Virginia - North Carolina: Monday-Thursday, Nov. 21-24, 2022 | |
This gas station, near Chattanooga, Tennessee, won the contest for being the cheapest gas that we paid for on the entire trip. | |
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Monday, November 21, 2022
We had stayed at Parksville National Campground in Tennessee last fall. It is located in the eastern edge of Tennessee just south of Smokey National Park. It is the rare national campground with electrical hookups. The fastest route from Asheville was a 3 1/2 hour drive. I had hoped to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway most of the way. Both Google Maps and Apple Maps refused to give the Blue Ridge as an option. We stuck to our guns and using a paper map, picked up the Blue Ridge just a couple miles from Lake Powhatan Campground where we just spent the last four nights.
We were all pompous as we drove along the beautiful Parkway when we came across a section, about 15 miles into the drive, that was closed. So, that was why the GPS routing systems shied away from the Parkway. To teach us a lesson, Google routed us on a severely narrow, steep, and switchbacked road to reach a major highway.
That detour added another hour onto the drive. By the time we reached Parksville, it was getting dark. Where did the day go? On the bright side, the forecast is getting warmer. In fact, starting tomorrow, the cold-snap will finally snap, and normal temps will return.
So, how did the winter boondock camping go? Quite well! We were fortunate to have had a couple of excellent heated clean modern showers. When we didn’t, the spit-bath thing worked just fine. The new portable 2-gallon water jug with spigot worked well. We could easily heat up water on the stove if/when needed. The finger-foods we picked up were delicious. The generator, running an hour or two a day, kept the batteries topped off. And, thank goodness, the furnace kept us as toasty as ever. We barely skipped a beat.
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This is the road that Google sent us on after we came upon a closed section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. | This is the second time that we have camped at Parksville. It is a decent campground with water and electric hookups. The showers were OK, but we were spoiled by the showers at the last campground. | The road to the Parksville National Campground is part of the TANASI Rapids-to-Railroad Trail. I didn’t find out anything about the trail, but it does sound intriguing. | Above: This river runs through the park. Below: This feeder creek burbled behind our campsite |  | |
Tuesday, November 22, 2022
Today was another long drive. This time we drove to Lynchburg, in central Tennessee, home of Jack Daniels. Again, we visited Lynchburg last year and took the Jack Daniels tour. We didn’t need to see the distillery again, but we did buy a bottle of Apple Pie Moonshine from a local craft distillery. It was our first Thanksgiving meal purchase. Tomorrow we will shop around for the rest of the meal.
Last year when we visited Lynchburg, we stayed at the nearby Tim Ford State Park. This year we tried Lynchburg’s own Wiseman City Park Campground. It is a first come - first serve campground and is open year-round. As it turned out, this late in November, we were the only campers. The water hookups were turned off for the season, but the electricity was still on.
Here is where our big expensive surge protector saved us. Normally, the surge protector takes 2 minutes to sample the electricity before passing it on down the line to the camper. This time, it never kicked in. I looked at the error code it was displaying. The electrical service head was wired backwards. I don’t think that would have been good for V-Jer’s electrical system.
I tried the surge protector on a different campsite. It registered correctly so we moved V-Jer down to that site. Everything electrical behaved properly. I had read about bad electrical hookups at campgrounds but this was the first time that we experienced it.
Wiseman Park is located just one block from the downtown square. It is serviced by a beautiful heated public bathroom. There aren’t showers, however, there is a family bathroom with a deep sink and hot water. Wanda helped me wash my hair and I was able to comfortably shave with the aid of a big mirror and hot water.
Although the bathrooms were open all night, the lights were turned off after 5 pm. We had to bring in our own lighting. I guess that is how they discourage the homeless from camping inside the building.
The BBQ restaurant closest to the park was spewing out the most delicious smoked BBQ scents imaginable. It took all of our will power not to belly-up and wolf down a plate of that primal meat dish. But, we had bravely passed up many craft breweries, Mexican food trucks, and inviting mom’n’pop restaurants so we could lose enough weight to celebrate with a Thanksgiving meal.
How did that work out? We’ll, I can now fit in my 34 slim-fit jeans and require a belt to keep them from falling down. Not bad, I would say. And Wanda? Her slim high school figure is back. So, we will be giving thanks on Thanksgiving as we eagerly pig down on our reward meal.
|  | The campsite at Wiseman City Park wasn’t fancy but the location, just behind the town square, was handy. | In the center of the town square sat the City Hall. We paid our $20 camping fee in the building. | Not surprisingly, the Jack Daniels Distillery is Lynchburg. We thoroughly enjoyed the Jack Daniels tour that we took last Fall. The Lynchburg Hardware and General Store, basically the Jack Daniels General Store, was also fun to tour. | Bacon is delicious. So is chocolate. So is whiskey. So is maple. But mixed together? We’ll, I don’t know ‘bout dat! | Here is the other, much smaller American Craft Distillery in Lynchburg. This is where we picked up our Apple Pie Moonshine. | The BBQ Caboose was the source of the delicious primal smoked meat scent being wafted out to tempt our will-power. |  |  | |
Wednesday, November 23, 2022
This morning we drove to my favorite boondocking campground. The free Meriwether Lewis National Campground on the Natchez Trace Parkway is an excellent campground, not just because it is free. The campground is beautifully laid out in two loops on top of a ridge overlooking a steep wooded hollow. Each site is blacktopped, level, and given plenty of room. The flush toilets are decent if not heated. There isn’t a shower, but we are not complaining. The rest of the park features several miles of difficult hiking trails including a stretch of the original Natchez Trace. We walked along that portion of trail in the footsteps of thousands of Native Americans and many settlers from the 1700s and 1800s.
The nearest city, Hohenwald (which I crudely nicknamed Hole-in-the-wall, as it is so small) was big enough to have a Walmart. We picked up our Thanksgiving meal.
Mind you, with V-Jer winterized we didn’t want to do a lot of cleaning up after the meal. That severely limited our selection. We started off with a rotisserie chicken. That was a no-brainer. It was already cooked. I could easily use the leftovers to make chicken soup. Next, we found individual packets of Ore-Ida mashed potatoes. You only add water up to a pre-marked level and microwave for 90 seconds. Of course, we had to make stuffing. Here is where we cheated just a little. We picked up Stove Top stuffing, but I planned to sauté some mushrooms, chopped onions and celery, and bit of garlic to add to the boxed stuffing. That would be the only pan to wash. A small jar of chicken gravy and some frozen corn to steam rounded out the main meal. We couldn’t find a decent pie at Walmart so we got some turtle cheesecake and thickly frosted carrot cake that looked plenty decadent.
With all that taken care of, all we had to do was to resist the temptation of opening up the Apple Pie Moonshine until tomorrow.
|  | The free campsites at Meriwether Lewis National Campground were level and clean. | By the time we hit a trail, the sun was waning. The trail immediately went straight down into the creek-carved hollow. It eventually hooked up with a stretch of the original Natchez Trace. | Wanda doing her dance as she works her way down the hollow made even more treacherous with the slippery leaves. | The creek at the bottom of the deep hollow. | She made it down the hill fully intact. |  |  |  |  | |
Thursday, November 24, 2022
HAPPY THANKSGIVING! We took a vacation from driving today. The day was warm and glorious. We had a date with some calories today. First, however, we had to pound the trails for 4 miles to earn our calories. This particular park was not only famous for the sections of the original Natchez Trace running through it, it was also where Meriwether Lewis died at the tender age of 35 from suicide.
After becoming famous for co-leading the Lewis ‘n’ Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis sunk into a funk that he couldn’t shake. I have heard it likened to some of the astronauts that landed on the moon - how do you top that? From that pinnical of life, it is all downhill. Of course, I don’t think that is how I would have thought about it, but for Lewis, it kind of was.
Anyway, at the park, a re-created log Inn where Lewis spent the last night of his life was built. There are several plaques, a monument, and a gravesite. Even though we checked this out last year, we re-read the plaques, walked in his footsteps, looked into the Inn, and talked about Ken Burns great Lewis and Clark documentary.
At noon, we got the bright idea to see a movie. I Googled up a local cinema and found one open on Thanksgiving in Lawrenceburg, 20 miles away. Lawrenceburg is the hometown of Davy Crockett. It is also an industrial town and not very attractive. But, the movie was only $5, the popcorn smelled delicious, and we settled in on seeing the movie ‘Devotion’, a true story of an African-American pilot during the Korean War. It was a decent show with plenty of emotion. Movies are supposed to move you, and this one did.
When we returned to V-Jer, it was time to cook - well, more accurately, to reconstitute and microwave. Now here’s the thing. Ore-Ida powdered mash potatoes sounds gross, but are absolutely delicious and authentic after absorbing microwaves for just 90 seconds. And fixed up a bit, the reconstituted Stove Top stuffing is surprisingly yummy. Heating up the gravy and steaming the frozen corn was a cinch. The rotisserie chicken only needed a couple of minutes in the microwave. The carrot cake and cheese cake only needed a fork to eat. Washing it all down with the Apple Pie Moonshine and we were in satiated-heaven. It was the fullest our shrunken tummies have felt in 8 weeks. Time to nod off.
|  |  | Back on the old Natchez Trace. | There were plenty of info plaques. | The Grinder House, where Lewis spent his last night. | When we drove into Lawrenceburg to go to the cinema, we discovered that Davy Crockett had lived there. | |
Sadly, I don’t have any photos of our meal. What was I thinking? I can tell you, we were thinking of eating, only eating. It wasn’t until we came up for air that I thought of the missed photo opportunity.
We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We sure did.
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Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum. | | | | |
