Diamond Lakes Resort, (Owensboro, KY) to Beech Bend RV Park (Bowling Green, KY) to Cherokee Campground (Helena, LA)
First off, I have to apologize for not posting anything to the blog sooner than now. We have AT&T MiFi for internet access and at times the cell phone signal has been pretty sketchy. Between that and my inherent laziness I feel I have lapsed. Although in my defense Lisa and I have recently retired and we've been completing final errands, appointments, etc. I will try to get caught up soon.
Before we retired on February 28th we talked and planned on pulling out of Diamond Lakes as soon as we could - preferably the same day that we retired.
Unfortunately, weather and final doctor's appointments conspired to keep us around for a few more days. Compared to recent years the weather has been severe around Owensboro all winter. It has been cold with several instances of ice and snow. A winter storm had moved through a few days before the 28th with ice and snow. The low temperatures at night have been in the low teens for the past few days.
Our last doctor's appointment was on Tuesday, March 4th. Since I had retired from Owensboro Municipal Utilities our health insurance was changing to active to retired health insurance and we needed to make sure the doctor's office folks were able to change the insurance information, etc.
On Thursday morning, March 6th we started the last packing up to leave. The plan was to leave by noon but the temperature the night before had been below freezing. In early winter 2013 we had installed heat trace and insulated the water line and we needed to remove all that before we could disconnect in preparation for leaving.
I went up on the roof of the RV to see if there was any leftover snow, branches, etc, that needed to be
swept off before we brought in the three slides. On each of the slides there was a little snow and a lot of ice, up to an inch thick, on each of them. I used a broom to bust up and sweep off the ice/snow and that took nearly an hour.
While I was on the roof Lisa was getting things inside the RV ready to go. We then started removing insulation and heat trace from the water line. There was still snow on the ground and it was cold so the water line was stiff and hard to drain and roll up.
Finally, we had everything packed away and we hooked up the truck and started out at about 2 pm. It felt kind of surreal since we had been at Diamond Lakes for 18+ months since we sold our house. To read more on how we got to this point visit our web site.
We had decided to drive to Bowling Green, KY and spend three nights at Beech Bend RV Park. It was an easy 85 mile drive on the Natcher Parkway that took about an hour and a half. Our son Nathan is a civil engineer who lives in Bowling Green. He was expecting us so when he got off work he and his girlfriend Sammy came by to spend a little time with us and we went out to eat at a Mexican restaraunt.
The next two days were very relaxing but we managed to get a few projects done. We replaced several light bulbs which is a bigger chore than you would think. Throughout the RV there are several different bulbs and we had to remove each one to determine a replacement size and type. I also changed our satellite dish from a lightweight tripod to a heavy duty tripod from TV 4 RV. The original tripod had blown over during a storm one night and it bent a part and broke another one. After that it was loose and hard to use. It was especially hard to get exact adjustments and align it with the five birds (satellites). The new one is a modified engineer's tripod and much easier to set up; I highly recommend it for a portable situation.
While we were in Bowling Green we went out to eat at Red Lobster (seafood) on Friday night with Nathan and Sammy. On Saturday we grilled pork ribs with Nathan as Sammy had to work. She's an RN (Registered Nurse) at a local hospital and works every weekend since she's new at her position.
It was great to be able to grill outside. The temperature was long-sleeve t-shirt weather and sunny. We watched college basketball on our outside TV and put the awning out. Using the awning(s) makes it seem like a porch on our RV and we really like the two that we have.
On Sunday morning, March 9th we got up early and started getting ready to check out of the campground by noon. We had everything ready except actually hitching up and we went to Nathan's house for breakfast. He lives about 10 minutes drive from Beech Bend and was cooking bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and homemade sausage. It was all delicious and just what we needed for a day of driving.
We pulled out of Beech Bend RV Park at 12:15 PM. The plan was to drive 278 miles on I-65 S to Cherokee Campground in Helena, AL just south of Birmingham. The drive was good except that just across the Alabama border from Tennessee there was a wreck that slowed us up for about 30 minutes. Also, I-65 S through Birmingham and just South of there was like a washboard - very rough!
We pulled into Cherokee Camground at around 5:15 pm and got set up to stay for a couple of nights. I'll write in another post and continue with our travels.
Thanks for following along and I will get better about posting regurlarly and hope the content gets better and more interesting as well.
Good to hear from you guys! I look forward to following along!
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