung around the coach and Gerri spent some time at the lodge for the better WiFi.

Alice and Keith invited us over for supper  Great meal and great company.  It was really good luck to be parked so near such good people.

Wednesday July 6, 2011

Moving day.  I was up before seven and slowly worked at getting ready to travel.  Keith was back from fishing with his grandson before we left.  We said goodbyes and were on the road about 9:30.



Maumelle Park

Our destination for the day was Maumelle Park near Little Rock, AR. The distance was about 330 miles.  The route started as two lane and then a lot of the way was divided highway and then some two lane before we picked up I-30.  Maumelle Park is a Corps of Engineers facility.  We had never stayed at a CoE park before. When I registered on Recreation.gov to make the reservation, I got half off using my Golden Age Passport.  When we arrived they allowed us to switch from the site I reserved to one on the Arkansas River.  I tried pulling in so the great view was out the windshield, but my shore power cord was about 10’ short.  The view out the passenger side is still great.  This park is really nice and the sites are paved and far apart.  The whole area is wooded by giant Oak, Sycamore and Chestnut trees and most are about 60’feet tall or taller.  Even with all the trees our satellite dish found a clear path and reception of DirecTV was good.



Arkansas River



After we were parked for awhile Gerri asked how far it was to Charleston,  She wanted to stay here another night.  I had planned a 200 mile drive tomorrow to a Thousand Trails Park in Tennessee.  For some reason Gerri realized I was planning to stop at Cherokee Landing, We had been there before and said even if we couldn’t stay here another night she didn’t want to go back to Cherokee landing.  I got lucky and was able to stay another night at Maumelle Park.  The drawback will be a 450 mile drive on the 8^th.  I plan on checking CoE parks and maybe re plan our trip after the visit to Dubuque and Le Clair, IA.

I took several pictures around the park and included some with this Blog, others may go on Gerri’s Facebook page.

Maumelle Park



There are 3 caches in the park, I plan to bag them tomorrow.

Monday July 4, 2011

Happy 235^th birthday to the US of A.  I only hope we can hold on to this Republic and survive the current socialist regime.

This was another lazy hot day in north east Texas.  Gerri went over to the Family Lodge a couple of time to get faster internet service.  I’m still struggling with my computer, most of the time running it in the safe mode.

I went caching and picked up the five I still had on my list.  I have done 17 in this area.  There are many more but I avoided long hikes, treks into heavy brush and poison ivy.  The ones I did today were scattered out and I did a lot of driving around different arms of the lake.  I did see a lot of herons and geese.

We visited with Keith and Alice for awhile before supper and that pretty much rounded out the day.

Sunday July 3, 2011

I got up and had more trouble with my computer, it works for awhile and then locks up. I have tried running all the maintenance routines I know and even tried to set it back to an earlier restore point. During the times that the computer worked , I started making sure I had everything backed up. I am considering buying a new computer, but I don’t have the install disks for the programs I use the most. I certainly don’t want to buy a new version of Office; the other programs are a lot cheaper. I think I will have Curtis mail me the programs I need if it comes to getting a new computer.

I finally gave up, took a shower and went to church in Gordonville, TX. The church was small and much of the congregation was out of town for the long week end. There were only four people there younger than me. Fortunately I knew all the songs that were sung, the problem was there weren’t enough singers to cover my bad singing. I just sang quieter. I was happy with the church it was a sound faithful congregation. One problem I saw was there were no families with kids. I hope that was because of the holiday. I met and talked to a lady that was born and raised in Henderson. She left the Las Vegas area in 1958. I told her there had been a few changes.

I the afternoon we visited with neighbors, Alice and Keith, they are fulltimers and here for three months. They are originally from southern California. Now they travel to locations within an hour of their children grandchildren and stay for a few months at each place. They leave it up to their kids to see them as much as they want.

They live in a fifth wheel. We gave them a tour of our coach. They have a pontoon boat here on the lake and offered to take us out tonight to see the fireworks that many people shoot off their boats. We declined the invitation; they have a 12 year old grandson visiting. We thought it was better they have the time with him.

Supper was a delicious casserole made from the one pot meal from a few days ago with some additions.

After super, Gerri and I walked over to the Family Lodge. There was a band playing and a bunch of people pulled up on golf carts. We have never seen as many golf carts in one place as there are in this campground.

Verizon Broadband has been very slow today and Gerri talked to a couple of people and they all said the park wifi is very fast.

My computer lasted long enough to finish yesterdays and this Blog.

Saturday July 2, 2011

This was almost a day off. My computer is giving me fits. I had to restart it several times.

The only thing we did today was drive to Denison, TX, about 20 miles. That is the closest Super Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Glenna had her hair shampooed and set at the Wal-Mart. While Gerri picked u some items at Sam’s I fueled the Jeep. I also checked the porch of the Cracker Barrel for an “Off Your Rocker” cache. Either there isn’t one or it wasn’t in the usual hiding places.

For supper we had the leftovers from the Catfish Platter.

Thursday June 30, 2011

Looking NE near sunset

Our first full day in Texas started with me going to the ranger station and getting our reservation to stay until July 6. I also bought a Dallas newspaper, the first newspaper I have read since starting the trip. Not much new in the news; Obama says the GOP are rascals for not accepting a tax increase and the GOP says Obama is a rascal for not cutting spending.

We had no plans for today so it was a lazy morning. It is hot, the air conditioners came on about 7 AM and haven’t shut down all morning.



Looking NW near sunset



At about two we had sandwiches. Later I went caching, I had to promise Gerri that I would stay away from, poison ivy, snakes and mosquitoes. I managed to bag five caches without bleeding too much. Ground Zero on a couple caches was in thick cedar groves so I passed on them.

Gerri made a delicious one pot meal. Afterward we had some TV and computer time and then bed.













Sunset from my window