On The Road with Jim and Pat

Hello from Clarksboro, NJ

Draft started Sunday Evening – October 24, 2021   (sixth post of this travelogue)

Posted 10/29/2021

We are at the Philadelphia South/Clarksboro KOA Holiday campground (Google Maps)

{google_map}39.8054, -75.2403{/google_map}

I started this post, but did not get a chance to finish it.  Life has been hectic and now we are on the road heading towards Lincoln for my next NTT assignment.

This post will mainly document where we stayed while I taught at Boeing.  As time permits, I will add some discussion about our tours in Gettysburg and a bit about our stay in NJ.

More to come

Hello from Gettysburg, PA

Friday evening– October 22, 2021   (fifth post of this travelogue)

We are at the Artillery Ridge Campground (Google Maps)

{google_map}39.8011, -77.2270{/google_map}

Tuesday we had a laid back day and only drove around the huge campground.  The property is about 5 miles long and has been in the family since 1957.  They opened it to the public in 1960.   It has two large lakes and several camp areas, most of which are dry camping/tent sites.  It turned out to be a great campground.  By Wednesday were the only campers in the facility.  I suspect that it gets rather crowded on the weekend.  They have jeeps, horses, and canoes for rent.  There is even a sand beach on the lake.

Wednesday we toured the Shenandoah National Park.  We entered from the north.  Our first stop was the Dickey Ridge Visitor Center, where we got to experience a great ranger presentation that focused on how the early settlers farmed and preserved their food.  We then continued along Skyline drive to Skyland Rustic Resort where we had a great lunch.  Skyline drive is very much like the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It is a very twisty road with beautiful views of the valleys far below.

The mountains in this area are quite different from those in Colorado.  They do not have the same elevation raise, but we saw a sign showing an elevation of over 6500 feet.

Yesterday we drove a relatively short distance to Gettysburg (about 100 miles).

This will be at least our third visit to Gettysburg.  The first was in 1980 in our VW bus with all the girls.  Lisa even commented that she remembers being here.  It was a wonderful visit.  At the time they had cassette tapes you could play in your car radio.  It told you where to drive on a map and then gave you a narrative about the battle at that location. Our tour was close to a great sunset and the sights were so impressive. Attached is a fun photo of that VW.

If you scan out a bit on the Google Map, you will see that we are less than a mile from the battlefields.  This campground would fall into the “OK” category.  That said, because of the location we had to pay $79 last night and $99 tonight!  As has been the case in most locations on this trip, it is not easy to find a camp spot – especially on the weekend.

We are still working on getting the trailer modified to make it more suitable to the way we are used to camping/traveling.  We are not able to “boon dock” which would really make our travels a bit easier when we are going cross country.  It is so convenient to pull into a Wal Mart and spend the night without having to set up the trailer.  I have installed an inverter to supply 120V power off the batteries, but the wiring is not completed.  Also, the water supply tank is pretty small.  I will add a second tank over the winter.  Staying in campgrounds is not all bad – except for the cost and the resources needed to find one.  Not worrying about power and water (and to a degree sewer every so often) is pretty nice.

More to come

Hello from Gore, VA

Tuesday evening– October 19, 2021   (fourth post of this travelogue)

We are at the Cove Campground (Google Maps)

{google_map}39.2174, -78.3715{/google_map}

Pat (and I) originally labeled this another “pretty campground from hell”.  Pat hated the 30-mile road into the campground (we are way off the beaten path with twisty narrow roads) and I was pretty upset with the attitude of the person who checked us in and the fact that it appeared with did not have any phone signal or WiFi to the camp spot (according to miss congeniality).  It turns out that we have great TV satellite reception, enough AT@T signal to get texts and manageable phone calls (some issues) and very good internet via our Verizon MiFi.  To top all of that, it is beautiful here.

One of the fun things that happened to us was that we have been visited several times by goats.  They use the goats to control weeds, but right now they are letting them free range.  I have included a picture of me feeding them Iowa corn.

Prior to coming here we did some touring of the Blue Ridge Parkway from our camp site in Willis, VA.   Saturday we traveled north along the parkway to Roanoke (perhaps 50 miles).  Our goal was to go to a WalMart to get some prescriptions filled.  While we were there we ate at a Bojangles fast food restaurant.  They are famous in this part of the country.  Most of the menu items are chicken variations.  We returned via the interstate.

Sunday we drove south about 50 miles to the Blue Ridge Music Center where we got to hear some local musicians perform music from this area (similar to blue grass).  The visitor center has a good museum that displayed various musical instruments associated with the regional music.  I have included a photo of the group.

On the way home we stopped at the historic Mabry Mill and had a great dinner.  I have included a picture of the mill and will paste a great description of the mill history at the end of this post.  BTW,  that picture is one I took – not too bad huh?

The Blue Ridge Parkway is over 400 miles long and we traveled perhaps 150 miles of that route.  It is absolutely breath taking and varied in types of scenery.  While our goal  was to travel  the full  route, that was just not practical.  Here is a description of the parkway:

As a public works project begun during the Great Depression, the Blue Ridge Parkway is the first and longest rural parkway in America. Administered by the National Park Service, the 469-mile long Parkway extends through the southern Appalachians of Virginia and North Carolina, linking Shenandoah National Park and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Along the Parkway, travelers experience stunning pastoral and mountain vistas, and a great diversity of plant and animal life. In addition, visitors encounter the region’s history, culture and traditions of craft, music, and agricultural heritage, brought to life through historic sites, artifacts, displays, live interpretation and performance.

Below is a paste of information about the Mabry Mill.  It is rather lengthy, but I think it is good reading.

Mabry Mill is one of the most photographed sites on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Several hundred thousand travelers visit the Mill each year, a turn of events Ed Mabry probably could not have predicted when he built the Mill more than a century ago.

Around 1905 Ed and his wife Lizzie Mabry set in motion actions to realize the dream of their own gristmill.  With the help of a neighbor, Newton Hylton, they built the gristmill, waterwheel, and water supply flume system with hard work and hand tools. By 1908 the gristmill was in operation and people from as far away as eight miles were bringing their corn to be ground.  Also by this time Ed Mabry was ready to move on to his next project which was to build a sawmill on the left side of the gristmill.  While Ed was busy building the sawmill, Lizzie took over the milling duties at the gristmill.  Many said Lizzie was the better miller of the two.  There was a problem though.  Because the streams used to supply water to the mills were small, there was not enough needed water power.  Due to the lack of water power, the process of grinding the corn at the Mabrys’ mill took longer than at some of the other nearby mills.  Mills with plenty of water power would at times grind too fast.  The resulting friction turned to heat which would then burn and scorch the corn meal leaving it tasting bitter.  Because of the low water power problem at the Mabrys’ mill, it was known as a slow grinder.  Due to this problem the Mabrys could not grind the corn fast, but they also never burned or scorched the corn meal which resulted in some of the best tasting corn meal around. This news spread fast which brought many loyal customers to the Mabry’s  little mill.

Soon the sawmill was finished and Ed began to build a woodworking shop on the right side of the grist mill.  This shop had a double-bladed jigsaw, a wood lathe and a tongue and groover all run by the water-powered waterwheel.  This completed the gristmill complex with the sawmill, gristmill and woodworking shop all attached.

For convenience sake, the Mabrys now decided to build a new blacksmith/wheelwright shop beside the gristmill complex.  This was around 1913-1914.  Later, after many years of hard work building up their business at the mill site, Ed and Lizzie decided to build a new house for themselves.  Sometime around 1918-1920 the Mabrys built by their own hands and skill a two-story white farmhouse.  The approximate site of that house is where the Matthews’ cabin is located at Mabry Mill today.

The National Park Service acquired the Mabry Mill property in 1938 after Ed died and Lizzie moved away.  The gristmill complex and the blacksmith/wheelwright shop were deemed historically significant by the Park Service as representing the rich cultural past of the Blue Ridge Mountain region.  In 1942 those structures were completely restored, giving the Blue Ridge Parkway yet another gem along its beautiful winding 469 miles through the heart of Appalachia.  Every year Mabry Mill, the legacy which Ed and Lizzie left us, is visited by people from all over the world.  We invite everyone to come visit us here.  Enjoy some great food, great music, great history, great people, and all that is Mabry Mill.

More to come.

Hello from Willis, VA

Sunday evening– October 17, 2021   (third post of this travelogue)

Well, we have had a change of plans.  Our original plan was to drive the full length of the Blue Ridge Parkway – stopping at campground along the way.  However, we drove a length of the parkway from Cherokee to Ashville without the trailer and it  was like driving our twisty North Turkey Creek road most of the way (not quite that bad, but close).  We quickly decided that driving with the trailer would not be fun.

So,  we decided to pick two locations adjacent to the parkway and camp in those locations for three nights each and tour as much of the parkway as possible from each campground.

Our first stop was at the “Daddy Rabbit” campground close to Willis, VA  (Google Map).

{google_map}36.8213, -80.4290{/google_map}

Pat has labeled this the “pretty campground from hell”, but it really is very scenic.   Her objection was how difficult it was to back the trailer into the spot in the very tight space between a bunch of trees.  In addition, it is very wooded and we are not able to get a TV signal (not the end of the world, but we wanted to watch the races this weekend).  Also, the power was only 20 amp, but that is plenty since we do not need to run the AC – indeed, it was rather chilly this morning and the inside of the camper was 50 degrees when we got up.

At this campground, neither our AT&T or Verizon MiFi work for internet.  The campground has WiFi, but it is pretty slow.  Yesterday we traveled to Roanoke via the parkway and took my laptop so that we could make reservations for the next two stops.

Speaking of campgrounds, it is very difficult to find a spot in most campgrounds.  We have to do a Google search for campgrounds in the selected location and then start calling until we find one with a space.  It is not for a lack of campgrounds.  There seem to be several for every selected location, but they are mostly booked up.

So far, the weather has been fantastic (except for the one windy day).  Daytime temperatures are mostly in the 80s and evening temperatures are in the 60s (give or take 10 degrees).  We have had a few rain showers, but nothing that interfered with our travels.

At first we were disappointed that we had not encountered fall colors.  We are now a bit further north and the colors are better, but we have not seen much of the red colors.  We hope to get into even better colors in the next few days.

I have included a photo of our “Daddy Rabbit” camp spot and of the colors we saw yesterday.

More to come.

Wednesday afternoon – October 13, 2021   (second post of this travelogue)

As I mentioned in the first post of this travelogue, we are on a rather extensive journey.  I have a teaching assignment at Boeing in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania.  We are driving there in our truck and camp trailer.  We are taking a route that we hope will be very scenic.  Our current location is a the Happy Holiday Campground (Google Map)

{google_map}35.47136, -83.24546{/google_map}

Since leaving Corning, we have travelled about 1000 miles.  We stopped in campgrounds in Boonville, MO; Benton, Il; Lebanon, TN and now here.  The campgrounds have been anywhere from primitive (Boonville) to gorgeous (here).  We have paid a bit over $30 in two locations and over $50 per night in Benton and here.

We have planned the trip so that our travel days are less than 300 miles.  The first two days were uneventful, but the trip from Benton to Lebanon was extremely windy.   The  truck and trailer were a bit  “twitchy” so I stopped and bought/installed a sway bar (had intended to do that before we left).

Our trip yesterday had the earmarks of the trip from hell mixed with some very beautiful driving.   We decided to take the route from Lebanon through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg – bad mistake.   Both had traffic gridlock.  The towns are tourist traps and driving  a truck/trailer through the narrow streets was not fun.  After leaving Gatlinburg, we drove through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and it was amazing.

Once we got to Cherokee the Google Maps demon kicked in and guided us into a private area with nowhere to turn around.  It took us well over an hour to jockey the combo around in a person’s yard.

As I said, this is a beautiful campground and we are about 100 feet from a beautiful fast flowing stream.  There is a good sized lake on the property with lots of ducks that want you to feed them.  I have included a couple of photos.

More to come.

Hello from Corning, IA

Friday Morning  – October 8, 2021   (First post of this travelogue)

Well, we have embarked on a rather extensive trip in our truck and camp trailer.  We are currently camped at Lake Icaria which is just north of Corning (Google Map)

{google_map}41.04577, -94.742819{/google_map}

This part of the trip was what Pat calls a “Cousin’s Reunion”.  We left Evergreen around 9:00 Thursday (9/30) and travelled to Kearney, NE.  We caravanned with Pat’s brother, Jeff and his wife Julie, and Pat’s cousin Linda and her husband Don.   Jeff and Julie had travelled from their home in Guffey, CO and stayed in their camp trailer at our house Wednesday night.  We met up with Linda and Don in Hudson, CO.

We had reserved sites at the Kearney RV Park & Campground.  The campground was clean and well laid out.

Both legs of this trip (Evergreen/Kearney/Corning) were uneventful.  We held our speed to around 68 MPH which is a good speed for all of our vehicles.

On Saturday we attended a large auction at the Kretzinger Auction Building.  There was an amazing variety of items including several large vehicles/implements.  As is always the case, we really enjoyed ourselves.

The reunion was amazing.  Over a several day period, we got to see almost all of the cousins/relatives.  I have included a photo and a document listing the folks who attended.

20211006 Cousin Reunion Roster revised

More to come.

Hello Again from Centennial, CO

Thursday evening  – September 23, 2021   (First post of this travelogue)

Actually I am cheating a bit here.  It is Wednesday 10/6/2021 and I am in Iowa (a new travelogue to follow).  However, I like to bookmark every “trip” for our blog/travelogue.  So here goes {grin}:

Well, I am back at NTT for three days this week.  I have been teaching our Mechanical Drives class to a grand sum of two students.  Both students work at the mint in Denver.

It was a great class.  Having only two students makes the hands-on labs so easier and each lab can be done right after the chapter has been covered.

The students were very interactive between themselves and with me.  That makes the class very fun to teach.

Mechanical Drives class (bearings, belts, chain, gear, couplings, lubrication,  etc) is the first class I taught at NTT in 2000.  While I now teach several other classes, this is my favorite, because it gives the student a good overview of almost all of the components they are likely to  work on in their job.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from close to Guffey, CO

Draft started Monday afternoon– September 6, 2021   (First post of this travelogue).  Posted Monday September 13, 2021

We are spending the Labor Day weekend at Pat’s Bother’s place.  Jeff and Julie are simply great folks and so generous to offer their wonderful “homestead” to us and our family.  Their acreage is located about 15 miles from Guffey, Colorado.  The map for this travelogue is centered in Guffey since we don’t want to show our actual location because it is private property (Google map).

{google_map}38.7531, -105.5199{/google_map}

This has been an amazing weekend.  We arrived about 1;00 PM on Thursday (9/2) and will leave tomorrow. Daughter Lisa and all of her family made it at various times.  Shawna (Jeff and Julie’s daughter) and her family were here as well.  It was such a great “mix” of folks (and four dogs {grin}see photo).

This was a pretty laid back gathering.  Some folks took a long hike into the BLM land that borders on their property.   A couple of the Kassel guys did some target practice with their sophisticated bows, and several of the folks did target practice with pistols and rifles.  The variety of firearms was amazing.

Thursday night we went into Guffey and had a great dinner at the Freshwater Bar and Grill.  This place has the decor and friendly atmosphere that you would expect in a very small town – lots of fun.

Boy, did we eat well.  Dan brought his large double burner stove and a special grill that he made for it.  He prepared several meals and they were fantastic.  In addition, they brought at least 40 breakfast burritos for the group.

I am including a couple of photos to show how beautiful the area is.  A couple of the photos are taken facing south and show the adjacent BLM land.  One of the photos shows us on our 57^th anniversary.

That is all of this blog.

Hello from Bonneville, UT

Tuesday evening  – August 10, 2021   (First post of this travelogue)

I am starting this post while sitting on the salt at Bonneville (Google Map)

{google_map}40.775600, -113.87667{/google_map}

Bonneville is right on the Utah/Nevada border at exit 4 on I80 close to Wendover, UT/NV.  For those that know me, you know that this is a very special event for me.  I first came here in 1990 and have been to around 20 events since then.

Last year I wrote:

 “I had hoped that Pat and I could drive the bus with my 59 IHC truck on my trailer, but just ran out of time to get everything ready for the trip.  The truck would have fit in so well with all the crazy vehicles that show up at Speed Week.”

Well, since then we have sold the bus and I had planned to pull the IHC out with the new-to-us truck.  As always seems to be the case, I ran out of time again.

The past two years I have rented a car and used it as my “motel”  at a camping area close to the salt.  This year I rented a truck and it worked out pretty well.  I used a air mattress in the bed and slept pretty well.

The weather at Bonneville varies significantly from day to night.  During the day it is close to 100 degrees and it gets very chilly (low 60s to high 50s) at night.  This year I brought a sleeping bag and I am sure glad I did.  Two nights I had to get up and put on a sweat shirt for added protection.

I left Evergreen Friday and drove to Rock Springs, WY, where I stayed at the motel 6.  I am finishing up this blog from the same motel on the way home.  Those of you that follow this blog know that our hotel of choice is the Holiday Inn chain.  However, they have really raised their rates over the past year.  To stay at a Holiday Inn property here would be over $200 (with my discount).  The motel 6 rate is $62 with taxes!  I took the I80 route since I70 is closed in the Glennwood Canyon area with little chance of opening in the near future

I arrived on the salt around 11:00 AM Saturday about the time the racing started.

The salt condition this year was the best it has been for many years .  Because of the good salt conditions, several records have been set and one car just went 460 MPH!

Over the years, a mining company has been pumping the brine off the flats and the salt thickness has gone from maybe 5 inches 30 years ago to less than one inch now.  Supposedly they are now taking the components they want out of the brine and pumping the salt back.  The condition of what is left of the salt is mostly a function of the rain.

Bonneville is a mix of exciting sights AND sounds of the race cars as well as an amazing car show that all the spectators bring.  The car show is unlike any that you will find anywhere.  Many of the cars are very old primitive “hot rods” and early customs.  Almost all of them are pretty basic (almost read crude) construction and that fits me just fine {grin}.

As a part of the tradition of car/truck camping the past three years, I drive to the salt just before sunrise and then fix my favorite coffee (Peets) using a special K cup device and boiling water from my camp stove.  Watching the sun rise and drinking great coffee on the salt  — it does not get any better that that.  Then I fix a freeze dried breakfast and relax.

My kitchen and bedroom on the salt

Today I left the salt about 11:00 am and drove back to Rock Springs, WY.

That is all for this trip.

Hello from close to Salina, KS

Sunday afternoon– July 25, 2021   (First post of this travelogue)

We are in a beautiful Bureau of Reclamation Campground about 30 miles from Salina, KS (Google Map)

{google_map}38.610997,-97.95573{/google_map}

We made this trip so that I could attend the KKOA Leadsleds (link to KKOA).  I have been attending this event off and on for over 35 years.  Indeed, we first drove the 56 Chevy to the 1987 event in Springfield, IL (and I had attended quite a few before that).

With our senior discount, this campground is a very low cost “place to stay”.  The hotels tend to jack their prices up for the event.  Also, most of the good hotels book up quickly.  The downside is that the internet connections via cell phone suck.   Indeed, we will be driving towards Salina this afternoon until we get a decent signal so that we can upload this post and do some other internet intensive stuff.

We stayed here in 2016 for the same show.  That year we drove the bus and pulled the Durango.  This year we have the Dodge truck and camping trailer.  I had hoped that the truck with the Cummins diesel engine would have gotten better mileage, but we had a ton of side and headwinds the whole trip.  The truck computer said we got 9.3 MPG which is still not too bad for our combination.  I reset the computer for my two trips Salina (truck only) and it indicated over 20 MPG.  It will be interesting to see what we get going back.

There were well over 1500 cars registered for the event.  Some, like me, probably register but don’t bring their cars.  The park is huge, but almost all of the participant parking areas (many on the grass) were filled up on Saturday.  The quality of the cars varies quite a bit.  Many, like the 56 Chevy, are not show cars, but hold their own with a lot of the cars.  Some of the cars are true masterpieces or “works of art”.  No matter, they are all fun to see.  I have included a couple of pictures.

I have started to get the 56 back into a condition that will allow us to drive across country so that I bring it to the show again.  Over the years, I did a lot of patching of systems to keep it going, but those patches catch up with you and the rebuild project is pretty daunting.  Over the past couple of years, I did quite a bit of work on the paint and body (the paint was in terrible condition), installed a new cooling system, and I am in the process of upgrading the air-conditioning system, and totally rewiring the car.

I would love to bring one of my cars to a future event so that I can be a “real” participant again.  It might be the ’56 Chevy which we would drive to the event, or it might be the ’50 Olds which we would have to bring on a trailer, as it is not set up for cross country driving.  Both need some significant work and I seem to get “derailed” from getting them completed.

We are staying over an extra day to relax and enjoy the campground.   On our way here we stayed in a campground in Colby, KS and will stay in a campground in Burlington, CO on the way home.  Salina is close to 500 miles from Denver and that is more than we want to drive in one day.

When we had the bus, it was easy to pull into a WalMart to stay the night.  Our current trailer electrical system does not allow “off grid” camping –  thus dictating staying in a campground.  I am in the process of updating the electrical system with an inverter that will make us independent of the “power pole”.  I almost got it completed for this trip, but ran out of time.  We have another issue of not having a generator for the air conditioner, but that will be a future project.

That is all of this post.