Grassy Cove

Gene here,

Yesterday, Judi had a doctor’s appointment.  I ran off with the boys (Bill and Herb) for a hike.  Both guys are long time friends.

We went to a sector of the Cumberland Trail near Grassy Cove, TN.  Herb is considering to be the volunteer maintainer for this 7.8 mile section of the trail.

Hiking buddies, Herb and Bill

The Cumberland Trail Conference has a great web site with driving directions, trail commentary, and parking information.   The driving directions were dead-on--you really did reach your turn at 6.6 miles and not at 7.1 or worse 6.4.  However, the directions failed to mention Jewett Road turned to gravel before we got to the trailhead.  Gravel, then narrow.  Then more narrow.  By 4.6 of the 6.6 we were ready to turn around.  Since the road was pretty decent even if only 1 lane, we pressed on.  We found it!

The old frame store

I dropped the boys off and took the car back to the other end of the trail.  Since I RV, I won’t be around to offer much help with maintaining, so at least I can help the maintainers get their first look at the whole 7.8 mile section.

The General Store

I stopped at the J.C. Kemmer and Son general (merchandise) store for a coke to go with my lunch.  The brick store has stood on TN 68 since 1930.  From 1900 to 1930, the frame store (still standing) had been just off the TN highway on a county road that went into the heart of Grassy Cove.  The owner let me take photos and was quite accommodating.

Just up the road was the J.L. Kemmer and Son store.  I’d like to know the story of J.L. and J.C.  Do the families get together for the holidays?

Grassy Cove is a “hole” in the Cumberland Plateau with an elevation of 1500 feet.  The surrounding plateau area is 2000 feet or so.  But Grassy Cove is surrounded by mountains that rise above plateau level--Brady Mountain (our hike), Black Mountain, and Bear Den Mountain.  The high point of Brady Mountain is 2900 feet.  That is quite a bit of relief.  (I finally figured out why they call elevation change “relief”.  It is because it is such a relief when the trail quits going uphill.)

Grassy Cove was created by streams that can’t get out of the hole.  At least not by way of a river that breaks through the surrounding mountains.  Instead, the streams draining Grassy Cove go underground into a cave.  This is called a “sink”.

The water pops back above ground west of Brady Mountain to form the Sequatchie River.

By the way, I finally did hike.  I got far enough to be able to climb all the hill available.  It was quite a relief.

Reflections on RVing--Budgeting

‘Tis the season for reviewing the budget for next year.  I usually look forward to this discussion for two reasons.  The first is I like to see how close to the budget we stayed during the past year.  The second is because I am always anxious to see where we can increase monthly expenditures.  I can always get into spending more money.

This year, we took a real hit in the maintenance category.  Even though we have a line item to cover scheduled maintenance and repairs on the truck and trailer, we had almost spent the entire allotment for the year by May.  Buying the Everest has actually helped in that category.  Even though we have had it in for service several times, everything has been covered under warranty.

Buying the Everest, however, was nowhere to be found in this year’s budget.  When we originally decided to embark on the full-time RV lifestyle, we anticipated doing this for several years.  Consequently, we had budgeted for a second RV.  We did not anticipate getting it so soon.  Now, this unit will have to last until we tire of traveling.  Oh, dear.

The other area which ended up over budget for the year was groceries.  On average, I was over about $30/month.  I have learned over the past couple years that groceries is one of those categories which varies greatly from region to region.  Food in the Rio Grande Valley was very cheap and in Washington state fairly expensive.  Nashville is more moderately priced and I have been under the monthly budget since we got back to Tennessee.  Because we are planning to spend the winter in Florida and heading to New England for the fall, we increased the grocery budget by $30/month.

Other budget items which vary by region are campground fees and fuel prices.  Our fuel was under budget for the year.  Again, the prices of fuel were much cheaper in south Texas where we spent the winter.  Of course, fuel prices were much lower everywhere this year than last year.  Fuel was more expensive in Washington, but we did not tow as much during the 6 weeks we were in that area which kept our overall fuel costs down.

Our campground budget is $28/night, but we try hard to find something for less than $25.  We have done very well in this category this year.  Campgrounds vary widely in price, but as you would expect, they are more expensive near major attractions.  Since National Parks are generally a major attractions and that is where we want to be, sometimes we have to search pretty hard to find something suitable within the budget.  We have learned a few tricks.  Many campgrounds offer weekly and  monthly rates.  Sometimes it is cheaper to get a weekly rate and only stay 5 or 6 nights than to pay the nightly rate.  Same thing is true for a monthly rate.  If we are in an area which offers a lot of hiking or other attractions we are interested in, then we often stay a month.  Not only do we get the cheaper campground rate, but we also save on fuel as well.

Another area in which we were over budget was gifts.  What can I say, I have a new granddaughter.

In the beginning, when Gene was planning for our retirement, he adjusted our yearly budgets to reflect a 3.5% inflation rate.  We’ll get that small increase when our funds mature and become available to us for 2010.  So, we get what we get and there is no more.  Staying within the budget is crucial.  When thinking about where we would make adjustment for the coming year we always look at the big items first.  Our largest budget categories are campgrounds, groceries, fuel, maintenance and health insurance.  Health insurance is set and we have no control over that. Our rate this year is increasing, but not by much. Thank you, Lord.  Campgrounds have been under budget and even though we will be in the east where they tend to be a little more expensive, we plan several monthly stays so will leave that item unchanged.  Fuel has been under budget, but because we raised it last year to accommodate the higher fuel prices of the previous year, we are actually thinking about lowering it for the coming year.  The Everest will be under warranty until the middle of April, and since it is new, we don’t expect huge repair bills.  We have new tires on the truck and don’t anticipate anything major for it.  Therefore, maintenance will remain the same.  As I mentioned, groceries will be increased by $30/month.  I guess all the extra can be spent on Kayley.

Budgeting is a difficult but necessary task.  Staying within the budget allows us to continue to live our dream.  I have written about how we came up with a budget in a previous journal.  There are three entries (July 31, Aug 2, Aug 3, 2008) in the New York journal which deal with planning for retirement and other budget considerations.

Now, I think I’ll go Christmas shopping.

Travemunde, Germany

We have had two quiet days close to home.  After a very busy week last week, we needed a couple down days.  I guess whether you would also consider them relaxing, would be a matter of opinion.

Yesterday, Gene spent most of his day outside.  He finally had a chance to wash the thick, black layer of bugs off the front end cap which have been there since our trip to South Carolina.  He also went to Camping World to purchase a tube of self-leveling caulking for the rubber roof.  The Everest dealer in Columbia had mentioned that it was good idea to keep a tube on hand.  When he returned from Camping World, he spread a little of the caulking on the area of our leak.  He also spent some of his day socializing with the neighbors.

I stayed inside all day except for the laps I walked around the campground.  I busied myself with my photos again.  This time it was older pictures.  When I got my Apple, I also purchased an external hard drive to use for backup and storage.  I have many CDs of a lifetime of photographs and am ever so slowly copying them back to the computer to be stored on the external hard drive.

Our hotel in Travemunde

Yesterday, I came across these photos of a trip we made to Germany in April of 2007 for a wedding.  Since our life while in Nashville visiting with family and friends is probably quite boring to the reader interested in a travel journal, I thought these photos might help break up the monotony of cleaning, hiking, and family dinner together.

We spent our first night in Travemunde, the small seaport hometown of the bride. It was a family wedding so there were several family members there with us--my parents, and two aunts and uncles.  We spent the morning strolling along this one street bordered on one side by shops, boutiques, and outdoor cafes and on the other by the river.  The ladies, as you can imagine, were in the shops making purchases.  The men waited on the sidewalk.  Gene did a little shopping, as well.  The airline managed to get him to Germany, but not his suitcase.  He had to buy a suit for the wedding.

The building where the wedding was held

The wedding was held at the Kempinski Grand Hotel in Heiligendamm.  The hotel complex was made up of several buildings and sat facing the Baltic Sea.  I have never (and never expect to again) been in such a fine hotel.  Our room was in the building called “the little castle”.

The Little Castle

At the time of this wedding, Gene and I were both still working part time and did not have the opportunity to spend the ten days after the wedding with the rest of the family as they toured Germany.  Instead, because of airline delays, we were only able to be there for 3 days.

On the Baltic Sea

Today has been another semi-relaxing day.  We did our walk at Beaman Park this morning and I spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing for company tomorrow.  Gene was outside again; this time washing most of the rest of the Everest.

Tomorrow, we will be back at Beaman Park in the morning, but we will take along our good hiking buddy, Herb.  He is getting homemade chicken noodle soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, and freshly baked peanut butter cookies for lunch.

Family for Dinner

My uncle and aunt, Edd and Nancy, came for dinner this evening.  I meant to take their picture, but I forgot.

I certainly didn’t go all out with a big, elaborate meal.  We’re just country folk and beef vegetable soup and cornbread is perfectly fine fare for us.  Not only was it nothing special, I used some leftover roast beef from a meal Gene and I had a couple weeks ago.  Roast beef with carrots and onions makes the best stock for soup, anyway.  There was about half of the roast left and I threw in a bag of frozen mix vegetables.  How easy is that?  Maybe I should say “bam” or “yummo” or some other culinary expression.  The only thing else is cornbread with lots of butter (butter makes it better, you know).

I did fix a nice dessert.  Apple pie would have just about set the meal free, but I decided to have apple and pear crisp.  It is a Barefoot Contessa recipe which I make often during the fall season.  All kidding aside--it is fabulous.  With a scoop or two of premium vanilla ice cream, it is a dessert to rival chocolate any day.  Definitely “good eats”.

Since I didn’t spend my day slaving over a hot stove, I did what was expected when family comes to dinner.  I cleaned house.  You know--the kind of house cleaning you do when your mother comes.  My uncle is what I lovingly call the gold standard in neat, clean, and organized.  My mother cannot hold a candle to her little brother.  So I cleaned.  I vacuumed every square inch of carpet, I vacuumed the window treatments, bedspread, and lamp shades.  I scrubbed the floors, washed the windows, and dusted all the cabinet doors.

I did not rearrange my closet.  I closed and latched the door, however.  His closet is looks like one of those advertisements for closet organizers.  His shirts are arranged by color and sleeve length.  And they are all starched and ironed.  Gene hasn’t worn an ironed shirt since we moved into the Everest.

We had a wonderful meal together.  Gene did the tour since they had not seen our new home.  I hope he didn’t open any drawers.  We laughed and talked and planned Thanksgiving dinner at their home.  I think they had a good time; we certainly enjoyed having them.

The Warner Parks

Today was one of those beautiful fall days--one of bright sunshine, blue skies, and a pleasant temperature in the mid 60s.  You know what we did--we took to the trails of our favorite local park.  We put a couple loops together in Percy Warner Park today to make a 7-mile hike.

There are actually two Warner Parks--Percy and Edwin Warner.  Because they are located side-by-side, they are often referred to as the Warner Parks.  Together they include almost 2700 acres of forested land and meadows and offer hiking trails, horse trails, scenic roadway, an equestrian center, an educational/visitor center, softball fields, picnic shelters, and a dog exercise park.  All this within the city limits of Nashville.

The hiking trails are generally in loops with connector trails accessing the loops.  The enthusiastic hiker could put the loops together and create a 12 mile hike.  There are also about 18 miles of horse trail within the parks.  Horse and hiking trails are separate and although bicycles are not allowed on either of these trails, there is an extensive paved road system, some of which is closed to motorized vehicles, which is very popular with bicyclists.

View of Nashville from Lea's summit

For our hike today, we parked at the Deep Well parking area and took the connector trail to access the Warner Woods loop.  We made a quick side trip a few yards along the road to Lea’s Summit, a grassy knoll offering a fantastic view of everything between there and downtown Nashville--a distance of about 9 miles as the crow flies.  Lea’s Summit is one of our favorite lunch break places along the trail.  We went there first today so only stopped briefly for the view and a couple photos.

Visitor Center

Continuing around the loop, our next stop was at the terraced stairway which is the official Belle Meade entrance.  From our vantage point high on the hill just off the trail, we could see straight down the stairway and on out Belle Meade Blvd.  Back on the trail, we continued on around this smaller loop to the connector trail and joined the larger Mossy Ridge loop trail.  Mossy Ridge is the most strenuous of all the trails at Warner Parks.  Over its length of 4.5 miles there are several hills to climb.

Back at the truck by early afternoon, we were both pretty tired, but glad we had taken advantage of this gorgeous fall day to get outside and enjoy the weather.

Columbia, Tennessee

Today we took the Everest back to the dealer in Columbia hopefully for a final visit for repairs.  We had a short list today--secure the bedroom TV to the cabinet door, replace the hinges on a cabinet in the living room, and, most importantly, repair the leak on our main slide.

After we dropped off the Everest, we toured historic Columbia.  Located about 60 miles south of Nashville, Columbia is the county seat of Maury County.  It is a typical old southern community with the courthouse in the center of a “square” surrounded by local merchants.  Columbia, like so many of the small communities, is struggling during these economic hard times.  The downtown area family owned businesses are closing their doors as the outlying Wal-Marts and similar “all-in-one” discount stores claim the shoppers.  We walked around the square and were amazed that over half the stores were vacant.  About two-thirds of the way around our circuit, we were approached by a well-dressed gentleman who introduced himself as the Mayor.  He was proud of his hometown community of 80,000 folks and was eager to point out the improvements being made to the downtown area.

A couple blocks from the square at the corner of W 7th and High Street is the boyhood home of James K. Polk, the eleventh president of the United States.  The house was built by his father, Samuel Polk, in 1816 and was the first brick home in Columbia.  Polk lived in this home until he moved to Washington to serve in Congress.  We decided not to tour the home since we had done that a few years ago, but instead visited the small museum and gift shop.

James K. Polk Home

Maury County Courthouse

This area was the Antebellum south and there are still several plantation homes available for touring in the area.  

St Peter's Church

We found lunch at Lucille’s Restaurant just off the square on S Main St.  Lucille’s started out in the 1930s as a pie wagon catering the the factory which once stood on the corner of 8th and Main.  In 1952, Lucille moved into the current location.  Our waitress provided us with the history.  She has worked at Lucille’s for 38 years.  As a “meat and three” the specials today were chicken and dressing, pork chop, and grilled ham.  There was a long list of vegetables to select from and each plate came with rolls or cornbread.  Gene finally settled on the chicken and dressing with creamed spinach, candied yams, and one each roll and corn muffin.  I went with the tried and true cheeseburger.  It was not the best diner food we’ve had, but was far superior to anything we could have gotten at a fast food joint, and much cheaper.  Gene’s plate was less than $6 and my cheese burger was less than $3. We came in early, but by the time we got our food, the place had filled up.  You won’t be surprised to know that most of the diners looked to be over 50 and most new each other.

United Methodist Church

First Presbyterian Church

We also stopped in Ted’s Sporting Goods.  It was a small store filled to the brim with Carthart, camo, and wild game heads mounted on the wall.  To round out the selection of merchandise, there were a few “green egg” grills (which I’d never heard of before) and a nice variety of cast iron cookware.

They have called to say the Everest will be ready by 4.  All repairs are done and we are just waiting for the sealant to “cure” which is suppose to fix the leak.  I guess 4 is as good as we could have hoped for, however, it will put us back in Nashville just in time for the rush hour traffic.  Hopefully, we can stay put now until the end of the year.

Reflections on RVing--Home for the Holidays

As we began thinking about the full-time RV lifestyle and traveling for months at a time rather than the typical 2-week vacation, we realized we had to make accommodations for several things.  We started out with a fairly long list, but finally whittled it down to just a few--annual doctor’s visits (including dentists), registration and tag renewal for the truck, annual maintenance on the 5th wheel, and the all important family and friends.

We are each from families which are pretty close knit and have certain things which have become “family traditions”.  As we looked at the yearly events, we came to the conclusion that the time we most wanted to spend with family and friends was the November/December holiday season.  Since family and friends take the number one priority spot in our life, we made the decision in the beginning to arrange annual doctor and maintenance items around the winter holiday months.  That took a few years to get everything lined up to occur in November and December, but we “got ‘er done”.

The phrase “home for the holidays” takes on a whole new meaning for us now.  In early September we start scheduling medical appointments for early November--annual physicals, mammograms, dermatologists, dentists; every other year I get a bone density, and there is the colonoscopy from time to time.  November turned out to be a very busy month at RV service departments.  We have to call almost as far in advance for that as for our physicals.  Of course, we can and have gotten service done at other dealerships around the country, but we are familiar with the folks at Cullum and Maxey and have been happy with their service.  The first year we switched our truck registration from April to December was quite a hassle.  It was very difficult to make the clerk understand what we wanted to do and why.  After a lengthy discussion, she finally got it and the first year was prorated since we were already paid through April.

This schedule has also worked great for family and friend activities.  The majority of our friends are members of the hiking club.  After the heat of the summer, the cool days of fall are popular for hikes.  We like to take advantage of those group outings and we get to see far more of our friends that way than if we tried to get together individually.  The club also has a great holiday party in December which we always enjoy.

Like most families, we get together for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals together.  With so many different families involved, sometimes it takes several days to get that accomplished.  That just means we have that many more opportunities to stuff ourselves.  It’s a good thing those annual physicals are earlier than the holidays.

Even though these are very busy months for us, sitting in one spot for 8-10 weeks is not our style.  Hitch itch sets in after about 4 weeks.  Having come home early this year will make that even more difficult to deal with.  The week spent in Spartanburg and the Smokies really helped in that respect and we were actually anxious to get back to Nashville yesterday.  We’ll remember the effects of a single short trip away in the future and try to schedule doctor and maintenance appointments accordingly.

“Home for the holidays” is more than just gift exchange and good eats; it’s a very busy time for us.  However, we are very happy with our decision to spend this time of year getting all those chores done that require us to be in Nashville.

So....with that said--let the fun times begin!!