Heading South for a Few Months

We returned to Cove Lake State Park campground for 10 days after visiting Cades Cove. We spent that time puttering around and fine-tuning a few things on the motor home. Now we're ready to head south for a few months. This means we're finally getting on the road!

Our final destination is Key West, Florida but we'll be making several stops along the way to visit friends and see some points of interest.

Our first stop will be Dreher Island State Park, a few miles north of Columbia, South Carolina. We're looking forward to visiting friends and expect to spend a week here - it will be fun!

Then we'll make our way to Joint Base Charleston RV Park and stay for just a couple nights... we want to visit the Angel Oak Tree, one of the oldest living trees in North America, and eat some delicious Charlestonion "low country" cooking.

After Charleston, we'll continue to Jacksonville, Florida and stay at the Naval Air Station's Jacksonville RV Park. We are looking forward to catching up with our friends, Fran and John, who are also heading to Key West for the winter. And we also hope to visit my longtime friend, Kevin, in St Augustine.

Then it's on to Bushnell, Florida for just one night; we have an appointment at the Escapees Sumter Oaks RV Park in Bushnell, Florida to have the Dolphin weighed.  I *think* we are under the manufacturer's recommended maximum weight by approximately 400 pounds but we need to make sure we're not overloaded as this would stress the engine, transmission, and braking system, and pose a safety risk.

After Bushnell, we will head to the Cocoa Beach area and stay at Manatee Cove Campground at Patrick Air Force Base. A loooong time ago, when I was a young airman new to the Air Force, this was my first duty station. I still have friends in the area and we always stop at Patrick Air Force base when we are in Florida.

Then it's on to Marathon, Florida where we'll stay a couple nights at the Marathon Coast Guard Station. We want to visit the Turtle Hospital and the Dolphin Research Center.

After stopping in Marathon, we'll drive about another hour south to the Naval Air Station Key West Campground (Sigsbee). This will be our third visit to Key West in an RV and we just love it down there! Tropical weather and foliage, great old architecture, lots of interesting history, fabulous food, and plenty of partying opportunities! Friends Fran and John will be there also and it's always fun to spend time with them.

We expect to stay in Key West until the end of November, at which point we'll head back to Tennessee for about a week (I have a medical appointment at the VA) before going to Houston, Texas to spend Christmas with my family.

Stay tuned!

There is Always Something That Needs Doin'

Anyone who has owned a boat or an RV knows that there is always something that needs doin'.  Even a well-maintained motor home has at least a short list of maintenance and repair items at any given time, and our Dolphin is no exception.

I do as much of the maintenance and repair work as I can... partly to save money, but mostly because if I do the work, then I know exactly what was done and how. Over the past several years, I've learned a lot about RV systems and have become pretty adept at taking care of most things myself. Online forums are a great resource for learning about troubleshooting and repairing RVs. In particular, I really like iRV2 which offers a collection of forums based on subject and RV type, and provides a wealth of information.

All that said, however, the first thing I did when we picked up the Dolphin was to arrange for a professional RV technician to inspect the liquid propane (LP) system. I wanted to be completely sure there were no leaks, and that the LP was going to the appliances at the correct pressure. In our Dolphin motor home, the 3-burner stove top, refrigerator, furnace, and hot water heater run off LP.

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Our refrigerator and hot water heater can also be operated using 110 VAC, and our Air Conditioning unit includes a heat pump we can use if the outside temperature is above 45F

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Anyway, Mike Richert from Onward RV Mobile Repair Service verified the LP system is in good shape and he also looked over the rest of the motor home... he was impressed by how nice it is and how well it has been maintained.

We've done some maintenance and repair work on the Dolphin since we've been here at Cove Lake, including:

• Added a Marshall Gas Controls MER472 Stay-Longer Propane Adapter Kit so we can use an external tank when parked for extended periods of time. This will save us from having to pack up to take the motor home to have the on-board propane tank re-filled
• Cleaned the roof and checked all the seals
• Lubricated the roof-mounted TV antenna
• Resealed the run-off gutters along the length of the coach
• Lubricated the steps, doors, locks, hinges
• Lubricated the awnings
• Tightened the screws and other fasteners inside the motor home 
• Sanitized the fresh water system
• Flushed the hot water heater and replaced the drain plug
• Lubricated the slides' rails and motors
• Put a brace under the bedroom slide to prevent the roller from wearing a groove in the fiberglass

There's more work to be done, but it can wait until we are settled in one place for a while over the winter.

Great Smoky Mountains - Cades Cove, TN

We've been in east Tennessee since 2001 and have thoroughly enjoyed living in this area. One of the biggest benefits for us was that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) was just an hour away from our house, including our much-loved Cades Cove.

The GSMNP is absolutely beautiful and spans the Smoky Mountains running through North Carolina and Tennessee. I highly recommend a visit to this national park, and Cades Cove in particular (although it can be very crowded during family vacation times).

We've camped at Cades Cove campground in our previous RV (Safari Trek) and now we're here in the Dolphin for four nights. We love it here!  But a word of caution, a lot of the campsites are on an incline and campers with larger RVs may not be able to level their rigs properly. This was this case with us, but we stayed anyway - just did not extend our slides-outs. Even a somewhat cramped visit to Cades Cove is still fabulous!

We drove around the Cades Cove loop today and went for a short hike at one point. As always, it is beautiful and peaceful up here. 

We Begin at Cove Lake State Park, TN

Because we ended up buying the RV so close to Labor Day, we decided to avoid the campground crowds
and wait until September 2nd to officially move into the Dolphin. 

One of our favorite campgrounds in east Tennessee is at Cove Lake State Park... we just love this place! We decided this would be the perfect setting for our "burn-in" period before we hit the road.

We are staying here for two weeks, going to Cades Cove for a few days, then back to Cove Lake for another week or so before we start making our way to Key West, Florida.

We are also using this time at Cove Lake Campground to host some get-togethers with friends before we get on the road. We expect to be gone from Tennessee for a year or so, and so we have a little sadness mixed in with our excitement.