6 Months, 2 Newlyweds, 1 RV

Back home in Australia, around 2 or 3 years ago, Kade and I watched a documentary called Paperclips.  If you have never heard of it, look it up http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380615/
The basic story line is:
Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six-million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six-million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community.
The school ended up with a donated 'cattle car' that was used to transport Jewish in World War Two, and have set up a memorial to everyone who died using the tram and all the donated paperclips.  When you look at the picture, realise that  the paperclips are 3 feet deep in the tram.  One thing we really wanted to do was visit the memorial, and timed everything so we were able to visit it.  To see all the paper clips they had collected, to see the memorial, the fact we were standing in the tram that took the Jewish to their deaths more than 60 years ago, was a mind boggling experience.  The tram itself held the 6 million paperclips to represent the 6 million Jewish killed, and the memorial next to it housed 11 million paperclips to represent the 11 million people killed in total, Jewish, Blacks, homosexuals and others.
After the memorial we headed to get some bagels for lunch, and came across our first bridge that would of been too low.  It was 13'6'', and to our knowledge the RV is 14'.  We had to make a quick detour to try to miss the bridge and managed to get around it.  It was quite scary for a minute, but we survived :)  After the bagels, we headed to the Jack Daniels brewery for a tour.
We went to the campground we were staying at, still in Kentucky, and played poker.  Monday we woke up and went to the Jim Beam tour, and tried the tastings which included Jim Beam Black and Booker's Bourbon.  I did not like either. Kade did :)

Once we had checked into our campgrounds, we pretty much drove straight back out again so we could go and check out some of the shops we saw on our way in. We stopped into one outlet mall and went for a walk and we ended up buying a few cool shirts and a pair of shoes that were for both of us. In case your wondering they were a pair of hi-top converse sneakers with the And Justice for All by Metallica design on them but they didn’t have them in Kade’s size, so we made a deal and bought them for Kate to wear and Kade to admire, and when they are ready for “retirement” we will put them into Kade’s Metallica collection at home.


Once we finished at that set of shops we headed back for the campgrounds but on the way we saw another set of outlet shops, so we went and checked them out. This outlet mall didn’t have as many shops as the previous one but we came out with a few new books to read and we also had a good look around at the other shops that were there. It was getting late so we headed back to our campgrounds, hooked up and made plans for what we were going to do over the next few days. As it was a Monday we did have plans to go and see Dollywood the next day but found out that its closed on Tuesdays so we rearranged our plans to go check out the main street where we drove in on and see all that it had to offer and do Dollywood on Wednesday before leaving on the Thursday. So we got up the next day and got ready and went out to the front of the campgrounds to wait for a trolley. The trolleys are buses that run every 20 mins and go up and down the main street picking up and dropping people off for just 50 cents a ride, so Kate and I took advantage of this transport and headed into town.

Our first stop was the main trolley depot where you can catch another trolley to Dollywood itself or a north of south bound trolley depending which way you wanted to go from the depot. Kate and I decided to walk and see where our feet took us, and as we had decided what we wanted for lunch the night before we were set. We walked out to the main street (the trolley depot being located one street back from the main street) and tried to figure out which way was our lunch destination. Once we figured out the way the street numbers ran we were on our way and found our lunch restaurant within 5 minutes. Kate and I had decided to have Japanese for lunch as Kate was talking to Alison (Nicol) on facebook the previous night and that’s what she was having for lunch that day, and Kate and I had a craving for Japanese food from then on, and that’s why we located a Japanese restaurant and made a beeline for it. It was one of those restaurants where you could sit around the cook top and order things and watch the chef make it in front of you, or there was an all you can eat sushi for $15. Kate and I we unsure at first but then opted for the all you can eat sushi as it was made fresh and the restaurant people had set it up so that you order three sushi rolls to start, and if you finish those you can order one at a time after that so there is no wastage. Kate and I both ordered (all different of course) and waited for it to be prepared, once they had prepared the rolls, the staff bring them out to the front, where another person cuts up and plates your sushi. It is then presented to you with the usual Japanese ginger and wasabi and nicely placed on the plate. These sushi rolls were bigger than the ones you usually see, so we managed to make it through the three sushi rolls we had chosen, but there was no way Kate or I could have ordered anymore rolls as we were very full.

We paid for our meals and then headed on out to walk it off a little and see the sights. We wandered down and checked out a candy shop were they made their own saltwater taffy on site, we bought some packets of candy and went back to our wandering. We visited many shops on our way down one side of the main street, one shop being a all things Christmas shop, and it really was everything and anything to do with Christmas and its open all year round. We continued down visiting various shops and then decided to try and find a shop we saw when we were first driving into Pigeon Forge. The shop we decided to look for was a cowboy boot shop and it had a sign out front that advertised buy one pair get two pairs free. Kate and I both thought that that was a good deal so we set about finding this particular shop. So we went back down the street on the other side visiting any of the shops that looked good and looking for the boot shop. We must have walked for about two miles or more and we about to give up and catch the trolley back home when Kate saw the sign which advertised the buy one get two free deal so with our hopes renewed we went into the shop. Once we were inside we split up and looked for any boots that we liked, I (Kade) had trouble as any boots I tried on at this store and previous ones we had visited I couldn’t get any boots on my feet at all not for lack of trying though. But I was in luck and found a style that I like and just hoped that I could get it on, but I was successful on my first attempt so I took it as a sign and grabbed those boots and went to check on Kate. And as it turned out she had found a pair of boots that she liked, now the only thing that remained was to find the final pair of boots to take advantage of the deal.

After looking around for a bit and having to dismiss a few pairs of boots as they did not have Kate’s size, I (Kade) found a pair of nice black boots made from soft leather and as soon Kate tried them on she said that they were perfect, they were the perfect size the perfect fit and very, very comfortable, so we walked out of the boot store with three pairs of boots for the price of one. We caught the trolley back to our campgrounds and got ready for our next day, which would be to Dollywood.

Dollywood for those of you who don’t know, is a theme park owned and operated by Dolly Parton. We got up the next morning and caught the trolley to the depot and caught the Dolly trolley as they called it. We arrived at Dollywood and bought our tickets and went about exploring the park, there were many rides and shows to watch. So we walked about and went on a roller coaster ride that was really fun and on one corner it almost made Kate and I black out almost that is, and we both agreed that we hadn’t been on a roller coaster that has done that before. After that we kept walking around the park and came across adventure land which is like a rock climbing park with various difficulties, so Kate and I got harnessed up and went adventure climbing, we went through three of the four courses and had a lot of fun. Once we had had enough of adventure land we continued on our way and came across a mine cart ride through an abandoned mine. It was your standard mine cart roller coaster type ride except for two ninety-five degree drops, it really caught Kate and I by surprise but it was really fun. We went on and made our way back to the start of the park so we went around going on things that looked fun and visiting shops that was on the way and continued like that for the rest of the day. We caught a magic show, rode the merry-go-round, went for a ride on the steam train, went of the ferries wheel and all manner of other rides and shops that were in the park.

Once it was the parks closing time we caught a trolley back to our campgrounds (via the trolley depot) and basically had dinner and went to bed.

The next morning we unhooked and packed up the RV and got back out onto the road.

So we left Savannah, and headed for Cherokee, we drove for a little while and then decided to stop at a Walmart to pick a few items that we needed. As we hadn’t had lunch yet we decided that we would pick something up from the Walmart while we were there. Once we had picked up the few things we had needed we headed to the hot food section of Walmart, which sells chicken and chips and a variety of other hot food. We saw a sign that said we could buy a bucket of chicken for $10 but you could choose 3 different types of hot foods so we got some potato wedges, some fried chicken and some honey glazed chicken. That’s a lot of chicken for $10, so we exited the Walmart and went back to the RV and ate lunch and hit the road.


We drove pretty much the rest of the day and watched the grassy plains roll into mountain country. We hit a small bit of traffic on our way to Cherokee due to construction and roadwork’s but the rest of the journey was quite ordinary. We approached the Smokey Mountains and started our climb up as our campgrounds were on the other side. It wasn’t a steep mountain but it did slow us down a little bit as the RV went up some of the hills. As we got closer to our campgrounds we were treated to stunning views of the Smokey Mountains. Beautiful greenery and crystal clear running creeks and about 5 minutes from our campground destination we came across an elk grazing in an open field.

After the elk we arrived at our destination with was a campgrounds near the Smokey mountains national park. Apparently the Smokey Mountain National Park is the most visited national park in America, which was interesting to know. So we drove in, set up the RV, and prepared our dinner on the grill and once we had finished dinner, we toasted marshmallows and made s’mores.

It was a very informative experience and we learned a lot about their lifestyle, culture and their society. Once we finished walking around the Indian village it was about 1pm and that was when our bus was going to take us back to the campgrounds.

Once we got back to our campgrounds we decided to take a walk and have a look around as we got in late the night before and didn’t get much of a look around. The only thing we got a glimpse of on our way in was the big trout pond at the front of the campgrounds that gets stocked twice a week apparently. The campgrounds are very big and it has 5 pools a big jumping pillow (basically a big trampoline) a gift store, a tube ride down the creek that runs through the camp beside a little island that they have as an off leash area for pets at the campgrounds. They also have an arcade as well as a big screen for movies that they show nightly.

The next day we had a bit of a sleep in and when we got up we took the bus into town to do some shopping (what the other people had done the day before that I’ve said previously). So for a couple of hours Kate and I walked up and down the street going in and out of shops that sold various Indian souvenirs like dream catchers and arrow heads and things of that nature. We bought some stuff and then caught the bus back to the campgrounds. We then waited until it was a reasonable time in Australia before Kate and I called our mothers for mother’s day. But as all the payphones in the campgrounds were out of order we had to ask the campground staff if we could use their office phone to call home (we have a phone card so it didn’t cost them anything). Once we did that we went back to our RV and hung around there for the rest of the night.

A few people have asked what our itinerary is.  Well it keeps changing from day to day nearly, but right now we are in Tennessee, and we will start heading up north, to be in Canada by the 21st May.  We anticipate a pretty straight up route, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and then across into Canada.  We will stay there for a week or so with a mate, and then head down the east coast to New York.

We are leaving Savannah in around 30 minutes to head north to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and Cherokee which is a Native American village with a museum, interactive displays and workshops etc...We believe this campsite does not have the internet, therefore if we are not on here for a few days, that's why.  We should have the internet again by the middle of next week.  To all the Mums out there, have a great Mothers Day on Sunday

So, lets try this blog again. After we left the campground at Clewiston, we were heading down the Florida Keys, with our campground half way down on Long Key. It was around a 4-hour drive and we did it with no issues. We were told we may have an issue getting a site at one of the State Parks down the keys due to the fact that a lot of Canadians and Americans who like up north go down to the Keys for the winter. We managed to book a campground for two nights, at the State Park. When we arrived and went to check in, the gentleman behind us didn't have a booking, and they only had one site left for one night. The campground was a long skinny one; each site was next to each other with trees between them. Each site backed onto the Atlantic Ocean, with access from each site. We arrived, set up (which we are getting faster at, it consists of hooking up water and electricity, and sewer if we have a dump point, cable if we have a cable access point,

Well, after three weeks we have left Florida.  But before we left, we headed DOWN the keys.  We left Clewiston and started driving, the goal being to get to our campground at Long Key State Park, around half way down the keys.  We packed up, headed out, and drove to a....argh...having trouble blogging tonight, its midnight and still hot.  We are watching MTV and trying to remember what we did that day...anyhow, will try again tomorrow...
PS - METALLICA TICKETS :)