11/28/2012, Wednesday:  Left Seviersville, TN after being there for 7 nights. It’s a nice campground, Cove Creek RV Resort. They’re relatively new, still adding concrete pads, etc. It’s out of Pigeon Forge about 8 miles, so you don’t have the busy roads and traffic. We are working our way to Nashville.

Got to Cove Creek RV Resort Wednesday afternoon, November 21^st.  Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg are definitely a tourist trap. There are amusement parks, gift shops, restaurants, etc, etc. I didn’t expect it to be busy at Thanksgiving, but I guess it’s a popular place at this time. After Sunday things did slow down. We decided not to fight traffic on Thursday, so grilled a turkey breast and washed clothes, baked cookies and bread. Friday we went to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, thinking everyone would be shopping on Black Friday; but everyone who didn’t go shopping must have thought the same thing! There was so much traffic at the visitor’s center and going through the mountains, we couldn’t believe it. Any of the scenic outlooks or trail heads were full of cars. It started raining and was real foggy, so we decided not to do any trails, but went up to Clingman’s Dome, which is paved all the way. Little did I know that it is a ½ mile trail, practically straight up the mountain. High altitude didn’t help either. It's 6,643 feet, the  highest point in the Park. I wasn’t the only one stopping for breathers on the way up. My shins hurt so bad the next couple of days. And, once we got up to the top, it was so foggy that we couldn’t see much farther than the dome area itself anyway. (:  So, we decided to sit around over the weekend and not see anybody or any traffic. We didn't do much on Monday or Tuesday either. We had gotten mail and had to send some out, so found the post office and drove around town for a while and did some caching and got a smashed penny. It was really nice not doing anything. Curt was researching stuff on the internet and I added my Kindle books to Goodreads.com book shelves. I am embarrassed to say that I have over 700 books! Some I had gotten before the iPad, and was able to read them on my computer. I've probably only paid for maybe 4-5 books I'd say, the rest were all free. I've got a variety; from mystery to classics to Christmas, cookbooks, kids books, pets, memoirs.  Maybe I need to start reading more and quit finding more! (And yes, it took more than one day to enter them in.) 

11/18: Got in to Tennessee, with hills and mountains and rock. Stopped at Norris Dam and did some geocaching There was a grist mill and museum there, but the museum was closed. It was a nice area to cache in. Working our way to Knoxville, to a Walmart on the outskirts. The only problem with outskirts of a city, is that it still is a busy part of town. It was busier than Curt would have liked, but finding a place was not easy to do.  We went in to Knoxville, to a visitor center downtown. They had a radio music show going in there at the time we were there. We walked a little around downtown, and I took some pictures in a sculpture garden as I figured they’d be waymarks. Curt wasn’t too impressed. We went to find the Sunsphere Park, which is where Knoxville had the World’s Fair at one time. We rode up to the 3^rd floor, I believe it was and then walked around the dome to see outside. We went to see a small fort area, which was closed. Across the street from that was the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Got some pictures of that and a cache at that site.

11/16: Blue Heron Campground, in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area in Kentucky. Another area of hills and trees and rock and natural arches. It’s a smaller campground with electricity and water for only $17/night (federal).  Bear signs again, but all we saw was wild turkeys. We drove to a small mining camp which you could pay to go 300 feet into a mine and see some of the buildings that they’ve recreated. Decided not to do that. Then we found an area that is free, that showed the basics of a mine camp (no actual buildings, but the shapes) and the railroad cars, etc. There was an information center and some trails there too. It was an interesting place. It is through the National Park Service. We went to Cumberland Falls, which is tagged as the Niagara Falls of the south. Definitely not Niagara Falls, but it was nice.  

Pics to come later - I have a lot to go through and since I'm using Curt's camera most of the time now, I have to make them smaller to load better.

11/15/12, Thursday: I didn't realize Kentuckians had an accent, but we've got the you-all and everything that we're not used to. We were at Natural Bridge State Resort Park for one night; they closed the next day. But we were able to hike to the Natural Bridge and down into Devil's Gulch. The calves of my legs still hurt. It's not so much the miles, I think it was only 2, but the steps straight up and down. The next morning we drove to the Red River Gorge area and hiked a few short trails to see some of the arches and rocks. Those were easy except for the fact some were close to cliff edges. And one bad part of hiking in the fall is that leaves are all over the trails, so if they're not marked real well or hiked a lot, you're not always sure where you're going.

11/12/12, Monday: Waiting for the rain to quit again. We've had over half an inch of rain today. We were going to  head to Natural Bridge State Resort Park, but since it was raining so hard and was really windy, Curt felt he'd rather wait until tomorrow.

We are at Kentucky Horse Park Campground near Lexington, Kentucky. Definitely a change in scenery. We lost our mountains and have rolling plains and cattle and horse ranches. The campground is next door to the Kentucky Horse Park, so we went to see that yesterday. I think that would be a fun place earlier in the year when they have horse shows and more going on. We were able to go through barns and there were 2 events to meet people/horses, but the races or shows have quit for the year. There's 2 museums there and some statues of famous horses; even a cemetery.

They're decorating for Christmas

Some horses make a lot of money

Arabian

English Shire 

Percheron

Cemetery

Man O'War statue and he is buried there

along with some of his children

11/09/12: Friday: It's been a long 10 days waiting for mail. I called Barboursville post office every morning asking if our general delivery mail came in; no. Then I would call The UPS Store in Dickinson to see if they received it back yet; no. Today we decided we can't wait forever; it may never come.  We called the motor vehicle department to find out how to get a duplicate registration card and new tabs, so we got that started. We went on to Morehead, Kentucky Lowe's to catch up on internet stuff and then will go to Walmart for the night.  Morehead is about 60 miles from Barboursville, so if we have to go back tomorrow, it won't take so long. After we got to Lowe's, we got a phone call from The UPS Store, and our mail was sent back to them. Yay!!!! I told her to hang on to it until we get to a new campground and will have them send it again; this time with tracking numbers.

In the last 10 days we've stayed various places, thinking we'd only have to be in town for a couple of days. Obviously that wasn't happening, so we went to Beechfork State Park, about 10 miles from Barboursville. There I did baking, cleaning, cooking and we went did some hiking and a little driving around. Curt was able to get on the internet off and on tethering his phone, but cell service was spotty. We were able to get television service believe it or not.  The weather has been nice, so being outside in the sun felt good.  Two nights it got pretty cold out and the water in the hose froze. (We had full hookups for only $22/night.)