Tag: kentucky

Motorhome dead …

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Equipment, Escapees, Food, Traveling

We left Dale Hollow on Thursday July 1st and headed to Lexington Kentucky Camping World. We had made arrangements ahead of time to buy and install a new Sleep Number bed there because it’s priced at $300 below the price at the Sleep Number store. Further, if we ordered it from Sleep Number direct online, there would be no way to get rid of our old mattress.

Alex at Camping World of Georgetown (north side of Lexington) was great. He had the boxes ready and waiting for us. He and I pulled our old mattress out of the coach and got it into his dumpster and he and another young fella brought the two large boxes into the coach for us. Then it was our job to figure out how it went together.

Not a lot of room to work – See how Kathy’s a little flustered?

It had been raining all the way up to Lex from Dale Hollow and was still raining hard at Camping World. We just parked in the lot, fired up the diesel generator, turned both a/c units on high, and dug into the instructions. It took us about two hours to get everything hooked up and inflated since we had to read the instructions and we didn’t have much room to unpack things in the confines of the coach. But now that we are “experienced professionals” we can install yours in likely less than an hour!

Our plan was to move the coach down the street to Cracker Barrel where there is RV parking. We’d have our dinner there, spend the night, have a good breakfast before heading on up to Ohio.

As we pulled down the Camping World driveway to head around the corner to Cracker Barrel, the coach lurched and slammed to an immediate stop. It was as if we hit a brick wall! But I was able to put it in neutral and re-start the coach. It idled fine and we were able to make it the two blocks to Cracker Barrel.

In the Cracker Barrel parking lot for the night w/ all the other RV’ers

HAH! The best made plans ….

We went on into CB for a Comfort Food dinner as we were feeling kind of nervous about what was to come in the morning.

Kathy’s dinner of turkey and dressing and my chicken pot pie

We stayed the night comfortably although I was thinking all sorts of terrible things about transmission (expensive) and engine (super expensive) problems that could be diagnosed.

I needed to do some research on what the problem was and try to figure out what the next step should be in the morning. I went to my favorite source of information for all things technical related to RV’s. It’s www.irv2.com. irv2.com is an owners forum that has a whole host of sub-forums that are specifically focused on; brands and types of RV’s, areas of interest (i.e. appliances, heating/cooling, solar, body/paint, technology, drive trains, engine types/brands, and transmissions)

I decided that this seemed to be a transmission problem because the shifter panel (It’s an Allison 3000 electronic transmission) showed a flashing “X” instead of “D” or “N”.

Within the Allison transmission sub-forum I found where an owner had posted that the transmission needs a good clean 12.6 volts to the TCU (Transmission Control Unit (Computer)) in order to operate. When the coach would shudder to a halt, all the warning lights on the dash would light up like a Christmas tree. They blink erratically along with the warning buzzers and chimes sounding erratically. It acted like a dead battery problem although I was always able to restart the engine.

Thanks again to irv2, I found the Allison diagnostic routine and trouble codes published online. The procedure produced a Code 35 which told me that the TCU had a “power interuption”. This further confirmed my suspicion that the problem was most likely a loose or corroded connection somewhere between the battery box and the TCU.

In the morning I made a couple phone calls and talked with Freightliner in Lexington and they told me that there was an Allison dealer just up the road about 4 miles from where we were parked at Cracker Barrel. I called them (Clarke Power Services), talked with Steve in their Service Department and told him we’d try to limp up to see him.

Turned out we couldn’t make it more than just out of the Cracker Barrel parking lot and just started to turn the corner into State Route 60 when we crapped out again.

I called our Escapees RV Club Roadside Assistance Service and they sent out Roberts Heavy Duty Towing to take us down the road to Clarke Power Service.

Although we had to wait a couple hours for the tow truck to arrive, the time spent wasn’t a total loss. We used this time to move some things we’d need over the next week or so from the coach into the car. We had to copmpletely empty the fridge and freezer into our cooler and cold bags. We had to pack a few clothes, all our meds, important papers, cell phone chargers. Being that we didn’t really KNOW how long we would be homeless made the “take with” list a little difficult to determine. We used the rest of the time, walking back into Cracker Barrel for breakfast!

CB’s yummy Breakfast Scramble with ham, bacon, & taters

We had a pleasant surpise while we were eating breakfast. The waitress came up to our table (as we were finishing eating) to tell us that our meals were paid for. Turns out, when Kathy went to the ladies room earlier, another customer commented on her Glacier National Park shirt. The lady said they used to live out that way. As they talked, Kathy told her about the mechanical problems we were having and that we’re waiting on the tow truck. They told the waitress that they wanted to pay our bill and then they left so we didn’t get an opportunity to thank them so we’re doing it here – Thank You so much!

WOW – Fast Service!

Steve from Clarke Power Services emailed me this morning to let me know the coach is fixed. The technician found a junction box mounted along the frame that had worked loose and the wires inside were corroded and loose as well. He repaired the junction and placed the wiring into a new box and tested. All is well in the world.

We’ll head on down to pick it up and get it back here to Ohio. My hip replacement surgery is scheduled for July 22nd and the doc says it’ll be a couple weeks long recovery until I’ll be able to drive the coach at which time we will be heading west to Oregon to join our Escapees RV Club friends for a 10 day long rally along the Oregon coast.

So long for now, thanks for reading and riding along. Take care,

Herb & Kathy

All Good Things Come To An End

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Camping, Family, Traveling, Volunteering, Working

It’s been a great 3 months at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park. We’ve been Camp Hosts here. Not only is the park laid out beautifully with eighteen camp site loops of 8 spaces each (laid out in a wagon wheel fashion), but the work has been easy with plenty of unscheduled time available to us.

And the people – all the staff here have been just fantastic to get to know and to work with. We’ve been invited to come back in the future and who knows? It just might happen!

  • View from a hilltop (lots of campfires)
  • The amphitheater
  • Another look
  • The marina
  • Our site

Some special people in our lives made our visit here really special. In early May our daughter and son-in-law (Sara and Stu) came down for a visit. They rented a camper right across from us. It was a great week! Stu got a lot of fishing in while we visited with Sara and as you can see from the pictures, we enjoyed some great meals together too!

  • The rental camper
  • Little Looney basking in the sun
  • Waiting on our meal at Mike’s Landing
  • Catfish sandwich at the lodge
  • Stu and Sara as they departed

In early June, good friends from Ohio and Arizona came for a visit. We shared a few meals together, we visited the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, we rented a deck boat and spent time out on Dale Hollow Lake, and we enjoyed each other’s company around the camp fire in the evenings.

Enjoying the slide off the deck boat on the lake

We want to acknowledge some of the folks at the park that made our time there so enjoyable.

Jenny (in the first picture below) is the General Manager of the entire park. She and her staff of about 45 are responsible for the campground, the lodge and dining room, the golf course, the picnic areas, and all the 3400 acres within the boundaries if the park. Jenny’s a super hard worker, great at multi-tasking and utilizes a great management style that has earned the respect of her staff. It’s a well-oiled smooth run operation that everyone at the park can be proud of.

Our next special person is Bobbi. Bobbi has responsibility to run the Country Store at the entrance to the campground. This entails registration of all new campers as well as keeping the store well stocked with all the goodies – food, ice, and souvenirs that travelers are looking for when they check in to a new place.

Robert, along with his work partner Jeff play a super important role in the campground. They do a super job of keeping the bathouses spotless. As we talked with campers, they always told us what a beautiful campground we had and what a fine job we did keeping the bathrooms so clean. We were always quick to tell them about and give credit to Robert and Jeff.

The spotless air conditioned bath / shower houses

Another special person that helped make our time at Dale Hollow (although I neglected to get a picture) was Gary, or “Speck” as he’s known at the park. Speck is the maintenance manager and he helped us countless times by getting us any tools or supplies we needed to do our jobs. He was also just a great guy to sit and talk with a bit. As he told us “just a country boy”. We always enjoyed talking with Speck.

You might recall that our arrival here was delayed from mid-March to mid-April because of my scheduled left shoulder rotater cuff repair surgery. I had the operation in Ohio on March 16th and the doc wouldn’t release me to drive the coach until early April.

Still, even though I could drive, my shoulder was still very stiff (and weak) and we knew I’d need some rehabilitation therapy in order to get me to as close to full range of motion as possible.

Once we got to Dale Hollow, I registered with Cumberland County Hospital and received twice weekly physical therapy through May and June. We went first thing in the morning Mondays and Thursdays. Sonya, Melissa, and Veronica did a wonderful job, the hospital is lucky to have such a great team running their PT department.

Not only did I get shoulder therapy, but both Kathy and I were able to receive traction (spinal decompression) for lower back pain. We’ve found over the past few years that we try to take advantage of this therapy whenever we find it exists in an area that we are in.

Kathy on the “rack” (Spinal Decompression Therapy)

We were originally scheduled to stay at the park through the July 4th weekend and depart on the 6th of July. We found out the week before the 4th that due to an administrative error our site was reserved for the July 4th weekend. Due to the fact that the park was reserved fully for the holiday weekend, we had no choice but to depart early.

That was fine for us since I had this upcoming hip replacement surgery with pre-op testing, it actually worked out great for us to head on out.

All in all, it was a great experience at Dale Hollow and we will miss our new friends. Maybe sometime in the future, we’ll be able to come on down for a visit. As a matter of fact we are already talking with our “gang of eight” about renting one of those big houseboats for a few days next summer!

Thanks for riding along with us, now to head on up to Ohio for a month or so to get this hip surgery and some rehab taken care of before we head west to Oregon. More on that to follow.

Our Day Trip to Cumberland Falls

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Sightseeing, Traveling

We’ve been camp hosting at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park since the middle of April and our time here is quickly coming to a close. We try to get a away from the park periodically to see the surrounding area. Although the weekends find the park full and it’s necessary for us to be here, the weekdays are very quiet and so that’s when we take off and do a little sight-seeing.

This week we heard about 76 Falls and Cumberland Falls. Although we’ve been to Niagara Falls and we’ve seen 15 or 20 of the falls of the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, we wanted to see what this part of Kentucky had to offer.

76 falls is located just north of State Route 90 near Albany. It’s part of the extreme southwest corner of Lake Cumberland and offers a wonderful hideaway for the folks vacationing in one of the many rental houseboats on the lake. The small picnic area at the top of the falls, along with the steps up to the overlook were most likely built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) back in the 30’s as part of FDR’s plan to revitalize the country by getting able-bodied men and women back to work.

  • What goes down .. must come up
  • Houseboat near base of falls
  • Hard to see the falls through the foliage (falls at the left)
  • Looking down at the top of the falls

We moved on from 76 Falls and continued north and east to Cumberland Falls State Resort Park. It’s located right on State Route 90 southwest of Corbin, KY and alongside the Cumberland River. The state park is actually inside Daniel Boone National Forest!

You can see in this map the relationship between where we are working (Dale Hollow), Lake Cumberland, and Cumberland Falls. Dale Hollow is the lake at the bottom of the photo mostly in Tennessee, Lake Cumberland is the lake closest to Monticello, and Cumberland Falls as marked

This park has a beautiful lodge that was also built by the CCC in the 30’s and has been tastefully modernized while still keeping the historical and architectural value of a property nearly 100 years old. There are 51 lodging rooms, a restaurant on the lower level, a large veranda overlooking the Cumberland River, and a nearby campground with 50 camp sites, cottages, and cabins for rent.

  • Adjacent to meeting rooms, originally the Dining Room
  • View of the Cumberland River from the veranda
  • The main lobby
  • See the rainbow?
  • Hot summer day, cool mist from the falls, and a rainbow to boot!

Before we left, I had the opportunity to set up my portable ham radio station down by the river (found a great shaded spot) and worked a couple dozen stations both stateside and abroad. A great afternoon away with my sweetheart!

Thanks for visiting. Remember, you can subscribe by entering your email address in the box and then you will automatically get an email anytime we have an update here on the blog.

We hope to see you down the road …. in the meantime … be good to yourself and those you love!

Herb & Kathy

Just a little hike

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Camping, Sightseeing, Traveling, Volunteering, Working

Once we kind of found our way around the county (grocery store etc.), we decided to do a little more roaming within the park.

Today was a short hike up to Eagles Point.  From here you can see a large portion of the lake, some of the islands (including trooper island), and on over to Tennessee.

Although the trail (from the Marina overflow parking lot) is only 7/10ths of a mile, much of it was uphill and my hip and knee were both crying out to me along the way. We heard a lot of little critters among the leaves in the woods as we climbed up to Eagle’s Point, but all we saw was a black snake along the way.

Once we got to the top, it became clear that the climb was worth the trip. We could see clearly (even though it was an overcast day) over to the lodge, to Troopers Island, and on across the lake to Tennessee.

Trooper Island is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers and leased by the Kentucky State Police where they operate a camp for underprivileged children. Find out more about their mission by following this link.

I’ve been afraid of heights ever since I can remember. A 6′ stepladder is about as high as I can comfortably go. Kathy on the other hand …. is comfortable going right to the edge (as you can see in one of the pictures below)

  • The trail climbing to the top
  • Kathy’s too close to the edge
  • Trooper Island
  • At the Eagle’s Point overlook
Click on any of the thumbnail images above to see a larger picture
Panoramic view from the top (Trooper Island in the distance)
Video from the top

That’s it for now … we have very limited wifi here. I have to come up to the lodge to get any reliable wifi.

Stay safe … Herb & Kathy

Settling in at Dale Hollow

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Animals, Camping, Sightseeing, Traveling, Volunteering, Working

Well, we finally arrived at Dale Hollow Lake Resort State Park on Wednesday. We checked with Bobbie at the gatehouse and went on in to our new home for the next three months, site Q1.

Our site for the next few months

At first we were a little disappointed because we are in one of the three equine loops here. There are 18 loops, every loop has 8 RV sites, so there’s a total of 144 RV sites with 24 of those being equine sites.

One of the “loops” at the campground

It’s not that we dislike horses .. we enjoy them – not riding them of course, just watching them, talking to them, and given the opportunity, to pet them!

Ivan and Connie pulled into our loop .. they’re from Summer Shade, about an hour west of here toward Glasgow. They have a farm over there but like to come here a few times each summer and ride the trails with their other horse buddies. They’ve been enjoying the park for years.

Their son and daughter-in-law and their kids came in their motorhome so the family is having a good time horseback riding, bicycling, eating together, and telling stories around the campfire in the evening moonlight.

The reason that we were disappointed about being here in Loop Q with the horses is that there’s no wifi here and we sit in a low spot in the park with no cell service and no over-the-air TV reception. Argh!

But … For the Good News … Because it’s an equine area, there’s no playground, no swimming pool, no sand boxes, nothing for kids to do. When most families book sites in a campground, they try to get close to all the amenities and over here all we have is a nice new bath house/laundry within an easy walking distance from the back of our coach. Oh, and very few kids (Yay!)

The first day here we found out the a/c in the car doesn’t work. We asked Bobbie at the gatehouse if she knew a trustworthy mechanic in Burkesville (18 mile’s away) because she told us she lives there. She recommended “Daryl’s Place” up the road a piece.

I took the car up there and he put freon in the system and charged me $16 .. Happy Camper

We drove 18 miles the other way to Albany where I found a Blue Cellular store and bought a new SIM card for my phone (with a new number) so now my phone works here in the park and throughout the region. It’s a pay-as-you-go plan with no contract at $35 a month. So once again .. Happy Camper

Now that I have a phone that works here I could log on to Amazon and order a DISH receiver package. We’ve had DISH before but the outdoor antenna broke and we stopped using it once we were able to get unlimited data with Visible phone service and then we could stream all our TV and other web use with no data cap and no throttling. This is the first place in the country that we’ve found that Visible service doesn’t work. And my new $35/month phone is capped at 4 gig/month so we can’t use that for streaming or uploading pictures.

But in any event, Monday the DISH package should be here and then Kathy will be a Happy Camper!

We made a commitment to start walking regularly once we arrived. So far so good. The campground is a large irregular shaped loop with two rather large and steep hills. (Rough on the knees!)

The loop is just under 3500 steps or about 1.5 miles and we’ve managed (so far) to do that once in the morning and once.again in the evening. Wish us luck!

We’ve not started work yet. The park manager met us Wednesday when we arrive and told us to relax, find our way around, and she’d get with us on Monday, so my next post will be a little about what the job entails.

A Cabela’s Overnighter

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Camping, Food, Traveling, Volunteering, Working

(Continuing on our way to camp hosting at Dale Hollow Lake Resort State Park)

Although we wanted to try another Harvest Hosts location tonight, there weren’t any close enough to our route. We were deliberately taking local and state routes and staying off the internet. The trip, although a little longer, was far more beautiful winding our way on down into Kentucky’s horse country. The huge horse farms with their rolling green pastures were contained by what seemed to be endless black board fencing. The roads along the way are peppered with trees filled with lots of white and pink blossoms (crabapple / pear / dogwood)? It was a great escape from the boredom of the interstate although I’ll admit it did take a lot more concentration and energy to drive this route due to the hills and curves coupled with the traffic entering and exiting the roadway.

We could’ve stayed at any number of commercial RV parks, but we decided to opt for the Cabela’s right off I-75 on the east side of Lexington. Here’s the route we took today.

Our travel route to Cabela’s today

We used one of our favorite RV apps ALLSTAYS.com. The reviews from other RV’ers indicated it’s pretty quiet and safe with 24 hour security.

Our spot right around the corner from the front door

Usually there are 5or 6 spots available for RV’s, but about three of them are taken up by large shipping containers, presumably filled with new fixtures for some planned store remodeling. We grabbed the spot closest to the store entrance. There is also a dump station here with fresh water as well, but it’s out of order right now. We’re OK, we have a 70 gallon fresh water tank that I filled up when we left Ohio.

We went on inside, gave the lady at the service desk our card, and told them we were parked outside for the night and thanked them for letting us stay.

We each took a little nap this afternoon. We opened the windows that were not in direct sunlight, turned on the ceiling (exhaust) fans and soon fell asleep for an hour or so. The fans brought in fresh cool air and the whirr of the fans drowned out any parking lot sounds. It was nice.

Late afternoon came and we unhooked the car and went for a little drive around the area. Boy was that a mistake!!! As I should have realized, Cabela’s is in a developed area filled with lots of shopping, office complexes, and apartments and subdivisions. Those are places we don’t like to go to – especially during RUSH HOUR!

We did stop at Lowes to get a couple small springs for a fixit project I’ve got, then finally found our way back to peace and quiet at Cabela’s. We made our dinner of tossed salad with mushrooms, blueberries, salami, cheddar cheese, and hard-boiled egg. Kathy added crab meat to her salad.

Look what we found!

Freddy’s Steakburgers and Frozen Custard

After supper and a walk around the large Cabela’s parking lot, Kathy found this Freddy’s store at the outside perimeter of the lot. We agreed we would go there after our walk to get a little treat!

They call it “Concrete” – I call it a “Flurry” or “Blizzard” (Oreo Mint flavor)

Tomorrow will find us moving further south and arriving at Dale Hollow Lake State Park, our home for the next 3 months. We’ll leave the coach there and drive the car back up to Ohio to visit the doctor for a follow-up to my shoulder rotator cuff surgery. Hopefully he’ll tell me all is good and I can start physical therapy. There’s a hospital in Burkesville – about 30 minutes from the campground, where I can get started and hopefully soon after finish up on my own at the campground.

That’s all for now. I’ll follow up with another post once we get settled at Dale Hollow and have the opportunity to take a look around.

Stay safe …

Herb & Kathy

We’re Getting Closer!

by Herb & Kathy, posted in Camping, Sightseeing

It’s Thursday late afternoon and we’re getting closer to home.  We left Yuma, TN this am and right now as I sit in my fold-up patio chair under the awning typing this post, we are at Grandma’s RV Park just off of I-65 outside of Shepardsville, KY (about 20 min south of Louisville).

2016-04-28 16.06.50
Our site at Grandma’s RV Park, Shepardsville, KY

So we’ll be back in Mt. Gilead tomorrow.  Bitter Sweet ….

Yes, it’s been a wonderful trip, the experience of a lifetime.  We’ve seen a lot of beautiful landscape, visited and laughed with old friends, and met many great folks and new friends along the way.

It’s really too bad we didn’t have about 6 months or so as to be able to pull off the road as often as we would have liked at all those “brown” signs along the freeway, you know … the ones that guide you to the waterfall, or the museum, or the historical marker, or the lake, or whatever point of interest.  There’s just so much to see and do and only so much time available.

We’ve driven the motor home nearly 6000 miles and put another 1000 miles on the Saturn driving around San Diego, the Grand Canyon, and Sedona, AZ

It’ll be great to get back home and be near family and with all our friends and church family, and in a little, tiny, sick way …. even maybe good to get back to work (only a bit)!!

But I know the bug has bitten us and we’ll be climbing back aboard sooner rather than later.