After a one-year hiatus to be around for the birth of our second grandson, William, last year, it's back on the road for a 5-week all expenses paid (by us) vacation for Jace during his summer break from school.
This one is a doozy.
As in past vacations with Jace, we're using this trip to add a few states that we haven't stayed in before to our map of places visited. Unlike many couples who decide to full-time in an RV, we haven't rushed to visit every state in a year or two of travel. Many people run all around the map for a couple of years, then find themselves exhausted and less interested in traveling after putting those last state stickers in place. We decided from the beginning to take our time, and it's helped to make Jace's vacation planning a bit easier for us – just find places neither of us have been to.
We started our planning with 27 states visited thus far for us, while Jace had 17 under his belt.
And then it hit us. As Horace Greeley once said, “Go West, young man”.
Heading West was not without some challenges; we'd be driving through America's “Tornado Alley” in the middle of summer, maybe putting a load on our gas motor home when it came to some elevation changes and possible hairpin turns depending on our decided-upon destinations, the ubiquitous crowds that find their way to famous destinations, and finally, finding places to gas up the motor home in between stops when not every gas station can take in a 38' motor home with a 14' tow vehicle attached to it.
This isn't just hopping into a car and staying at local Motel 6's.
Our first stop after picking Jace up was just a short 2-hour drive to Ringgold, GA. Nothing particular there, but it's close to Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, TN. Jace loves waterfalls, and even after more than 32 years of living in Georgia, Barbara and I had never been to Ruby Falls. It's an easy ½ mile guided trek underground inside and under Lookout Mountain with a fascinating story about it's discovery. The falls are approximately 85' high, dropping into a small pool. The short light show that colors the falls right before you head on the ½ mile reverse trek back to daylight is pretty impressive.
Our short stay in Ringgold was not without challenges, however. We stayed at Scenic City RV Campground, a new park just getting started in the area. They even have a group of greeters for new arrivals!
It's going to be a very nice park in a year or two – with great owners, btw - but due to the excessive rains the area had been having, some of their sites were not properly graded and graveled to handle the underlying mud and the weight of a 28,000 lb motor home. Our rear jacks sank into the ground, requiring me to use boards to get us properly leveled. Unfortunately, the boards couldn't cover the holes my jacks previously made, and cracked in two. Ended up using 3 boards on each rear jack, and barely made it out of our site on travel day with the front tires pushing away mud and gravel. Thought we were going to get stuck for sure! To add insult to injury, when dumping trash, I didn't notice that Jace's bike handlebars had shifted backwards at our stop at the dumpster, and when I closed the back hatch the handlebar shattered our rear window into a million pieces! That little mistake would cost me $500 down the road in Oklahoma.
Good thing we didn't have any bad weather forecast on the trip to our next destination in West Memphis, AR.
Needless to say, an inauspicious start to Jace's summer vacation.
Next up – an Arkansas many people haven't experienced.
