On to visiting family in Elizabethton

On Monday, we reversed course a little bit and headed northwest to Elizabethton, TN where Carl's daughter, Kim, and granddaughters (recently arrived back on the mainland from Guam) are staying with Kim's mother-by-love, Lisa. Kim's husband, Kent, is starting a new job in Minneapolis and has just recently left to drive there to start training. We were able to meet up with them for dinner at Golden Corral, and to see the girls at a local gymnasium practicing gymnastics and parkour. 

We had planned to stay at a very small campground (5 sites) nearby. When I made the arrangements to stay there, the lady suggested that we disconnect the Jeep before arriving at the campground. I used the satellite view in Google Maps to look for a place where we could stop and disconnect and found a car dealership that looked to have a large lot with a lot of empty space (of course, the satellite view is just a point-in-time view that could be drastically different when we arrived). It turned out that the lot was much as the satellite view showed, and we were able to park and disconnect the Jeep.

We knew that we needed to get an alignment done on the Jeep, so Carl walked over to the dealership and asked about getting that done. The lady he spoke with indicated that their bay for doing alignments was booked for about a day and a half, "correcting a previous service that went terribly wrong".  *That* did not sound good - but she recommended that we check with the shop next door, and they indicated that they could try to work us in Monday afternoon or we could get it in first thing on Tuesday. Since we had plans to meet up with Kim and the girls, we decided we'd plan on doing it Tuesday morning.

Just to be sure, we drove to the campground in the Jeep to make sure we knew the way - we missed the turn in the Jeep (made us thankful that we had not been in the motorhome). When we got to the campground, we decided that it was not prudent to bring Gracie to the campground - the entry was on a hill, had a sharp turn, and a tree stump that would be tricky to avoid with the length of Gracie... so now we needed to find a place to stay. Carl checked with the dealership where we were already parked - she indicated that we could stay there but that the gates were locked at night. Carl checked with the dealership next door where we were planning to get the alignment done, and they were fine with us staying there.

Evidently this area of the lot would normally have cars for sale parked on it...

... but it was totally empty and we were able to spend a quiet night.

Carl greeting his granddaughters as they arrived at Golden Corral.

The Jeep's alignment was completed on Tuesday morning (albeit with some challenges), and we met up with Kim and Lisa and the granddaughters at First Watch for breakfast or lunch. It was a very quick visit, but Carl was so happy to reconnect with his daughter and granddaughters, and I was so glad to meet them all!