June 18-19

Here's the story. The service here in this state park is less than stellar. Hence the three posts. And it took me three times to get the second set of pictures sent!

Tuesday: we left Wake Forest early, well after the known commuter traffic we had been warned about. We continued to our destination on a combo of state highways and Interstate. We headed north into Virginia. We had a beautiful drive there in the Blue Ridge mountains. While they are not Colorado there were some significant climbs. Poppy and Dave both did great. Lots of trucks. I was just the navigator and Come and snack distributer. Even a fog warning about 11 am . We did see some of it off in the distance. It was truly a beautiful drive. Lots of hills. We stayed in Blountville. Just outside Bristol where the NASCAR track is.

We hit three states yesterday ! We had a great quiet campground. It was actually nice enough to sit out for the late afternoon and evening. We invested in a small fan with lots of power. We stole the idea from our walks at other campgrounds. Man it helps. We had tons of birds singing to us. Dave read a book, I crocheted. We had dinner outside and stayed til after dark with the lightening bugs. And no mosquitos or other biting bugs! It was a great evening.

Wednesday - on the road by 9. More of the highway and state road mix. The traffic was not horrible and only a bit of slow down in Nashville. The further west we got the hills got smaller. We saw some funny

Bill boards. Wei eventually started to see farming. Some on some pretty steep hills. The green fields were beautiful. We also saw lots of cattle. A few goats. More wild turkeys. The road kill seems to be bigger here too.

Knoxville was big and had lots of industrial plants along the highway.

We went right through Nashville, could not see much. We are camped west of Nashville in Montgomery Belle State park. Another well manicured park. We had trouble getting the hitch to let go and Bubba next door came out in his overalls and long beard to offer help. Nice camo crocs! Pretty sure nothing under those overalls! Very nice man.

Dave went to Highschool in Nashville so headed back to his old neighborhood. So beautiful! His dad's church that he was pastoring is the brick church. They have added a nice playground. Beautiful grounds and building. They had a home about a mile away. The home looks great. Dave got his bearings back quickly to show me all the places they hung out. His highschool is there but closed as a s hool. The Drive in movie theatre they snuck into was gone. The huge city park was still there. You can no longer drive through. We visited several parts as we drove around. We drove down the sledding hills, ok streets they sled on. He said when they got storms it would snow and ice over. No snowplows to mess up good sledding. Saw the baseball field he played on and the club where they would go swimming. He did pretty good for not being back for 50 years! It was streets of stately southern homes. We drove by the Belle Mead Mansion and Plantation and the exact replica of it another man built. The stories were flowing. We had a great afternoon. We went down Chickering street, not far from his home. Homes of Country music stars and others. I read the most expensive house in the state sold for 500 million on that street. Truly a place to dream.

We had another game of Skipbo I lost tonight. Just barely. Wait til tomorrow.

We will head to Memphis tomorrow to see Dave's mom and sister and family.