Tag: Tennessee

Repair frustrations and more of the Natchez Trace

We are still sitting in the Tiffin Service Center parking lot. Sigh. We got into the paint shop on Friday, and today we had the paint finished up (buffing and such). They did a great job. I drove the coach back to our parking spot, hooked it all up, and 15 minutes later was asked to come to the cabinet shop. We only have one item left – a very poorly finished bathroom door. The very nice young man said the door had to be replaced, not repaired, and it would be two weeks! I nearly died. He saw my face, and said he’d go look to see if they had a spare one sitting around. Luckily, they did, and he said he’d get it put together and sprayed in “a day or two.” Yet another sigh, but not as big this time. We are hoping to get into Missouri on Thursday, but we will see what happens. Thank goodness I allocated lots of time for this trip.

On Saturday we took another trip along the Natchez Trace, this time heading towards Nashville. The pictures are from along the Trace.

This shows the old footpath and how it divides into different paths to go around what became mud puddles as the path as it wore down.

This is the Gordon house from 1818. It is t open for visitors, but it is pretty impressive anyway. The owner had a concession from the local Choctaws to operate a Ferry and trading post. He did just after the house was built, but his wife lived here until 1849.

This is the Inn (known as a “stand” in this part of the country when the Trace was active) where Meriweather Lewis committed suicide. Poor fellow was being stiffed by the US Government on a bunch of bills that he then had to cover from his own pocket. He was looking at bankruptcy, and was depressed. He is buried about 100’ away, his grave marked by a broken column indicating his early death. So sad.

Sunday we just hung around locally. I made some of the wonderful Instant Pot egg bites with sausage and cheddar cheese this time, and I also made an Instant Pot cheesecake. Both turned out wonderfully. I also got my sewing machine set up to get some work done on the quilt for the coach. Hopefully I will have all the blocks done before we go home for Thanksgiving.

 

Made it to Red Bay, Alabama

We left Iowa about 1:00 pm on Friday after running a number of last minute errands. We spent the night in the Walmart parking lot in Hannibal, MO. Nice quiet place. We got around Saturday around 9:00 and headed to Jackson, TN. We spent the night again in a Walmart parking lot. Like most small towns on a Saturday night, there were some young idiots in very loud cars cruising the parking lot, but it got quiet well before midnight. Since we only had 100 miles to go, we took our ever loving time getting out. We finally got to the Tiffin Service Center campground by noon. However we found out the campground was already full. Tiffin recommended we go to the Red Bay campground a couple of miles away. It is just a big gravel parking lot, but it has 50 amp full hookups. Cheap at $25 a night, but it would have been free if we were at the Tiffin site. Hopefully we can move in the next day or so. The roads all the way from Iowa we’re divided four lanes with the exception of the last 20 miles or so.

We have all our forms filled out for our warranty work, and some time tomorrow a Tiffin SC rep will come out to evaluate the time needed to complete our list. That will decide how long we have to wait our turn.

I admit this is a short post without pictures, but I should have more to post when we can get out and about. It is, unsurprisingly, very, very green here. It was also ridiculously hot today, almost 90 degrees! Should be better tomorrow, but I still miss my cool, dry mountains and deserts. All those folks who retired and moved to Florida – good for them! I can’t even imagine it.