First day of our adventure. Well, actually it’s the third day, but Missy didn’t want to count the
travel days. The drive from MN to TN went pretty smoothly. Jeremiah had some complaints about 20mph crosswinds on his shift, but the winds were gone when I took over. We left the cities around 3:30pm on Mon, March 19 and Jeremiah drove until 4 am. He parked us in a Walmart parking lot. (Missy and I were already sleeping in the fitty). I woke up about 6:15, fed and
walked the dogs. Missy woke up and we started back on the road around 6:30. We
had an uneventful drive until 11ish, when Jeremiah called us to let us know he was peckish. So we stopped for lunch and he took over driving again.
As we got closed to Tellico Plains we tried to find a place to get freshwater in our tanks. (Not good to drive with full tanks because of the added weight). We had no luck finding anything. So finally Missy called a nearby KOA campground and they said we could fill up for $3. Sweet! And, their teeny-tiny store happened to have this one part we needed. (The valve handle to the gray tank fell off en route).
We got to Tellico Plains at 6ish. I had previously researched forest campgrounds that were 0pened year-round, and we were on our way to one near the Tellico River. (Most of the full
amenities campgrounds with electric and water on site don’t open until Mid-April). We followed the directions from the website until….there was no road where one was supposed to be. Sigh.
We were 10 miles up a mountain road pulling a huge fifth wheel. It could have been scary figuring out how to get turned around. But then…luck! I had known there was a US forest campground
in the area that was mostly closed, but had an “overflow” campground open year-round. And as we were driving up the mountain, there was a sign for Indian Boundary campground up ahead. We turned into the campground area and picked the site we wanted. We have the whole place to ourselves! We’re in a nicely wooded lot, with room for the dogs to explore. And there’s a creek down the hill and hiking trails around the nearby lake. We feel lucky to have found this.
$10/night. Plus, they have garbage bins, an rv dump, and water (grrrr.
Turns out we could have filled up here).
Since we are supposed to take advantage of having Jeremiah around now to learn how to drive, back-up and park the fitty, I jumped in the truck. I was tempted to just have Jeremiah do it, since I was tired and grumpy from the long trip. But I forged ahead, and after 30 minutes of
trying and re-positioning and frustration, we finally got it parked. Hopefully, with more practice, I will be instinctual with my wheel-turns. We microwaved some chili for dinner. Later, as we were sitting around, Missy noticed the fridge error light was lit. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. It seemed that the light inside the fridge was on the fritz. So then we realized all the lights were dim. Checked the battery level, and it was low! At first Missy and I were upset that it seemed we had a bad battery (the rv’s battery should last a couple of days). But then I realized that I remembered seeing the emergency brake cord swing free when we were parking the fitty.
Jeremiah went to look, and it was disconnected. As we learned on the first night we had the
fitty, this drains the battery in record time. So we ran the genny to charge the battery and also charged the scootie battery while we were at it. After that, Missy and I took the dogs on a walk.
We only had about 20 minutes of light, and then came back and read and went to sleep.
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