Great Smokey National Park

So we started our trip! We left Sunday a little after 10 am and our plan was to leave at 7:30 am and drive 9 hours to Great Smokey National Park. Due to a few technical difficulties, one of which was I couldn't remove the 2" Hitch Ball from my truck and put it on the RV so a drive to WalMart was required, we didn't leave as planned.


On the drive down Aimee said she wanted to drop by Blacksburg for an hour to walk the campus and go to the bookstore. Thinking to myself I was a little hesitant, but since this was supposed to be an adventure and due to the tragedy there last Monday, I decided why not. We drove into VT and I dropped Aimee off at the bookstore. I promptly get stuck in traffic, but found a quick out and three spots on the street I could steal for an hour. I found Aimee in the bookstore, she bought $80 of Tech stuff, and we headed back to the RV. Since it was already 4:15, we decided to stay overnight at a nearby RV park in Christiansburg. It was classy! Here are two pictures from the Interstate RV park! This is our home:



Here is our neighbor across the way.

It looks like he has been here a while! Aimee said she saw our neighbor pop his head out of his humble abode, but I didn't get to see him. I guess he doesn't have a vehicle to get around in.

I took a shower in the RV park facilities. The showers were at the entrance of the RV park just off the highway. That tune from Deliverance was going through my head. After the shower we headed in Blacksburg for a few beers and some food from Souvlakis!

We left our humble abode around 8am and headed for Tennessee. Stopped along the way to fill up the tank, $159 for 59 gallons of gas. I checked the gas mileage, 7 miles per gallon. Not as good as I wished, but within the range I read on RV forums.

We arrived yesterday at Smoky Bear Campground took a very short hike 50 minutes and headed to Super WalMart for supplies.

Going away happy hour.

Okay, so I had a going away happy hour tonight. It was nice! Or Cool! It was nice to get together with my old work mates and toss back a few beers. It reminds me of the good ol' days when I first started at GRCI. Chuck, Bethanne, Jen, Marc, Scap, and Neil who were there when I started over 12 years ago showed up to send me on my way in liquid style. Bill, Mahendra and my friend Ron were there as well. Mahendra and I stuck around till after 10pm talking about AT&T and how things were stuck in a bad groove. It was really nice to be drinking beers with my coworkers; it's something that we haven't done in a very long while. It's unfortunate that someone has to leave for us to get together, relax and drink a few beers. Ah, well... I guess that's what age and family obligations impose upon us all.

Tomorrow there is a luncheon to bid me farwell. I can't deny that I am a little scared of the attention. The last time I looked, 19 people replied that they would be there to bid me farwell. It's really nice that so many would come out and say goodbye. It's going to be sad to say goodbye to all those that I have worked with over the past 12 years. I don't think it's going to be to be a final goodbye, but who knows what the future brings!

Stay tuned for future posts! I hope to share my ups and downs as the adventure progresses over the next 9 plus weeks!

I am looking forward to that future and hope the best for all!

:)

First Entry

I'm sitting at work on my last days figuring out how to post. It's slow here at work, since there isn't a lot for me to do. Here's a picture of our Motorhome that we'll be living in for 8 weeks. It's a 2004 Fleetwood Flair. We got a pretty good deal through KingRV of Falmouth, VA who deals in bank repossesions.

I'm planning on doing a dry run next week to be sure we have the important things we need. It'll be a quick one night stay in Front Royal, Virginia. I'll take our dog Barley along so that she can start getting used to living in an RV.