How long can she go?

When Miss Kitty gets warm, as sometimes happens when she is in the front window of Gracie facing west...

... it looks like she stretches out to an abnormally long length!

That fuzzy throw has colors so much like her own coloring that it is hard to see her sometimes if we just glance quickly! She sure does like to have a warm place to sleep!

Flowers

While Carl was driving to North Carolina with Jimmy,

... I was enjoying the flowers blooming around the farm.

Irises are so pretty!

The crimson clover cover crop is just so showy!

I also spent some time in the container looking for items that we have on our "get out of the container" list.

We have spreadsheets with many of the items in the container identified and where, approximately, they should be able to be found. Sometimes boxes get re-located and the spreadsheet doesn't get updated, but at least we generally know what the box looks like so we can try to find items by that description. It is easier if we at least know where to start looking for the items that we want to retrieve.

Another drive

Patti's brother, Jimmy, had contacted us a few days before we were to arrive to ask if Carl would be interested in taking a drive soon after we got to the farm. He needed to pick up a piece of farm equipment in North Carolina and Carl agreed to ride along. They ended up going on Tuesday after we arrived on the farm.

They left in the morning before sunrise -- Carl said he saw the moon about to set in the west before they left.

It was a 5+ hour drive to the farm in Fleetwood, North Carolina.

Prepared to load the spreader onto the trailer.

Nearly loaded

The family invited Carl and Jimmy for bar-b-que lunch which they thoroughly enjoyed. 

Then they had the 5+ hour trip back...

Nearly back to the farm, the moon rising.

It was a long day!

It's always somethin' - part 2, or 1 or ?

This is probably "It's always somethin'" part 1, because it occurred before the electrical problem...

When we stopped in Conroe, Texas, since we would only be there two nights, we intended to put the passenger-side front slide out. Our typical plan is to use the "big" slide on the front driver's side if we're going to be somewhere 3 or more nights, and to use the passenger front slide (not as deep) for stays of 1 or two nights. When we tried to put out the passenger front slide in Conroe, the slide locks unlocked, but the slide motor did not seem to engage and the slide did not move. We thought back, and it seemed that the last time we used the front passenger slide was at Licon Dairy in El Paso. Bummer, but not going to deal with it for now - we just put the front driver's side slide out.

When we got to the Cajun RV Festival in New Iberia, Louisiana, Carl had a little time that he could take to do some debugging. 

He located the two controllers for the slides on the passenger side of the rig -- they are located in one of the bays underneath.

He tried doing some wiring changes to see if he could get the slide to move.

The front switch that usually moves the front slide would not work...

... but with some additional manipulation to the wiring...

... he was able to get it to move using the slide switch in the bedroom. So, the motor of the slide works.

We decided we had done enough debugging to know that it wasn't a loose wire somewhere, but rather something that needs more diagnostics and probably parts that we don't have. We called Newmar (we are on a "cancellation list" to be notified if an appointment opens up at the factory service center for May) - they were not very hopeful that we would get in there and gave us a couple of potential places to try to get it serviced. One was a service center in Elkhart that we had visited back in 2020 (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-show-and-repair.html) - so we called them and were able to get an appointment in May. It means that we need to leave the farm 3 days earlier than we had planned, but we're hopeful they will be able to take care of the problem for us!

It's always somethin'!

We planned to continue east on Sunday and to stay at another Harvest Host Sunday evening, but in the morning before we left the vineyards, Carl realized that the batteries were not getting charged by the generator. This was a concern as we need to have battery power to get converted by the inverter to run the refrigerator as well as the other 110V electric devices on the rig. He opened the battery bay to disconnect the inverter/charger from the batteries momentarily -- sometimes this type of reset will correct problems that are occurring between the inverter and the batteries, but this time, it did not seem to help. While there, he noticed that there was some oxidation that had occurred on the connectors of the fuse link -- over time with rough roads, the nut holding the connection had loosened some and allowed vibration, arcing, and the oxidation. He cleaned it up some and tightened the nut, but none of that seemed to allow the batteries to charge from the generator.

You may be able to see some darkening at the nut on the right side...

... the cover showed that it had experienced heat (melted plastic)...

... so Carl tightened down the nut, but there were still issues.

We headed out from the vineyard on our way to Johnson City, Tennessee, where we hoped to connect with our friend, Kim's mother-in-law, Lisa. We were planning to stay at a Harvest Host in Johnson City, but with the batteries not charging by the generator, and clouds minimizing our solar charging, we decided we had better look for a campground for Sunday night.

We contacted the Harvest Host and let them know that we weren't going to be able to stay with them that evening. We met up with Lisa at a Sam's Club and she took us to Cheddar's where we shared a delicious meal with good company -- Lisa and her mother -- such good company that we totally forgot to take a picture!

We continued north, planning to get to a campground in Virginia where we've stayed before...

... "Welcome to Virginia" and "Virginia is for Lovers"

I called the campground and they had availability -- the office would be closing at 4pm, but they told me that we could pay in the morning.

We were a little concerned because of the distance to the campground and the fact that we would be crowding sunset in our arrival. We made it to the campground just before sunset, got into a site quickly, were greeted by the campground host (he ensured that we knew that the office was closed and that we'd need to pay the next morning), and got the electricity hooked up. We had a little bit of problem with the electric hookup and finally totally removed the positive cable from the fuse link and that allowed us to get it to work.

Everything worked fine at the campground, we were able to provide power to the refrigerator and other 110V appliances. We weren't charging the batteries, but figured sun on Monday would charge them as we drove.

On Monday, we drove on to my brother and sister-in-law's farm in Virginia, arriving about noon. We again had a problem getting power when we plugged in, so Jimmy helped in cleaning up the fuse link to allow it to work...

... you may be able to see that the plastic that the fuse link connects down onto is melted -- when Carl tightened the nut on Sunday morning, he didn't realize it was hot enough that the plastic was melted.

It turns out that the plastic base had also cracked. It just seems a poor design that all of these plastic parts are there that negatively impact the ability to effectively tighten the nut down.

Jimmy provided an air-powered metal sander and suggested a re-design that had nuts on both sides of the connector -- so Carl implemented that on Monday afternoon and we were able to get the shore power to successfully come into the rig.

We also found a replacement fuse link component that we've ordered.

As Carl often says, "It's always somethin'!"

And as some of the readers of our blog have commented, "It seems like you are *always* having to fix something!"

And, my response is: I am SO thankful that my husband is able to (1) notice that there is a problem (the batteries weren't getting charge by the generator) before we're in a critical situation, (2) he is able to figure out what the probable cause is to the problem, and (3) we have alternatives (we didn't *have* to stay at the Harvest Host and boondock when that would have caused us issues - we could find a campground and have electrical hook-ups that got us past that particular issue!).

Continuing East

From Nashville, we were continuing east to meet up with additional friends...

Gracie with the Jee-rage attached, prepared to leave South 40 Farm near Franklin, TN. We knew that the driveway was a bit narrow, and that the road in front could be quite busy with fast-moving traffic, so we were prepared to have to wait a bit for a break in the traffic, but it was surprisingly easy to get out and on our way.

We drove east around Nashville and then southeast toward Chattanooga for our next stop at Harvest Host Silver Springs Vineyard, near Riceville, Tennessee.

We went inside the restaurant to check in and were tempted by the beautifully decorated cakes!

Wowee!

We were directed to park parallel to the county road (up the hill on the left of Gracie) so we moved to this location -- the restaurant is right in front of us.

Friends Wayne and Nancy live near Chattanooga and they drove up to join us for dinner at the Greek restaurant at the vineyard. We enjoyed gyro platters and managed to avoid indulging in the beautiful cakes!

It was nice to visit with our friends and have a nice dinner as well as a safe place for the evening too!

Onward towards Nashville

On Friday, we left Thousand Trails Natchez Trace on our way up toward Nashville...

Very near the entrance to the Thousand Trails (and the most direct route to/from the Natchez Trace Parkway), there is an 11'0" bridge... thankfully other campground reviewers had indicated the route to take to avoid this hazard (and our Garmin did too as long as it knew how big we were).

We were heading up to Franklin, Tennessee, hoping to connect with Ruth Ann and Keith...

We ran into heavy traffic as we got onto I-65 -- and there were two halves of a house on the road too (you can see one of the halves over there on the main lanes). As far as we could tell, the slowdown was just due to heavy traffic -- there was construction, but they weren't actively working. The two house halves had to take up two lanes - but they were back in the traffic with us, so, unless there were more house halves ahead of us, I don't think that was the cause.

Maybe because of the stop at Thousand Trails, or maybe just happenstance, our second "Galen block" has split apart. They are so named because Carl's cousin Galen had told us to look around his place and see if there was anything we could use for blocks for the jacks -- and we found these stacked sets of plywood. That was back in 2021, and they have served us well, though they have been bending quite a bit in some sites. The first one split as a result of our own mistake -- we forgot to take the blocks out when we were leaving a Harvest Host back in March and it got driven over -- pretty rough treatment to the block! We usually use the Galen blocks for the jacks in the front of Gracie, and 6"x6" "bus blocks" for the back jacks. Because of the campsite we were in at Thousand Trails (the front needed to be jacked up further), we used the Galen blocks in the back, which put more weight on them, which may have caused the second one to crack. Carl took a picture so he can send it to Galen and ask if the lifetime guarantee will apply!

We've stopped for the evening at a Harvest Host near Franklin (south of Nashville), Tennessee. It turns out that we won't be able to get together with Ruth Ann and Keith which makes us sad -- but maybe we'll be able to meet up with them somewhere else down the road! This picture shows Gracie in the background in her parking location as I'm being greeted by two of the canine greeters at the Harvest Host.

Continuing on our journey!

Trace continued

After an unlevel and a bit warm and humid night at Jeff Busby campground...

..cooking breakfast in the morning. A couple of weeks ago, Carl had gotten egg rings to be able to cook eggs in a circular form for egg muffins -- the picture shows that we have shored up the induction cooktop with different shims to get it more level so the eggs will have a level base on which to cook! (Remember, our site was quite unlevel, which makes everything in the rig unlevel!)

We stopped at a pull-off to see a portion of the old Natchez Trace...

...it is still visible through the woods...

... packed down and solid (it looks like a creek at this point as there had been a little bit of rain).

We also stopped by the Tennessee River -- I had shown Carl a blog post from when Dwayne and I drove the Parkway in 2014, and he wanted to take a picture in the same spot (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2014/11/tennessee-river.html).

Thursday was a sunnier day...

... and we were about 100 miles further north...

Crossing the state border from Alabama into Tennessee

... the trees are a lot less leafed out...

... as we continue further north (and maybe some higher elevation too).

We drove on the parkway to the Meriwether Lewis Memorial site -- there we stopped to see the exhibit and were given a very interesting talk by the volunteer who is currently serving there -- he was quite engaging and made the history interesting. He and his wife have been fulltime RVers for just over a year now -- currently, she is still working, but is scheduled to retire by the end of May - and they are looking forward to being able to move campgrounds on days other than the weekends!

Here are pictures of some of the information in the exhibit area:

The monument is a column that is broken off, identifying a life cut short.

From the Meriwether Lewis exhibit, we headed out to the Thousand Trails Natchez Trace campground for our campsite for the evening.

There was a free campground at the Meriwether Lewis area of the Parkway, but after our experience the previous night -- not really able to find a site, and not level at all -- in addition to having no hookups so no water or electricity -- we decided to go to the Thousand Trails campground. We've never been to this one, and the reviews online are really bad, but we figured we'd have electricity and water, and be able to dump. It turns out we got full hookups (electricity, water, and sewer hookups), although only 30A, so we needed to be careful about our electricity usage. The site also was not very level, as you can possibly see that Gracie's front driver's side tire is way off the ground. But we enjoyed having electricity and air conditioning since that promised cold front has not yet arrived!

We enjoyed our journey up the Natchez Trace Parkway -- it was a bit narrow and no shoulders, but no commercial vehicles, and pretty light traffic. We actually met two 18-wheelers on Thursday -- not sure what they were doing on the parkway, but other than that, it was just passenger vehicles and a few RVs. It was a beautiful season of the year to be on the parkway - so we're glad we did it!

More friends and movin' up the Trace

On Wednesday morning, we had arranged to meet up with Ken and Mary Frances and their two daughters, Leslie and Elizabeth, at a local restaurant favorite, Mama Hamil's.

At the front is the small cabin which used to house the restaurant...

... the new building is much larger and still has large crowds (and beautiful roses outside!).

'Specially painted tractor out front

Mama Hamil's is a All-You-Can-Eat Southern Soul Food Buffet (https://www.hamils.com/). We had fried and baked chicken, ribs, chicken 'n' dumplings, turnip greens, black eyed peas, green beans, lima beans, all sorts of salads -- we tried to take a little of everything, but there just wasn't room on the plate -- and then you were so full you didn't need to go back -- but we did for desserts, anyway!

Ken, Mary Frances, Patti, Carl

Leslie, Mary Frances, Ken, Elizabeth, Patti

It was so good to reconnect with this sweet family. Leslie was in high school and Elizabeth in elementary (maybe middle?) school when I last saw them. So good to catch up with them and so nice that they all live close and can see each other often!

After lunch, we returned to the church (Harvest Host site) where we got Gracie ready to go, hooked up the Jeep, and headed out to get onto the Natchez Trace Parkway.

The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 444 mile long road...

... from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee...

... allowing no commercial vehicles...

... and roughly following the path of the Natchez Trace ("trace" = "trail" in French).

It was overcast and sprinkled some...

... but was still a beautiful springtime drive!

We planned to stop at Jeff Busby Campground, one of three free campgrounds located along the Trace. Dwayne and I had driven the whole length of the Natchez Trace Parkway back in November of 2014, and we had stopped at all three campgrounds. We knew that it may be more crowded since we're traveling in the springtime, but were hoping that since we'd be there mid-week, it may not be totally full...

It wasn't *totally* full, but we did not see an available site that we could fit in -- we noticed that a travel trailer was parked in one site that was quite long, and we had read in reviews that it was acceptable to ask other campers if you could join in their spot -- so we asked, and they said it would be fine. You may notice that Gracie is not quite level -- in fact, she had quite a lean toward the back driver's side, more than we could correct with jacks...

... so we decided to just put the one back slide out...

... and to just live with being un-level.

Information about Jeff Busby and why the park was named for him.

We walked up to a "viewpoint" about a mile up from our campsite...

... it wasn't much of a viewpoint, but we got out and did some walking!

It was quite warm and quite humid. We had run our generator much of the previous night at the church (they encouraged us to, indicating that Mississippi is hot and humid and we might need air conditioning). Since we were parked right behind our neighbor's trailer, we didn't want to disturb them running the generator much - so we ran it about an hour in the evening to cool Gracie down, and then appreciated having fans to help through the rest of the night.

We are surprised to already be experiencing 80s during the days, and weather only cooling off into the high 60s at night. There is supposed to be a cold front coming through in a couple of days, and we're looking forward to it!