Watts Bar Lake, Spring City, Tennessee

We are enjoying Cedar Point RV Park here in Spring City, TN.  The campground is waterfront on Watts Bar Lake.  The owners are super nice folks who I don't think their family has moved more than two miles in as many generations.  The patriarch Ken was born the same year the lake was flooded into existence.  The lake actually took his parents house and the campground land was part of what they bought with the TVA money they received for their flooded homestead property.  We have been out paddling our kayaks two days in a row now.  Seems like we are set up just fine.  We haven't been as lucky with the fishing here, just a few small Bluegill so far....

Watts Bar Lake at the back of the RV park.

Gari documenting the entrance sign.

Close up/

The RV park was originally set up for construction workers who were living in the area while working on the Watts Bar Nuclear Reactors.  It was a four year project and has just finished up a few months ago, and with it the park now has some vacant lots for the first time in over four years.  Now the family is transitioning over to a vacation type RV park and spreading the word.  Consider this a word on that transition, come on down!

We are set up on a lot that has southern exposure on the driver's side.  We liked that because the window we like to put the Sirius antenna in is also facing south on this lot.  There are still several vacancies here.

There are the two kayaks; one Perception (yellow & blue sit on top) and one Old Town (red sit inside).

You can just catch a glimpse of the lake over Pepe's hood.

The park also has several very nice cabins.  They are about 300 sq ft each.

Gari got a picture of a shorebird milling about the park.  We think it may be a Plover variety.  What do you think?

Dr. Doolittle feeds the domestic ducks, big mistake. We think they are Saxony Ducks.

Can't get rid of them now.  They come running as soon as we step outside.

One of the sons built this nice stone restroom and laundry facility.

We love that view!

We can just see a little bit of the lake from our dining table window.

First pictures from the kayaks; Gari fishing from her Old Town sit inside kayak.

Smashville, Tennessee!

We stayed at the Grand Ole RV Resort north of Nashville in the little town of Goodletsville.  We were immediately and continuously greeted by super friendly folks.  Nashville really has a great vibe.... literally!  This place is all about the music.  There is an unbelievable amount of talent around here; it seems everyone we met can sing and play at least one instrument.  We also took time out of our tourist activities to pick up a second kayak.  This time we went with an old friend and got an Old Town sit inside kayak.  We think that will feel much more stable and dry as compared to the sit on top model.  We will put Gari in the Old Town when she elects to paddle along.

You can see Penelope on lot #1 they called the Pole Position.  It was a good spot for us.  Away from the train tracks in the back, and away from the road noise in the front.  Being close to the main camp building was also nice.

Tommy the owner found these old lamp posts from Nashville and re-purposed them as his street signs in the park.

A beautiful flower by the front porch, and the vine next to Gari is nice too.

Mostly loaded and packed and ready to ride to Spring City, TN the next morning.  Now there are two kayaks on the roof of Pepé.  It was a good week in Nashville.

We toured Manskers Park and on the way saw an old stone arch bridge that the old was part of the stagecoach line between Nashville and Louisville.  The railroad replaced the stagecoach in 1859.

This is a replica fort that local folks built. Very interesting.

Gari stands in front of the house that belonged to some early Nashville settlers circa 1740s, the Bowen family.  The husband was a Captain in the Virginia Militia in 1777.  This place reminded us very much of Pemberton Hall in Salisbury

One day we wandered around town riding the free bus here and there.  Below is the Sirius/XM satellite radio studios in that tower building.

Gari found a giant tomato at the Farmer's Market.

Steve stopped to pick some corn.

A contrast of old and new, down on Music Row.

 What the???  Here comes the Rocket Party Bike!

These folks are drinking on that thing, there's a bar tender in the middle!  We can't see any risk with this business concept.

Steve checks out the stage in the amphitheater in the Bicentennial Park.

Flag and fountain court in the Bicentennial Park.

Steve checks out a Tennessee geography exhibit in the park.

This is a display of the Tennessee land contour.  See the Smoky Mountains at the far end?

One night our Camphosts Randy and Rita took a bunch of us out to the Nashville Palace for some music and night life. It was fantastic.  Everyone was so friendly and the musical and dancing talent was highly professional.  So many famous singers have come through here or even gotten their start here.  It was an amazing place and a fantastic experience.

This particular group is Larry Hamilton and the Nashville Palace Band.  We think that Larry may be the owner of the Palace.  Really good and talented guy, and they all were!

Out front were dozens of cement castings.  Below is that of Loretta Lynn and Randy Travis.  Randy got his start at the Nashville Palace washing dishes!

Rita also suggested we may like a walk around the Opryland Hotel & Convention Center, so later we tried just that.  Thank you Rita!  What an amazing place.  It's as big as 3 Superdomes with shops, gardens, restaurants and water features galore.   They had a boat you could ride around the canals just like in Las Vegas.

 A restaurant in the courtyard.

Beautiful flowers everywhere.

Beautiful Gari by another waterfall.

Around another corner we found a row of shops.

 We rode out to Old Hickory Dam one day just to see.

The welcoming committee came out to greet us.  Got any bread crumbs?  Let me see your hands and pockets.

What an amazing city Nashville is, and what a big time we had there!  Next week we will be waaaay off the grid near Spring City, in eastern Tennessee.  Where?  Right.  We may not have cellular coverage there.  We don't expect any broadcast television for sure.  We will have Sirius satellite radio and we will be parked right on the bank of Watts Bar Lake.  If the weather will cooperate again this week we should have some excellent kayaking ahead there.

2016 Loop Update

We started this loop by drawing a free hand rough map going through the cities we knew we wanted to visit and others in between that seemed interesting.  Then we started getting more specific and identifying roads that we would take and places we would park for the night or longer depending on where we are.  Because our rig is pretty large, 60 ft hooked up, 13' 6" tall and 102" wide we don't always want to take it on all the roads we can, and there are roads that we cannot pass period (mainly low overpasses - bridges, wires, trees, railroad crossing gate structures, and even stoplights!).  So we look at our final routing pretty carefully.

We have made several changes to our loop, even as we go.  We couldn't find a spot to park anywhere close to Austin, TX so we stayed a bit in San Antonio and that turned out to be a pleasure.  We made arrangements to stop in Livingston, TX at the Escapees HQ and get each wheel weighed as part of the SmartWeigh Program.  Unfortunately right after we made all the reservations and paid the deposits, Escapees called back and said the scales were out of service.  Oh well, we will try again at a later time.  We think we are in pretty good shape based on our last weight of each of three axles, Steer, Drive and Trailer.

Once we hit Houston we could really feel the climate changing.  The HUMIDITY of it all.  It seems that the moisture in the air really affects the stability of the atmosphere.  We knew for sure that we were entering Tornado Alley in this area we were about to pass through.  We made a change to our route based on weather and forecasts.  We were going to stay overnight in central Arkansas, but decided to push through Arkansas as fast as possible.  We departed Atlanta, TX (northeast) and drove straight through to Jackson, TN (east of Memphis), never stopping in Arkansas longer than a leg stretch break.  The Auxiliary Fuel Tank we installed has been a super upgrade for us.  We now have a range of over 700 miles, usually much farther than we will drive in a day.  Now we unhook at the end of the day and just take the truck only to fill up near where we have the trailer parked.

Those three changes, not going into Austin, TX, scheduling then canceling the SmartWeigh session in Livingston, TX and not stopping overnight in Arkansas were the big changes.  We did find a different RV Park in Houston than the one we targeted.  That also turned out to be fantastic.  We showed some of the Magnolia TX Park in a previous post.  Since we left we heard that the big rain event earlier this week in Houston was very bad in Magnolia, they called it a 500 year flood event.  I guess we got out of there just in time.

We have continued to work on our 2016 Loop plan and have some details worked out going into South Dakota.  We have selected a rough routing and camping or overnight destination targets.  We still have to confirm the roads will accommodate us the entire way to each destination and then verify availability or permission to park at each destination.  It remains to be seen how many adjustments will be made by the time we get that far north and west. 

Below is what details we have to date.  We are currently in Nashville at the "B" waypoint above the Tennessee state name on the map. 

Compare our progress and detailed forecasting to our original guess below.  So far no major malfunctions (health, equipment, weather) that have thrown us off of our goals for the 2016 Loop.

Kentucky Lake

Actually we are parked in Tennessee at the Little Eagle RV Park.  They have a nice little spot on a branch of Kentucky Lake complete with a private boat ramp, and adjacent to Paris Landing State Park.  We made a sprint from northeast Texas (Atlanta, TX, waypoint "G" on our map) across Arkansas on into Tennessee because we didn't like the weather patterns going on in that area.  We had 50 mph wind gusts, mainly off our tail thank goodness, going across Arkansas.  The night we arrived at the lake there were tornadoes in Arkansas.  Glad we decided to move right along this time.

You can see the purple triangle identifying Tornadic Action in southeast Arkansas.

A few pics around Little Eagle.  The weather is a bit better this far north, but there is a good breeze and temperatures are low in the 40's and high in the 60's, which is a little cooler than what we have been in recently.

 

 

 

  

There is our gear on site #52.  You can just see the lake in front of Pepé.  Percy the Perception Prescador 10.0 sit on top kayak will make her maiden voyage here.  Percy rode well up top, even with the strong winds in Arkansas.  Seems like we have a viable attachment system.... time to get kayak #2 Gari....

Steve chatting up the Camp Host Miss Barbara and a few neighbors.

The fishing/observation pier at the back of the Park.

Shoreline at the back of the Park.

A little wildlife near the Park... there's Gari

A Pod of four white Pelicans.  Only 3 Pelicans made this frame.

Lots of turtles.  This fella had his eye on us.

Back shoreline.

Some of the Lake

Finally, the long awaited maiden voyage of Percy.  Will Steve get dumped?  First he will have to get her in the water to know for sure...

Carefully he's off... 

Hey this isn't too bad, not as stable as the Old Town canoe, but he can still paddle circles around a Canadian Goose; only problem is which one is the goose?