Day 10 and 11 - On the Road home...Home

We departed our Great Smokies campsite about 8:30AM hoping to make it to at least PA this evening, at least 500 miles. Everyone comes down with "get-home-idis" around this time, but despite this I wanted to drive the historic route 73 through the park, it is about 20 miles of switch backs that follow the little river but is very scenic.  There are places where the road is cut into a cliff or under it where we had to be careful with our tall vehicles, some others left chunks in the road where they scraped the wall....we wanted no part of that.

It was a nice drive that eventually turn north to head up through Pigeon Forge, a tourist town where Dollywood can be visited. If you are into bumper cars, water slides and the like...Pigeon Forge is your place, it makes Lake George, NY look amateur in scale.

Tom really wanted to tour Dollywood but we had to move on.
















When we left Tennessee there was one more stop that Tom felt was necessary....Foamhenge. This is located in Natural Bridge, VA and you have to know it is there or you will never find it. Somehow Tom knew about it so we had to stop.

It is a pretty good replication of the original which took 1500 years and 1000 men to complete.  This one took 6 weeks, 4-5 Mexicans and one crazy white man to construct.

It is corny but pretty cool too.










After Foamhenge we pressed on and made it to Maryland, just a bit short of what we planned, but we had about 500 miles behind us and 500 in front of us. We pulled into a Cracker Barrel in Hagerstown, Maryland and had a good meal.

When we awoke in the morning it was 31F so we knew we were getting close to home.  We hit PA and that nasty white stuff...there was a strong pull to do a 180 and head south but we pressed on for home.

We arrived home about 7PM to a pretty nice sunset...it was 36F, cold but there is something that feels good about being home.














Overall it was a good trip, we traveled 2928 miles in just over 10 days, we had no mechanical issues and overall we successfully avoided the heavy traffic in the cites.

It would have been nice to have more time but we made the most of the time we had. The wedding was spectacular, the Smokies were stunning and visiting friends in DC and family in GA was priceless, to use a worn out phrase.

Day 9 - On the road home.

We left Randy and Sue around 9AM and headed north.  We have never really experienced the Smoky Mountains, so we pointed our little caravan towards Knoxville, TN with no real plan on where would stop or what we might see. The weather was quite nice, our travel was pretty easy without traffic issues and we had our meals on the road. 

Lunch in RT

Our typical rest stop on the road.

We drove until we reached the entrance to the Smoky Mountain National Park and picked a campground, pretty much at random. We made a good choice, we stayed at a KOA - Great Smokies in Townsend, TN. The people were very nice and suggested a wildlife loop in the park that we could complete before dark,

So off we headed to the Cades Cove Loop Road.  This is about 10 miles of one way road through the park that winds through swtich backs and hills with old buildings (cabins and churches). The wildlife on the loop is abundant, we saw 100's of deer, 2 bears, Turkey's and what we think was a coyote and the scenery was amazing. 

Deer everywhere you looked. 

And spectacular views.

This view was from the porch of one of the original cabins, it is pretty easy to see why people decided to live here. 

We think this guy was a coyote, but pretty large, could it be a wolf?

As we exited Cades Cove the sun was setting, the views could not really be captured by camera, at least with my skill....but they were godly. 

We headed back to camp and had a nice dinner and campfire, it was a long day of driving (about 500 miles) but we capped it with a very nice and relaxing sample of what the Great Smoky Mountains are all about. 

Day 7 and 8 - Travel to Randy and Sue's ...chilling out

The next few days are down time so we slept in a bit and then packed up camp.  It is about 3 hours from Tybee to Bonaire where Randy and Sue live. Tom needed a door for his truck that you just can't find in the north since they are all rusted. So we did a diversion to Macon where Tom had arranged a pickup.  This went relatively smoothly, I will just say we kept the doors locked in the section of Macon where the junk yards reside.

When we arrived at Randy's Don and Lou had beaten us there and were up on his new observatory deck sunning themselves.  Randy is a bit of a astronomer and had a permanent deck installed to put his big mirror telescope up where he can get a great view of whatever is out there.

It was a really nice day to be out in the sun.


Randy and Sue have a very nice spread with about 5 acres and a pond for their fish, turtles and geese. It makes a perfect campground complete with electric and water hookups...no charge...thanks bro!

Everyone had a good time just chilling, riding Ran's ATV around his property and enjoying a few adult beverages. 

 

Randy is currently providing free room and board for JJ's cat too.  And she is so appreciative.

We had a nice visit but time to head north..not looking forward to leaving the warm temps, but we plan to do some sightseeing on the way back home. 

About 1500 miles to get home...

Day 6 - Tybee Beach, Sam's Wedding

It is Friday March 27th, 2015 and it is a big day, not because it is my birthday but because today our niece Samantha gets married.  The wedding is not until 5PM so we decided to look around Tybee some in the morning.

We are camped at River's End Campground & RV Park.  Tybee is not very big, the fact that there is a campground on the island is amazing.

The campsite is only 1/2 mile from the chapel where Sam is getting married so we decided to take a stroll and check it out. It is pretty obvious why Sam and Dominic choose this chapel, it is beautiful.

 

We walked back to our campground and decided we would like to check out the beach, again it was only a 1/2 mile walk to the beach and historic lighthouse.  It felt just great to be able to walk on the beach wade in the ocean and not have to wear layers of clothing. It was not hot but definitely was tee shirt weather. 

The Tybee light house was one of the first in north america, around 1736, it was rebuilt about three times, but still all in the 1700's...pretty cool.




The coast of Tybee also has old structures that were clearly military defenses, part of Fort Screven, built as defenses during the Spanish-American war and remained in service until 1947, now they are storm shelters.

The beaches on Tybee are beautiful sand with lots of shells that wash up on the beach, we even had a live horseshoe crap come visit us.

 

When we arrived at the beach an elderly couple were sitting in the swing holding hands looking at the ocean, it was very sweet.  We can only hope to be so lucky in our twilight.

We let our feet soak into the warm sand and walked in the waves, what great feeling after such a long winter.

 






It was just a morning stroll but we sure soaked up the warm weather.

After the beach we walked back to camp to ready our selves for the ceremony. 

The ceremony was beautiful, Sam and Dominic looked like a bride and groom out of a magazine, they could not have looked better or more happy.  

Seeing brother Randy in formal attire, other than military dress, was a bit of a treat.







Brother Randy's speech and dance moves were displayed and he did himself proud.  I think Sam was relieved.. :-).

Weddings are great for getting together the family, it was nice to see everyone dressed  up and having a great time.

Fred, Randy, Candy and Don

 The Jaquishs were well represented...

Sue Sam and Randy

Candy, Michelle, June

The girls clearly had a good time.

Joe, Sue, Randy and JJ

Pretty smart looking family.

















The beautiful thing about having our campground 1/2 mile from the chapel is that we could walk, around 10PM the wedding wrapped up and we walked back to camp.

It was a great day and we wish Mr and Mrs Dominic Beovich nothing but years and years of happiness.
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