Cherokee NC - 7-28-15 Tuesday

Cherokee NC 7-28-15 Tuesday We got up and did a 20 minute walk around the campground. We have been on the move so much lately we have not been walking in the morning before breakfast like we normally do. After breakfast we read for awhile. There are several groups of female mallard ducks with 7-8 half grown young ducks in the campground. One of our neighbors told us he has counted over 90 ducks around the campground. There is a small pond in the campground plus a mountain stream that runs around it so the ducks have plenty of water to swim in.

After lunch we drove to a nice produce stand a few miles away to get some fresh produce. Then we went to the grocery store to pick up a few other items.

A small thunderstorm with rain rolled through while we were eating supper. We got enough rain to wet down the dusty road through the campground. After the rain we did another 20 minute walk around the campground before dark.

The cell phone service in the campground is very weak almost useless but about 4 miles down the road we can get a 4G signal – go figure. The WiFi signal is also weak in the campground. The office personnel told me the casino down the road is using most of the bandwidth in the area.

Alaska 2015 - Day 77 - Kodak Tennessee - Cherokee North Carolina

Day 77 – 7-27-15 Monday We didn't have but 90 miles to drive today so we didn't leave Kodak Kentucky until about 10AM. We crossed the North Carolina border about an hour later and was glad to be back in our home state after 76 days on the road. We turned off I-40 at the Waynesville NC exit and followed US 19 to Happy Valley Campground in Cherokee NC, which is on the Cherokee Indian Reservation. I had forgot that US 19 is not a great route for a large RV but we made it okay. I should have taken US74 to Cherokee. We had made reservations for a week at this campground.

I checked in and was assigned site 227. When I got the motor home parked we decided we were not satisfied with the site. It was not quite long enough to get the front of the motor home out of the street as far as I wanted. We drove around the campground and found some suitable sites and went back to the office and had them reassign us to site 912, which was much better for us and we parked between two nice shade trees and on a nice new gravel parking pad.

Site 912

New "Retro" camper across the street

Since we are back in our home state and will be about 3 weeks before we get home I am going to call this the official end to our 2015 Alaska Trip. We had already scheduled a trip to the Smokey Mountains before we planned the Alaska trip so the route back down I40 worked out great for what we had already planned.

So to recap some statistics from out trip:

Departed May 12 - Returned to North Carolina July 27 (76 days)

Miles driven in Motor Home = 11,339

Miles driven in Jeep = 1,710

Gallons of diesel fuel = 1,481 for an average of 7.66 MPG - this would have been a little higher but we ran the generator 45 hours which also burns diesel fuel from the same tank on the motor home

Campground fees = $2,379.98 for an average of $31.17 @ night

We stayed at least one night in 14 different states and 3 Canadian Provinces

We took over 3,000 photographs

We got 6 rock chips in the windshield (all on good smooth roads in Canada – none in Alaska)

We were very blessed to not have any serious problems or damage to our motor home or Jeep, only a couple of minor inconveniences. We met a lot of nice people, saw a lot of wildlife and saw some really beautiful places.   

Alaska 2015 - Day 75 - Kodak Tennessee

Day 75 – 7-25-15 Saturday A slow easy morning – we didn't have to get on the road today. About mid morning we drove to the local post office to drop off some mail and then drove to Anchor Down RV Resort a few miles from where we are staying. We had heard about it and since we were so close we decided to check it out. It is only a couple years old. We got a pass at the office and rode through the resort. It sits on the high banks of the Douglas Lake – a large lake created by the TVA Douglas Dam a few miles from the resort. The resort is definitely a nice place, well laid out with fairly large sites compared to lots of commercial RV resorts/campgrounds, concrete pads and patios, full hook ups, fire rings, picnic tables and the top tier sites had stone fireplaces instead of fire rings. They also have wide paved streets, golf cart rental, a boat ramp, small sand beach, lake swimming and nice landscaping.

We drove on to Dandridge, stopping on the way to run the Jeep through a car wash. Dandridge is a historic small town with several nice old well cared for homes and downtown buildings. We found a Farmers Market and got a few fresh vegetables and some honey. The pint of honey was $7 and would have been about $20 in Canada or Alaska. We were surprised to find a coffee shop in this small town and went in. They had some good pastries and lattes'. The owner told us it was originally the second bank in Jefferson County and was built in 1855. The bank safe was still in place and there was a small table and chairs inside the safe for customers.

On the way back to our campground we went to the TVA Douglas Dam and discovered they also have a campground there that they must want to keep a secret. We saw one small sign (about 1' x 1') out by the main road but no sign on the county road that takes you to the road leading to the dam. As guess the locals knew about it because the campground was about 2/3 full.

TVA Douglas Dam

Silos and converted dairy barn

We returned to the campground and Lena did some laundry.

Alaska 2015 - Day 74 - Levi Jackson State Park - Kodak Tennessee

Day 74 – 7-24-15 Friday We decided not to wait around and see if anyone canceled their reservations or vacated a site so we departed about 9AM and moved on down I-75. We got on I-40 past Knoxville TN and soon were driving through the Great Smokey Mountains.

We exited at Exit 407 and after a couple of miles pulled into Dumplin Valley Farm RV Park. One of the owners came out of the house and told us which sites had 50AMP power and told us to pick out a site and then we could come back and self register. We chose site 43 and set up. There is only 4 other campers here and 3 of them appear to have been here for awhile so it is really peaceful and quiet.

This is a former dairy farm. The dairy barn, silos and out buildings are still on site. The pasture has been converted to a RV Park. The areas of the pasture that were flat enough have RV hookups. Some are full hookups with 50AMP power and some are just 30AMP power and water. There are about 6 - 50 AMP full hookup sites that are set up for motor homes that have a solid gravel base and terraced so they are level. The entire park is covered is lush green grass. They host the Dumplin Valley Bluegrass Festival the third weekend of September. The dairy barn has been converted to a stage and covered pavilion.

WE-2-B's on the right

We went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. We have not been out to eat in several days and decided we were due. After lunch we went to a flea market on the other side of the interstate. It was huge. There were a couple of very large warehouse type buildings full of vendors and several more outside. It was not used stuff like at a yard sale. We didn't find anything we couldn't live without so we went back to the RV Park.

We found out yesterday there is a forest fire in Glacier National Park in Montana on the East Entrance side. It has burned over 4000 acres. They have evacuated the campground, the visitor's center and the hotel in that area. We were just there about 9 days ago. There has been several fires in areas that we have been to on this trip after we left the area. And NO we did not set them.

Alaska 2015 - Day 73- Crawfordsville Indiana - London Kentucky

Day 73 – 7-23-15 Thursday We departed the campground at 8:15AM and stopped to fuel up just before getting back on the interstate highway. The scenery this morning was about the same as yesterday, fields of corn, soy beans, a few cows, horses and some goats and lots of traffic on the road. There was some road construction but not much delay.

Goodyear Blimp at Indianapolis Indiana

Hooiser Dome

When we got near the Kentucky border we were in the city of Louisville, which straddles the border of Indiana and Kentucky. There was lots of construction on the interstate around the city and lots of traffic. We came up on a split in the highway and was not sure if we were supposed to take the left or right side of the split. The GPS (Samantha) normally tells me but she was quiet at this point so I went left, which was the correct decision. The road signs were not placed far enough from the split to give much time to react. But we got through all the mess without any scrape or bruises. Just pass this area there was a car stopped in the emergency lane just to the right of the lane we were in and just as we approached the car, the lady started to walk around the back end of the car up the driver's side. Her car was just over the white line and she would have been in our lane if she had of stepped around the rear of the car. I could not move over to the left because of the traffic and didn't have time to even slow down so I just blew the air horns at her and thankfully she jumped back. I don't know if I would have hit her or not but it would have been close. We were glad to get out of Louisville.

The landscape in Kentucky was more rolling hills, pasture land and much less row crops than in Indiana. Some really nice homes with wood fences around the pastures. We kept looking for the “bluegrass of Kentucky” but all the grass we saw was nice and green. Our route took us off I-64 for about 80 miles through the country and some small towns over to I-75. This was a nice drive, less traffic than the interstate but there was some traffic lights that slowed us down some.

We finally made it to our destination just outside London Kentucky. We pulled into the Levi Jackson State Park Campground. We saw the sign for the park in May when we came through here and wanted to stay here on the way back. Our two grandsons names are Jackson (9) and Levi (7). We asked for a site for 3 nights but we could only get a site for one night unless we took a spot in the overflow area. The lady took me in a golf cart to see the overflow area but I didn't like it. They had recently got a lot of rain and the area was not level and was muddy but they had a nice pull through in the regular campground with full hookups for one night so we took that. This is a nice campground and is very popular with the local people. I knew it might be a problem getting a site without reservations just before a weekend. There are lots of young children here having lots of fun. They have a nice area for the kids to play and also the streets are paved and they can ride the bicycles.

We read and relaxed for awhile before I grilled some chicken on the grill for supper.

Alaska 2015 - Day 72 - Madison Wisconsin - Crawfordsville Indiana

Day 72 – 7-22-15 Wednesday We departed the campground and drove about 2 miles and stopped for fuel and the Walmart right behind the fuel station so Lena could get a few necessary items. We finally got on the road about 9AM. We crossed the state border of Illinois in about an hour leaving Wisconsin behind. Not long after entering Illinois we had to pay a $4.00 road toll on I-39/90. They sure are not very generous with the amount of space they give you in each lane. We had just a few inches clearance beside each mirror. That is the first road toll we have had to pay.

Today the landscape was more open farmland than yesterday. The fields of corn and soybeans were huge – as far as you could see across the horizon. More corn than soybeans, very little hay and not much livestock in sight today.

We saw the largest windmill farm we have ever seen. There were hundreds of them in one area and none of them turning. Later we saw a few more windmill farms and we only saw one turning so not much electricity was being generated today from them.

We passed lots of road construction and lots of places on the road that needed some repairs, especially on the bridge surfaces and the road joints at the bridges – lots of pot holes and the road repair crews continue to use asphalt to patch the holes in a concrete road and it is soon torn out making the repair useless. We passed one crew patching holes by shoveling some asphalt into a hole and patting it down with the shovel. I don't think that will last long with all the 18 wheelers we saw on the road today.

We crossed the state border into Indiana after lunch and finally got back into the Eastern Time Zone so we had to reset our clocks for the last time on this trip. We think that makes 10 times we have adjusted the time on our clocks. We have been in the following time zones: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Alaskan. Part of the time in Canada and North Dakota we would change time zones more than one time a day. We would go out of one time zone into another and later that day go back to the time zone from earlier in the day. The GPS automatically adjusted as the time zoned changed so we would use that as our guide to know what time it was as we switched back and forth during the day.

Nice car

We have driven over 10,600 miles as of today on this trip and saw the second traffic accident yesterday and the third one today. The first two were minor, today's look a little more sever. It looked like a tractor trailer had jackknifed and the traffic was backed up for 3-4 miles. It was on the opposite side of the interstate so it did not delay us.

After 320 miles we pulled into Sugar Creek Campground & Canoe Rental in Crawfordsville Indiana and setup in site 11 for the night. The campground sits beside Sugar Creek. They have recently had a lot of rain here because some of the low ground in the open spaces near the playground has been under water. The lady in the office said the water was so high in the creek they could not rent any canoes due to the swift current but it is now going down. The 10 mile drive from the interstate to the campground was a nice change. We were in the country and all the farms were well cared for and people's yard were all very neat and clean.

Sugar Creek

Tomorrow night we plan to be in London Kentucky. 

Alaska 2015 - Day 71 - Monticello Minnesota - Madison Wisconsin

Day 71 – 7-21-15 Tuesday We departed the campground at 7:15AM and drove a couple of miles and stopped at a McDonald's before getting on the Interstate. We had breakfast and used their WiFi to get the Blog caught up and take care of email. We got fuel at the station beside McDonald's. When we started to get back on the Interstate we discovered there was no on ramp from that side of the road and had to drive about 13 miles through the country and through a business district to get to the next on ramp. We saw a few of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes.

Our route took us around St Paul and Minneapolis (which all run together) on the beltway and about half the route was under construction. We didn't have to stop but at one place where multiple lanes were merging. The lanes were squeezed down and switching one way and then the other to accommodate the construction so that made the driving a little more tense. We made it through without too much stress and without any scrapes and bruises. We tried to be in the area between the morning and the noon rush hour and that worked out because we went through there about 10:30AM.

The landscape gradually changed from openness and kind of flat to woods and rolling hills. We soon entered Wisconsin and began to see a few dairy farms with tall feed silos and lots of corn and soybean fields. We also saw a lot of signs advertising Cheese. We stopped at a rest stop to have lunch and moved on to Madison Wisconsin where we stopped for the night at Lake Farm Park Campground and checked in and set up on site #1 – a pull through with 50amp electrical hookup. This is a Dane County owned/operated park. It is a nice campground, free WiFi, large spaces with gravel pad and grass, those on the back side are under large shade trees (mostly are used by people in tents since there is no electrical power to these sites), showers, dump station and paved streets. 

Our site # 1

Campground view

Our planned route for tomorrow would take us around Chicago Illinois but decided to modify our route so we would not have to deal with all that traffic.

As of today we have driven 10,303 miles on this trip and will drive a little over 1000 more before we get home in mid August.

Alaska 2015 - Day 70 - Jamestown ND - Monticello Minnesota

Day 70 – 7-20-15 Monday Another travel day so not much happening. We departed our Wal-Mart Resort at 7:30AM and drove for about two hours and stopped to fuel up. The landscape begin to change about mid morning to less hay fields and more row crops. Lots more corn fields, soybeans and something else we could not identify riding by. We saw some large chicken houses also and more and more trees began to appear.

About 1PM we stopped for the night in Monticello Minnesota at River Terrace Park. Even though it was early in the day we had driven 300 miles so that was enough for today. We pulled into the entrance to the campground and stopped. I got out and walked in the direction of the arrow pointing to the office and ended up walking at least the length of two city blocks through a “ratty” looking mobile home park before I got to the house were the office was located.

The campground sits beside a lake and has lots of shade trees but our site (#1) is in full sun.

Alaska 2015 - Day 69 - Theodore Roosevelt National Park - Jamestown ND

Day 69 - 7-19-15 Sunday We departed about 9:30AM and headed for Jamestown ND. Shortly after getting on highway 86 we saw several Pronghorn on the left side of the road waiting to cross the highway. We were not able to get any photos.

We had a brisk crosswind coming from the West on highway 86 but when we turned on I-94 we were headed East so we had a good tailwind pushing us so the driving was better. The scenery was a continuation of hay fields and large ranches/farms and several oil rigs pumping oil. We saw one oil derrick where they were drilling oil. About mid day we began to see lots of large corn fields and what we think was fields of sun flowers. They were not blooming but that is what it looked like. We continued to see large hay fields, horses and cattle. Still are not seeing many trees except around some of the houses. The town/cities are getting larger as we get further into North Dakota.

Oil drilling derrick

Metal sculpture 

BIG Cow

We needed to restock some of our groceries so when we got to Jamestown ND we pulled into Wal-Mart and stocked up on some items and decided to stay in their parking lot for the night (with permission). We had planned to stay at a campground in Jamestown but it was down a 1.1 mile dusty gravel road. We have driven enough on dusty gravel roads to last us a long time. The motor home and Jeep are dirty but I still didn't want to drive the dusty gravel road and the motor home engine air filter has about all the dust in it that it needs .

Sunset at Wal-Mart

Alaska 2015 - Day 68 - Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Day 68 – 7-18-15 Saturday We slept late this morning since we were staying here today. The temperature is 60 degrees this morning with some gusty wind. After breakfast we started exploring the park. We discovered this area is located in what is called “The Badlands” of North Dakota. The large hill just across from the campground entrance is named Battleship Butte and there are large round balls of what looks like hard sand that are called Cannonball Concretions. We drove on up the park road and stopped at different places to get photos of the unusual landscape. At River Bend Overlook a man noticed our license plates and started talking to us. He is from Iowa but got his college degree in North Carolina and worked as a Park Ranger in the Smokey Mountains. He was working a Summer job here in this park. Oxbow Lookout was as far as we could drive and almost to the back edge of the park lands and the highest elevation. The wind was really blowing and I had to hold on to my cap and be careful and not get near the edge of the cliffs. The view overlooking the river and hills was unlike anything we have ever seen.

Little Misssouri River in background

We drove back down the road to the front entrance. There was a buffalo herd a couple of miles from the front entrance. My best guess, there were probably 100 in the herd. There were a couple of very young buffalo and we saw the longhorn cattle herd again. The park maintains the cattle herd because of the history of the longhorn cattle drives that came through this area in the 1800's.

President Theodore Roosevelt owned an interest in a cattle ranch in this area and also wholly owned another cattle ranch near here in the South Unit of the park.

After lunch we walked one of the trails near the campground, then returned and read and relaxed the remainder of the day. We are glad we found this park. If not for the detour we would not have stopped here.

After thinking about how to describe the landscape it reminded me of the old westerns on TV I watched as a kid, where the bad guys always went up into some really rough looking terrain to get away from the posse that was after them. If you are my age you might remember the old westerns on TV.

The wind has blown rather brisk all day but as I write this at 8:50PM the leaves are barely wiggling.