Thursday, we got a fairly early start and drove north about 70 miles to the Blue Ridge Parkway. We headed north at a very leisurely pace of about 35mph. It is a very interesting drive and we drove with a few stops at various overlooks and then we came across the Blueridge Music Center and there was a sign at the road stating music being played. We pulled in and found a very nice facility with an auditorium and a Bluegrass mueseum with lots of photos and instruments used years ago. In between the two is a nice breeze way with rocking chairs and straight chairs and two fellows playing mountain music. We later learned that one was Scott Freeman and the other Willard Gayheart. Willard is a singer, guitar player, song writer, poet and a very talented at making pencil drawings. There were several of his drawings there on display and for sale. Beautiful work that must take a lot of time to do.
Scott Freeman plays several instruments, writes and teaches several instruments with 64 students currently. I purchased one of their CD's and on it was both of their websites, http://www.scott-freeman.com/ and http://www.willardgayheart.com/ There you will find several videos of Scott playing with a group and on Willard's site you will find samples of his drawings.
We spent about 1 1/2 hours there and therefore we did not get as far up the parkway as we had wanted, but it was time well spent and a restful time. We got to travel about 40 miles of the parkway
and then it was time to turn around and head back. However, we needed to eat and we got off at US52 and there was a filling station with their usual food fare and this concession trailer with smoking grills outside and all of these signs. It had to be good because there was a Mayberry police car setting close by as well as some photos of Barney and all of these signs. We got a sandwich and treated outselves to some real greasy spoon type cooking. It was good and prepared fresh while we waited. We taveled back to our campground and after getting back in the air conditioning we decided to work some more on our rally bookwork. We decided that we had to much paperwork to do and decided to spend Friday on it so we could mail it all out on Saturday on our way to South Carolina. Therefore we did not get to drive the Parkway soutn as planned.
We decided to take US52 south as it hooks up with road 601 we are now on and goes directly into the town we are headed for. It is 2 lane until we get into South Carolina, but that is not very far and should work well. At least we will get to see some more of the country than if we went to the Interstate. So it is off south in the morning.

Yesterday we left the Holly Haven camp ground and headed toward Charlotte, NC. We made it as far as Hickory, NC and spent the night. It was really a nice drive through the Blue Ridge mountains with several tunnels and lots of yellow lillies along the road way and in the medians.
We even saw a dozen or so prisoners working along the road picking up trash. And as you would expect, there was a shotgun toting officer in front and one behind making sure that none got away.
We spent the night in Hickory, NC and surprisingly enough, the air card would not connect to the internet. This was a pretty large town, but no service. The phone had 5 bars showing and worked as it should.
This morning, we received a phone call from our friends in Charlotte with directions to their home. We arrived about 11:30 just in time to enjoy a leisurely lunch and some good fellowship. We parked the motor home on their church parking lot. This is a huge church and has about 6,ooo members. Probably the largest church I have seen other than the Crystal Cathedral. It has the 12th largest organ in the country.
We left about 2:30 and headed toward our destination just north of Sailsbury, NC at the Bass Lake RV resort. Not really what it sounded like but pretty nice, considering we have 4 free nights and 5 days for the charge of electricity of $3.00 per night.
Tomorrow we will rest up and get some things done, laundry, etc. and then on Thursday, we will drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and tour it to the north and maybe Friday we will go up and tour it to the south. Not really sure how we will do it.
Driving in the mountains is a bit challenging, but it sure is hard on the gasoline. Not very good mileage, but worth it I guess. Just one of those things you have to do. We will take the van and leave the motor home
here where it will not burn any gas, just set and keep cool.

Friday, it was off to Dollywood for most of us. Some stayed away due to the excessive heat and went to other theaters. It was quite warm at Dollywood, but there is a lot of vegetation and shade so it was really not overbearing. There were several shows that were in air conditioned theaters and some were under cover where there were fans and a nice breeze. Our first photo is of the steam engine that pulls the train through the park and nearby mountains. It is a nice ride of about 20 minutes. You can see that they frequently fire up the boiler and we get some smoke and soot even in the last car where we were riding.
We got to see several shows, including the Smokey Mountain String Band, Country Crossroads, Sha-Kon-O-Hey which means "land of blue smoke" and then finally Heartsong.
Smokey Mountain String Band consisted of a string bass, guitar and a banjo. All 3 were award winning musicians and were a treat to watch as well as hear. Great pickers and very good vocalists as well. The Country Crossroads was three gals and three fellows that were singers as well as musicians and really gave a
an upbeat and high energy show.
Sha-Kon-O-Hey was a musical written by Dolly with several excellent vocalist as well as actors, two of which were maybe in their teens and really played very professionally.
HeartSong is another musical video made by Dolly showing the grandeur of the Smokey Mountains and the surrounding areas as well as some of the area where Dolly was born and raised. This show was at 6:15pm and was really a nice show to end the day. It was relaxing and had such beautiful scenery and mountains it was very relaxing and gave you a chance to unwind
after the long and high energy day.
Of course we had to eat and everything at Dollywood is expensive. I had a BBQ dinner, which was quite tasty and later we had some ice cream. Along with lots of water during the day we survived without any problems. Large cokes, that looked like about a 44oz'er was $3.99 plus tax and that was the best buy size available. A lot for a coke, of any size, in my opinion. Bottled water was about $3.00, if I remember correctly. I took my own, so eliminated that. Of course, mine was not ice cold, but it was wet.
We met several of our group at different times and moved around together until one couple wanted to go another direction, then we would split up and maybe meet again somewhere else. Most of them left before we did as we wanted to see HeartSong again. We had seen it before but it was worth seeing again.
I spent some time in the wagon shop where they were working on a wagon. There were three or four that they had completed and were for sale. The craftsmanship was excellent on those that I could see up close. They are all built by hand using hand tools of the era and the craftsmen looked like they really knew how to get the most from their tools.
Saturday, was the last full day of the rally, with the annual business meeting and closing ceremonies, the announcement of the winners of the Poker Run, who traveled the furthest to the rally, etc. All went well, we elected a new President, Secretary and a Treasurer as well as some new Directors.
Tentatively, the National rally will be in Oregon next year, time and place are yet to be determined.
Sunday, the day of rest, saw us trying to complete our financial report on the rally and determine who owes who and how much. Finally got that figured out about noon and all settled up. Completed our forms and have them ready to e-mail or snail mail as needed. This afternoon we drove to Gatlinburg to stop light #8 and turned left toward the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. This is in the mountains and the first part of it is two way traffic. As you turn onto the trail, it is one lane one way traffic. The road was pretty good, other than being narrow. We had had a lot of rain during the morning hours and the woods was quite wet and the air was heavy with moisture. There are several places to stop and several trails you can walk, some over 2.5 miles long. The trail is about 16 miles long with a 10mph limit. But a more reasonable speed would be 5mph. I drove in low gear most of the way and that kept you from riding the brakes all the way down. The heavy rain had swelled the mountain streams and they were really rushing fast. We saw 2 water falls that were quite high and very pretty. I am not sure if they are that big all the time, maybe just when there is a lot of rain. We drove these mountain roads for about 3 hours before getting out to civilisation again. What a beautiful drive in the mountains. This is really a beautiful part of the country. It is off toward NC tomorrow.

Thursday, day #2 of the Handicapped Travel Club rally. A lot going on, donuts and coffee early and then RV open house at 10am. Several people toured several different units including ours. At 1pm we had the wheel chair races with Mike from Wisconsin winning the overall. At noon the preparations were under way for the Chinese auction at 2:30 . Just as we were concluding the auction a storm hit with lightning and some wind. We got things covered up and stayed pretty dry. Some had gone back to their rigs before it hit.
Our entertainment called and said there was a storm in our area and wondered if we still wanted them to come and I told him that the storm was over and it was clearing up and to come on over.
At 5:30 we had a pitch-in dinner with all kinds of good goodies. As we were getting started, the Tommy Russell gospel Group came and started setting up their equipment. We finished eating and they started their program. A great gospel group with good musicians and singers. After their show was completed, we had our door prize drawing with lots of nice things that had been donated by commercial establishments as well as members of the club.
Tomorrow, we will be going to Dollywood for the day. It is supposed to be hot but most if it is in the shade so should be tolerable. May be to tired to write a blog tomorrow night, will have to wait and see how it goes.

Wednesday was a busy day running errands and doing some engraving. We finally got the pavilion set up for the beginning of the rally.
Today we were busy with last minute details and the opening ceremony was at 3pm with a pizza party at 5:30. After that, we were supposed to play bingo and everyone was busy just visiting and getting acquainted with new members and catching up on things with others that they had not seen in a couple of years that we just never got started with the bingo. about 7:30 it clouded up and we could hear thunder in the distance. We decided we had better head for our respective homes before it got to raining too hard. And rain it did. We had a lot of lightning and thunder as well as heavy rain. There was a moderate amount of wind, but nothing severe. It is now 9:30pm and it appears to be over for now, maybe more during the night but hopefully it will be nice again tomorrow.
The photo is of the units in our row of back in spaces. You can see high up on the mountain a log home with huge decks all around. I understand that there are several of these homes high up in the mountains that are rentals. My, what a view they must have from that vantage point.
Tomorrow, it is up early with coffee and donuts 8-9:30 and Open house at 10am. Seems there will be something all the time with a pitch-in in the evening.

Another nice day in Tennessee. It got up into toe 80's with a light overcast and a nice breeze. Pretty decent weather for this time of year. We went out to run some errands and set up some things for the rally. We filled the goodies bags that everyone receives as they come in.
There were 3 units in yesterday and today 4 more came in. So the crew is assembling getting ready for the big vent. Well not really big, but it looks like we will have a nice group and rally.
Our photos are of the new construction of the Titanic Museum and a picture of the Pigeon river at Old Mill road. Thee are beautiful flowers everywhere.
We got acquainted with a new couple, the Millers from South Carolina. He is retired navy as well as a retired college instructor. A very interesting couple, both being post polio survivors. We had a lot to talk about and compare as far as involvement and treatment and life in general.
This evening we gathered at one of the rigs and had a nice group conversation talking about our travels and different places we had been over the last year or so.
I have been busy installing the new 2009 rally appendages as well as making new nametags for the first attenders. Hopefully there will be more to do as the members come in in the next day or two.

The hamfest Saturday went well. It got underway about 8am and by noon, it was pretty well over. There were a few stragglers that hung around until one or so and then we were packing up to be on our way. We had a good day and made a few dollars for some more gasoline. We were not due in Pigeon Forge, TN until Sunday, so we stayed at the local Walmart. Interestingly enough, there was a Walgreens on the corner of the lot and I needed to fill a couple of prescriptions, so we went over there and picked up some other things as well. Across the parking lot was a Jumbo Buffet, a Chinese restaurant, so we had not had much lunch so we decided to check it out. They had a nice assortment of items including sushi and oysters on the half shell. The oysters were very good and fresh however I can not say much for the sushi as it really did not have much flavor, mostly rice. The usual assortment of chicken dishes as well as pepper beef, etc. I think we got our moneys worth.
Sunday morning we were up and on the road by 9 or so on our way to Pigeon Forge. The traffic was fairly light but the closer it got to noon the heavier the traffic. There was a lot of traffic when we got into town and it seemed that most of the tourist attractions were underway. This is a photo of the Ripley's Believe it or Not. It looks just like a big house that is upside down.
We got into the campground and parked in our spot a little after noon. Mike & Carlyn Drew from Texas got in an hour or so later. Genevieve and her daughter Misty came in a little later. We decided to go out with the Drew's for supper, so we went to Corky's BBQ. A nice place but a bit too noisy for my taste, but the food was good. When we came home, we went to Mike & Carlyn's coach to let them out and then around the loop back to our unit. As we were coming up the other side Evelyn said, someone is sitting on our porch. I looked and recognized the car and said, it must be Richard and Carol Keerns and sure enough it was. They had driven down today from Fishers, IN to surprise us. They were on their way to do the Blue Ridge Parkway tour. They will be gone about 10 or more days. It certainly was a surprise to see them and we had a good visit before it began to get dark and the mosquitoes came out. I challenged them to surprise us next fall when we are in Hondo, TX. Now, that would be a surprise. Always good to see old friends in places where you do not expect them.

As usual, we had thunder and lightning and lots of rain during the night. This morning broke with clouds and spotty sunshine. We made our way to I40 and east to Knoxville. The hamfest is at the Kerbela Shrine Temple on top of about the highest hill in Knoxville. The directions told us to cross the river on the Henley St. bridge, turn left to the first right to the first right and into the temple lot. The first turn off of Henley street was alright, but the next right was on a 1 way street just over 1 lane wide, up a pretty steep grade into a residential area. The next right was in a rundown residential area and still up another hill to the Shrine Temple and up a steep grade to the parking lot. Once you get to the top of the hill, there is a nice relatively level lot to park on. A great view from up here. The photos are from here looking out over the river with the hospital on the left and a glass office building across the river. The second photo is the same view only at dusk. We can look out to the east and see the top of a church tower not much higher

than we are. A very interesting view of the city of Knoxville.
One of the big things on TV is the opening of I40 through Knoxville. They closed I40 and rebuild 9 bridges, numerous walls and a couple of miles of the highway. This was done in 14 months. The estimated time for this work, had they kept the interstate open would have been 3 to 5 years. Not to think of the added expense of the whole project.
Logistically, we are in a very good location. We will be taking US441 south to Pigeon Forge. All we have to do is to exit the parking lot, make a right turn, down the hill to the stop and make a left on Henley street, which is US441. A real no brainer. I just love that when it happens. Getting this rig with the van on the back gets involved some times making corners and getting in and out of filling stations, but so far, I have never been in a position that we had to unhook the van to get turned around or straightened out. It was close a few times but not a necessity. We are set up and ready for the hamfest in the morning, so it will be up and at it early, at least to catch the early bird and all of those that follow. Then on to Pigeon Forge and check in to the campground for the week of the Handicapped Travel Club national rally.

Wednesday we woke up early as we had to be at the ball diamonds by 9am. My granddaughter was playing soft ball with a traveling team and they cover a good portion of the midwest. This week they were playing in Nashville, TN. The complex is quite large and has 11 diamonds, most, if not all are lighted and with scoreboards. A very nice facility. They had two games, won the first game and lost the second one. They were to play two games on Thursday as well.
They certainly have improved since I saw them about a year ago. They are much quicker throwing the ball as well as hitting and fielding.
Thursday we woke up and turned on the weather radio as it looked stormy. It had stormed some during the night but was not raining at the time. The forecast was for storms with wind and lightning before noon, so we decided to try to get out before it hit. Well, as usual, we had just got on I40 and headed east when it caught up with us. It rained quite hard and blew and lightninged, but there was no where to pull off, so we just slowed down and moved with the traffic flow, about 35 to 40 mph until it let up. after about 20 minutes or so it looked better and the wind had settled down a bit, so we kept moving east until we got to Lebanon, TN and we got off of I40 and picked up US 70. A nice road, 4 lane in some areas and a nice 2 lane in others. Apparently the storm and proceeded us as we saw limbs down, some into power lines and areas where the ground was covered with green leaves, possibly from some hail that went through. We are in Crossville, TN at the Walmart where we got gas at $230.9.
The photos are of a unit that came in later. It is a Liberty Coach looks about a 40 footer pulling a big Hummer and a nice box utility trailer. Quite a long rig. I can see why they stay at Walmart as there are very few places they can get into without unhooking the Hummer. In a campground, they would probably have to get 2 spaces to put all of the rig in. Tomorrow, it is off to Knoxville to set up for a Hamfest on Saturday.

Woke up early this morning, why, I do not know, as we only had about 75 miles to go to our campground in Nashville, TN. We did not hurry getting away and then we stopped at the Welcome Center in Tennessee and spent about half an hour talking with the lady that was on duty. It was a very nice facility with lots of natural finished wood, etc. She stated that it was to be torn down this fall as it was over 50 years old and needed to be updated, so they were going to build a new one with larger parking areas, etc. We picked up some things for the rally in a week or so. The photos are of one of many nicely kept cemeteries we find on the back roads. This one was near Elizabethtown, KY. We even saw one that was for the Kentucky military. There are just so many interesting things to stop and see when you get off of the interstate and take your time on the back roads. By saying "back roads" I mean US highways and maybe a few of the local state roads. We find the US highways much less traveled by big trucks, maybe a few local delivery trucks and some construction vehicles, but for the majority of the time you have the road pretty much to your self. We do not stop at all of the local attractions as that would take a lot of time out of your day. We do make notes of places that look interesting and plan to stop the next time we are in the area. Our trip down US 31W reminds us of the times we went south years ago when that was the main highway going south. If you were headed for Florida, you took US31 and wound your way through and over the mountains, even Lookout Mountain and through Rock City where you could see 7 states from one spot. Now you whizz by on the Interstate and maybe see a sign to Rock City but that is all. Few take the time to go up the mountain to see the vistas that that spot provides. It is really too bad that people have to hurry through life and miss so many things. It pays to stop and smell the roses occasionally.

Thursday we went to Church for a picnic with our class. Lots of good old fashioned food and to top it all off we had fresh strawberries out of the berry patch. They really had some flavor, not like the big hard ones you get at the store. We had cake and ice cream with them. What a treat.
Friday was a very busy day. We did lots of things getting the unit ready to roll. We decided to take out the sleeper sofa and replace it with a glider that Evelyn had in storage. She and I got it loose from the floor and then Dennis came down with his truck and they loaded it up and took it to storage. We have a lot more room in the living room as well as more room for me to transfer to the drivers seat. It looks much bigger with the couch out.
Saturday, we washed clothes and bedding. Put the power chair in the van and made some more brochures for pick up at the hamfest. Getting things together to leave on Monday.
Sunday, we went to Church and our new Youth Pastor gave the sermon and really did a nice job. I think he will work out well for the youth. On our way home we stopped by the 96th st. Burger shop for milk shakes. Boy are they ever thick and good.
Monday, we got away about 10am after going to the Post Office and making a deposit at the bank. We traveled down I65 until we got on the south side of Louisville, KY and then we picked up US 31W and took it to Bowling Green where we are spending the night. On our way down we saw lots of corn that was about 12 inches or more high. Lots of tobacco that had not been in the ground very long. Several large tobacco barns, all painted black for curing the tobacco after it is cut in the fall. As is usual, most of the small towns, you go straight through, unless it happens to be a County Seat and then you go to the square and then half way around the court house and then out the other side of town. Our photo is of the court house in Elizabeth town, KY. This is really a clean town and the older portion has really been restored to the point you would think it was 1920 or 30. Lots of flowers in all of the towns. Just things you see when you take the US highways and stay off the Interstates.

Monday was nice and sunny. We went to lunch with the Keerns and had a nice visit as always. We took the motor home to lunch as it is on the way to the dump station so we continued on after lunch and completed our task and returned to our normal parking place. The sky was getting dark in the north but no rain here. Tuesday was sunny and hot 87 degrees and the weather deteriorated from there. By 6:30 it was storming, heavy rain lots of wind and hail. I do not think we had any damage to the roof of the coach, will have to have it checked. Our neighbor lost a tree in the front yard. south of us there were several homes damaged by the hail. The Kroger and Marsh groceries were both damaged as the hail broke the windows as well as a large restaurant lost several windows. Lots of power lines down and many people still out of power the next morning. Many limbs down all over the town of Fishers. Several vehicles damaged by the hail. By 8pm the clouds were gone and the sun was shining. The temp dropped from 87 to mid 60's in an hour or so. Today it has been cool and raining since mid morning until about 2pm. Sun out again before dark, so who knows what is next. One thing about Indiana weather, it is always changing, so you never get tired of the same old thing.
Tomorrow it is off to Church for a class picnic with a pitch in and fresh locally grown strawberries. Yum Yum.