CONUS Conquered...September 1, 2012...Day 3

(Kim's Perspective)

We tried to make the most of our time on the Parkway and give it a chance.  We were certain it had some redeeming value somewhere, so we loaded the Boys (Lane stayed behind in the trailer) and headed North towards Nashville.  We stopped at some "points of interest" and took the Boys on some short walks.

Probably the most exciting thing for me was coming upon the cotton fields.  I have no recollection of ever seeing cotton fields, but I have many recollections of hearing my Uncle Clyde tell stories of growing up in Mississippi and spending days in the hot sun picking cotton.  I just got such a kick out of it that I made Bill stop and get a picture of me posing in front of a cotton field.

I was intrigued by how prickly and sharp the plants were.  Of course I heard about it, but never experienced it for myself and I was amazed to find that it feels and looks just like processed cotton balls you buy at the store.  I just assumed it would be something totally different and the manufacturing process of cotton turns them into cotton balls, but lo and behold, they just kind of come like that out of the pod.  Bill accidentally pulled one off while he was touching it and gave it to me.  I reprimanded him for stealing from a cotton farmer, but I couldn't put it back so I happily took a piece of Mississippi cotton as an Uncle Clyde souvenir   ;P

As I mentioned, and aside from cotton fields of course, there is little to see on the Natchez Trace Parkway.  The intent was to check out the northern most section of Parkway (everything north of mp 370) but after a few dozen miles, we were highly bored and ready to find something else to entertain us.  Enter Cherokee, Alabama.  Cherokee consisted pretty much of a bank, a car wash, and a Piggly Wiggly.  I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to find a map of the area at all the different gas stations we had previously stopped at.  I had high hopes that P.W. would reward me with what I was seeking.  No joy.  BUT, we decided to try some local flavor and picked up this...

What is it you say?  It's Grapico of course!  A Southern Tradition.  Basically, it's like any other high-fructose corn syrup, artificially flavored, grape soda that tastes more like Dimetapp than anything resembling a soft drink.  This particular brand is manufactured in Alabama.  This particular bottle, had expired 6 months ago.  We knew this before we purchased it....all of them in the cold case at the end of the aisle were expired.  I guess that's a Southern Tradition too.  :)  

We left Piggly's with no idea where we were going or what we were going to do.  There’s not much to see in Cherokee, Alabama until you come across this…

Oh, yes, this is a must do.  How many Coon Dog Cemeteries will you ever have the chance to see?  Uh….apparently only one.  I know, I know, that’s just so shocking.

We drove, and drove, and drove some more and finally pulled into the cemetery.  Only to find some “event” going on.  I was immediately concerned.  The parking lot was packed with pick up trucks and I saw some shovels nearby.  Uh-oh.  Did we seriously just drive up on a coon dog funeral?  Nothing good is going to come from this.  These people have guns in their trucks and are not going to take kindly to a bunch of northern tourists stopping in for a look see.  

Fortunately, we weren't intruding on a funeral and the folks couldn't have been any happier to see us. They were part of a local tourism association that was cleaning up the place for an annual event that is held over the Labor Day holiday.  They took our picture (we might become famous on the Coon Dog Cemetery FB page!) and asked us to sign the Guest Register.  Rather than going into it, I will simply say you really must pay the Coon Dog Cemetery website a visit and do yourself a favor and friend them on FaceBook.  No, seriously.  Do it.

We spoke with one very nice older woman who informed us of a nearby hummingbird migration.  She gave us directions and wished us well.  

We left the "CDC" and headed back on the Parkway.  We tried to find the place where the hummingbirds were purported to be and walked the trail a bit.  There were indeed some hummingbirds but not by the hundreds.  I was largely disappointed.  We continued on and stopped to see a spring. Yep.  That there is water coming out of the ground.  "L I B" 

We found ourselves on the verge of complete boredom so we drove to Muscle Shoals (AL) for a late lunch. We stopped at a little but seemingly popular joint called "Champy's" - a very cool, eclectic place with interesting decorative themes.

Catfish platter for both and a side of pickled fried green tomatoes.  Oh, baby!  I’d be 200 pounds if I lived down here. 

We headed back to the trailer and then took the bikes to explore the park.  There’s a fair amount of things to do here for such a small park.  We were lucky enough to be entertained by an owl that I scared from the side of the road.  He perched himself on a tree and spent some time checking us out before he finally got freaked out and flew away.  We found an old pioneer house and a cool swinging bridge.

It started getting dark so we returned to the camper and stayed put the rest of the day.  We were still stuffed from our catfish and fried pickles so we skipped supper and turned in early.  Boring Parkways really take it out of you. 

CONUS Conquered...August 31, 2012...Day 2

(Kim's Perspective)

Today was 8/31, our 16^th wedding anniversary.  No need for applause, just send money.  We both woke up at 5:30 and were ready to hit the road but we took our time getting up, had our morning coffee and took the Boys for a short walk.  It was quiet in the campground and no one was up.  We went in search of someone so we could pay for our site – no self registration kiosk here.  The two nice ladies at the visitor center let me in, even though they weren’t open.  I told them I needed to pay for our campsite and the kind woman said “are you from Tennessee?” and I replied “No, Maaaaam, I’m from Maryland”.   I’ve been “down south” for less than 24 hours and BAM, I’ve got the southern drawl creeping out.  It’s amazing.  

The drive was pretty standard except of course when "Toonces" decided he wanted to drive.  

It was somewhat unsettling as he has very little driving experience and we were at full speed on a multi-lane road. Fortunately for the safety of us all, he quickly grew bored and decided that being in the passenger "Lane" was just fine by him.  ;P

We got on the road at 7 and headed towards Nashville.  Our destination was Tishomingo State Park in Tishomingo, Mississippi.  We decided to nix the full drive from the top of the Natchez Trace Parkway at mp 444 outside of Nashville and jumped on at mp 370.  We arrived at the park around 2 pm and got set up pretty quickly.

The site kind of sucked.  It was paved, but it was very narrow and just dropped off on all three sides.  We seriously considered finding someplace else, but we had already paid for it (reservations are generally a necessity when traveling on a holiday weekend) so we sucked it up and just made the most of it.

We unloaded the bikes and decided to ride down to Trace State Park just south of Tupelo.  

We soon realized that the Natchez Trace Parkway and the Blue Ridge Parkway cannot be compared.   I’m not sure what I anticipated, well, actually, I anticipated a BRP in Mississippi and Alabama and instead got a flat, only slightly curvy road with absolutely NOTHING to look at or stop to see.  Oh how I take the BRP for granted.   Who knew that our little East coast parkway could be so stinking awesome?  Now granted, the awesome factor generally increases exponentially with every 10 mph over the posted speed limit, but even caging it can be somewhat enjoyable.  Not so much here.  In fact, not so much at ALL.  Wow.  The tallest peak on the Parkway is 800 feet.  Seriously?  800 feet?

We chatted with Joshua, the park ranger at Trace SP for a bit and got info on the ORV trails in the park.  I'm going to like it here.  :)  

We were hungry and needing dinner – it was our anniversary after all – so we headed into Tupelo to find some grub.  Grub we found and it was surprisingly good.  I say this because, as we walked across the parking lot, I noticed a drive thru.  A drive thru?  Uhh….no.  For those of you who don’t know, I am vehemently opposed to eating fast food.  The closest I get to anything with a drive thru is Starbucks.   I was scared.  Very scared.  We walked in and walked up to the counter. I asked the clerk if it was a sit down restaurant or a fast food joint and she smiled and replied in her Southern drawl “it’s a combination fast food and family owned restaurant”.  Buh?  I don’t even know what that means.  I looked at the menu – much like that of any small family owned restaurant and glanced over at the well stocked salad bar and ordered a burger and a salad.  The burgers come plain – you take them to the salad bar and dress them yourselves (think Fuddrucker’s).  They do, however, come in foil wrap (think fast food).  

I must admit, this was one of the best salad bars I’ve ever had.  Everything was crisp and fresh and there was an impressive variety of items.  Nom, nom, nom.  So, our wedding anniversary dinner was at a “combinaaation faast food, and faamily owned restauraaaant”.  I swear if I’m here much longer they won’t know I’m from the North.

It was getting dark, so we quickly geared up as best we could with full bellies.

We rode back to the trailer side by side (well, me illegally riding left of center so as to shine more light on the road) and chatted about our day and our plans for the rest of the week.  It was a good day – we hit Alabama and Mississippi and thus have now been to every state in the lower 48.  Wooo hoooo! Bill lived in Hawaii for 3 years, so he’s one up on me.  He’ll probably hit the 50 mark before I will as I’d prefer to visit Alaska next.  We’ll have to save for that one.  Maybe that can be for our 20^th anniversary.  Meh, maybe 17^th.  Like I've said before, that’s what credit cards are for.  J

CONUS Conquered...August 30, 2012...Day 1.5

(Kim's Perspective)

We got up early and Bill started calling tire places to see who had what in stock and finally had success with Tires Plus in Frederick.  If you’re ever in need of tires, pay Sergio a visit.  Nice guy.  We put the old/new tires in the back of the truck (Bill will simply sell them on CL later or swap out for a new set of rims to put them on) and headed back to the house to repeat the bike loading and trailer hitching for a second time.  The second time seemed to be the charm (glad it wasn’t the third).  We got on the road at 11:00 and took 70 to 340 to 81.  We weren’t sure where we would end up staying – it largely depended on how far we got when we were tired and ready to stop.  We took a few breaks throughout the day to let the Boys out and have a quick lunch, then finally started giving serious thought to where we would be staying around 8pm.  We decided on Cumberland Mountain State Park in Crossville, TN off of I40.  We stayed here overnight on our trip to Arkansas last year so we knew the park would serve our purpose. It’s actually quite nice, but we’re never in a position to spend more than a night here as we journey through so we located a PERFECTLY level (don't let the picture fool you) campsite that allowed us to stay hitched up. 

This was awesome since we got in at 10 pm and planned for an early departure Friday morning.  Rather than it taking 15 minutes to set up, we were able to pop out the slide and connect to shore power in under 5 minutes.  Oh yeah! That’s the way to do it. It was a long day – 11 hours of pretty stressful driving for Bill (had a lot of trailer sway down 81) and 11 hours of exhausting passenger time for me.  I have a harder time staying awake when I’m riding shot gun than when I’m driving – but alas, these are the burdens one must bear.  It was a good day.  Any day that you make it in one piece to your destination always makes for a good day!

CONUS Conquered...August 29, 2012

In our quest to bag all 50 states, we decided to travel to Mississippi and Alabama for our 16^th wedding anniversary.  It’s been almost 2 years since I’ve blogged about a vacation, and nothing will compare to BKEA, but I figured bagging the last two states in the CONUS was worth some blogging time.

Plus, this trip was going to be a little different…

Our trip was supposed to start on Wednesday, August 29^th.  We both left work a little early and rushed home to finish packing the trailer and get the new toys loaded in the back of the truck.  We finally finished getting everything ready to go and, after the realization that we needed to make a quick trip to the pharmacy en route, we got on the road at 5pm.  We left with some farewells from the neighbors and headed to the pharmacy.  I jumped out and walked past the trailer…and stopped…and walked back…to tell Bill that I smelled propane.  He checked the tanks while I picked up his RX.  One of the tanks was leaking at the connection so he shut it off and flipped over to the other tank.  Problem solved.  We figured we’d just get a new tank and deal with it when we get home.  We got on 70 and took 340 to 81.  Or would have had we made it more than 14 miles before we smelled something burning and pulled over to investigate.   Bill jumped out while I stayed with the Boys (all three – we have Lane with us for this trip) and when he climbed back in the truck he informed me that one of the airbags exploded and was melting onto the exhaust.  Joyous.  He also said the tires weren’t riding well and were extremely hot to the touch. Humpf.  These were brand new tires that were put on just a few weeks ago.  We went with a different tire than we usually put on the truck.  Lesson learned.  Stick with what you know.  The extra weight in the bed and the tongue weight of the trailer puts us at max payload, but hey, it’s a truck, it’s supposed to be used hard.  What to do, what to do?  Returning home, we discussed our options. We could not take the newly purchased XTs with us and haul the trailer without issue, OR, we could upgrade to an LT tire to give us more weight capacity.  Naturally, this option would cost us another thousand bucks, but  hey, we just bought two brand new 2013 dual purpose bikes specifically for this trip.  What’s another thousand dollars?  That’s what credit cards are for.  ;)

So, that was the start of our vacation…or the false start as it turned out to be. We kept a positive attitude about it and pointed out that we would have another night of sleeping comfortably in a king size bed. We’re also both confident that all of these things happened for a reason and we’re quite fine not knowing what that reason was.

Belgian Pup Bakery - The Adventure Continues

Many folks have asked how we're adjusting to life now that we're home and back to a routine. Fact is, things have been crazy busy and there is little in the way of routine...unless of course it relates to baking biscuits, bagging biscuits, shipping biscuits, promoting biscuits, advertising for biscuits...well, you get the point.

While we find ourselves reminiscing over the trip on a daily basis, we've found that the business (www.belgianpupbakery.com) is keeping us both ridiculously busy. We're having a great time and are excited over the potential, but for me it's really about doing something that I'm passionate about. Seeing Merlin's handsome face in the logo every day just makes me smile. Starting a business based on your love for your dogs may seem odd to some, but it's simple and natural to me - just like our biscuits!! :)

Final Thoughts...

Kim's Perspective:
12,557 pictures and video clips equaling 62.1GB
Total miles driven: 17,500+
Total number of weeks on the road: 16
Total National Parks visited: 16
Total number of trailer mishaps: 2 (tire replacement and broken hitch)
Total number of people mishaps: 2
Total number of hours spent blogging: hundreds
Traveling this beautiful country and experiencing so many amazing things with your best friend/husband and your two beloved Belgian Sheepdog children by your side:  PRICELESS


Bill’s Perspective:
This trip was phenomenal. There are many aspects of it that are obvious but some that might not be. For instance, the driving itself was a unique experience. We have done quite a few longish journeys in our time together. We drove home from Acadia National Park in Maine in a day. We also drove home from Port Canaveral FL in a day. We have done multiple consecutive 500 plus mile days on the motorcycles and the occasional 600 plus mile day just for fun. However, this was the first time either of us had driven this type of distance over this amount of time. I was concerned that it would be taxing or get old. I wondered if I would simply tire of driving. I did not. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I continued to hunger for more. The new truck didn’t hurt but it was just the idea that I was going to see something new EVERY DAY that made the prospect of getting back in the truck each day a positive experience. You’d think that after 4 months of this, we would start to yearn for home. We did not…at all. In fact, we largely dreaded the thought of bringing this trip to an end and spoke often of how we could extend it. The funding and the weather made it a futile conversation but one we enjoyed nonetheless.
Another very unique aspect of this trip was the role it played in our relationship. What happens when you reduce your living quarters by 83% (90% if you count the basement), reduce your alone time to that spent in the bathroom, and completely sacrifice the concept of personal space? Throw in 2 medium sized dogs that can no longer just be let out into their fenced yard and must be taken for walks regardless of the weather. You might think this would be a recipe for relationship disaster. For many people, I suspect you’d be right. However, this was not the case for us. There were days when we didn’t see eye to eye but we were both able to maintain the proper perspective and I attribute this almost entirely to our Sunday School lessons, regular church attendance and daily devotions. We have constant reminders of how things are supposed to be and what each of us needs to do to make it happen. If we had done this trip ten years ago, the outcome would likely have been different. :)
I discovered many things on this journey. Here are a few:
- I love not knowing what the next day will hold.
- Fear of the unknown is pointless.
- Time is both precious and meaningless (deep, huh?).
- Old people are cool. Old people who travel are extremely cool.
- Traveling is a lifestyle I could easily embrace (if not afford).
- As much as I thought I was shallow and materialistic, I can get by quite nicely with far less than I have.

If you ever get a chance to do something like this, I strongly recommend it. The things we saw and did will be with us forever. If I were struck down today, I’d have little in the way of things I regretted not doing.

November 7...En Route to Home

(Kim's Perspective)
We woke up very early this morning as we knew we had a lot of miles to cover. We sped up our usual routine and were in the truck and pulling out of the campground by 6:40am.


We had over 600 miles to cover so we knew the day would consist of NASCAR stops and mile after mile of highway driving. Joyous.

It was quite foggy and made navigating the exit ramps and reading the highway signs somewhat difficult...





...but we were lucky enough to catch a few minutes of the sunrise before we had to deal with the fog.


It did make for a few cool pictures though...



We crossed into Kentucky early morning....


..and into West Virginia by 11am.


Right after getting into WV, we rolled up on an SUV that was on fire.

It took a surprisingly short period of time for the fire fighters to put it out and get traffic moving again. Thank heavens. Knowing we had 6 more hours of driving ahead of us, we were not inclined to deal with traffic delays. Not that we could have done anything about it. We did have to slow down at various points to accommodate these monsters (when we were on stretches of road with only 2 lanes as opposed to the 3 in this pic), but they didn't take too long to get around.


Merlin was losing interest in being in the truck for that long, but he relegated himself to being bored and taking frequent naps. :)


It was depressing to see the Maryland Welcomes You sign. :(


I tried to look at the rolling countryside with a fresh eye and a new perspective. No, there aren't rugged alpine peaks or beautiful meadows or deep canyons, but if I look hard enough, I can find some redeeming qualities. Take this little barn for example. Cute, eh?


At the 79/68 split we became oh so familiar with the drive home and realized we had traveled for 4 straight months without being familiar with the roads or our surroundings. We like that a lot apparently. You just never know what's going to be around the next turn.


The late afternoon sky and the sunset was pretty cool even if it was in Maryland. ;)




We got home right around 6 o'clock and parked the trailer redneck style in the front yard. It will take several days to unpack and get everything cleaned up and put away.

We aren't happy to be back home. We really like this traveling lifestyle. The only 2 negative aspects to it have been no church and no income. (HA!)

This adventure was absolutely fantastic and I am so grateful for the opportunity to do it. Nothing will ever take away the memories we made on this trip. I will never regret spending the money or taking the time. It was truly a once in a lifetime trip...that I'm hoping we'll one day have the opportunity to do again.

Now it's time to make the biscuits... :)

November 6...Eastward Bound...Versailles State Park (Indiana)

(Kim's Perspective)
Today was a long day. We woke up, hitched up, and were on the road by 8:15. We didn't realize it when we came in last night, but the campground is on a little peninsula so it's surrounded by water on three sides. Quite pretty really.





We got on the highway and started booking. Out of Missouri, into Illinois...

...into Indiana.


We were initially thinking we'd just bust home on 70 through Ohio and down, but that's boring and we've already done that. So, somewhere mid-Illinois I said "What do you think about going through Kentucky? Kentucky is a really pretty state to drive through. It's been a long time since we've driven through Kentucky." Bill, as always, was open for whatever. :)

I initially found a park about an hour east of Lexington, but we bailed on the highway and took 36 so it took us a little longer to get where we needed to go.

A pretty drive though. Beats being on the highway.









Yes, that is a full size tree growing from that steeple. :-O





Around 5pm, I found another place to camp - someplace a little closer and where we could find a spot and set up before dark. Bill was all for it. We found a spot that required leveling from side to side, but it was level enough front to back that we just kept the truck hitched. This will save us a few minutes in the morning.

Our drive tomorrow will be longer, but we'll pick up the extra hour we lost (end of daylight savings time vs. the hour we gained driving out of central time) and will hopefully get an early start. I'm looking forward to getting home (I miss Lane, church, and our friends and family) but I'm really sad about it too. It's been an amazing four months. I've seen so much and have enjoyed it every step of the way. Okay, so I didn't enjoy the broken rib or the kidney stones or the bronchitis so much, but aside from those things, it's been fabulous. :P

So...This is our last night in the trailer and I'm kind of bummed. Sure, we'll go on other trips, but this is the end of BKEA. And that's what makes me sad.

Guess I'll just have to start planning the sequel. :)