Today was moving day, and we moved from Pigeon Forge to Cave Point in Kentucky.
This is the last move before we go home. Carol and the girls are very excited to be going back home. I am excited too, but also a bit sad that our trip is over, and apprehensive to finally feel that our friends are not there anymore. Leo and Ju are also moving to Florida this summer, and by the end of summer things will look very different. I am apprehensive for Bella too, she loves Lulu and this will be hard for her. But, we have lots to do, lots of things to work on, and we’ll have a fun and busy summer.
I did my writing after I woke up, then started getting things ready to leave. Since I packed some last night, there was less to do today, and with the girls up earlier, we decided to leave around 9. I got their school stuff in the truck, and Bia went there just before 9 and started her class. We finished connecting everything and were able to leave around 9:30.
Our drive was pretty nice, it was a lot of smaller mountains driving, and the areas were very green. Lots of trees, like we were driving in forrested mountains. It was pretty much the same from Piegon Forge to Cave City, with the mountains just getting a bit smaller. We switched highways a few times, but it was not too bad, and the roads were pretty decent. We made one stop only today, and it was at the first visitor center \ rest area as we crossed the border into Kentucky. It was a quick restroom break, and from there we did not stop again until we got to our campground.
We are staying at a Yogi Bear Jellystone Campground, which is a nice treat as our last campground of the trip, but it is also very close to Mammoth Cave National Park. Check in was quick, I got our info and map, and we were on our way to our spot, which pretty close to the entrance and all the “attractions”.
They have a waterpark here, two pools, golf cart rentals, lots of playgrounds, etc. We were on a back in spot, so once we got to it, we devised the plan to back in, Carol went outside and I pulled to the spot in front of us to then back in from there. There was only one other camper around us, and the entire section is empty, so I had plenty of room to maneuver any way I wanted. It was easy to drive in to the spot across the street, straighten the trailer and then just back in, so we were in fairly quickly. Once we were backed in, Carol started her process, which is first to check if the trailer is level and then we adjust it with blocks under the wheels on the side that needs to be raised. At this spot, we had to adjust a lot! Our spot is sideways on a downhill, so one side of the trailer is quite higher than the other. I looked at the only other trailer around, which happened to be right next to us, and the guy had massive blocks. We ended up stacking 3 pieces of 2x8s on each wheel on the door side to be able to level it. This was the most we had to level on the entire trip! It’s not a big deal, but it is quite a bit and we did not have that much difference in 9 months. Once we were level, I put the trailer brakes on, which are rubber choks and the X-chock, and we were set. X-choks are the best, they are these X shaped metal devices that go in between the front and rear tires, and as you make the X wider, it pushes against the tires basically locking them in place, so they can’t move.
The rest of the setup was all normal, but we did find out we had an incident on the way here. When Carol opened the front door to go inside and check the level, she said there was some milk by the door, on the inside. Then, she noticed some milk on the steps which are under the door, on the outside. And after she called me to check it out, I noticed it under the wall of the trailer, around that area, as if the milk was inside, ran through the wall and came out under the flooring and down the outside. There was only one place that had milk near that area, the outside fridge. The trailer has a little door outside, by the entry door, which has a small fridge and a stove, it’s what is called a small outside kitchen. We had a carton of milk there, unopened and with the original pull tab seal, which was laying down with the opening pointing up. Well, that carton did not resist the pressure variation as we were going up and down the mountains on the way here, and the pressure caused it to leak. It didn’t blow up or open or anything, it just started leaking. So, yeah, we had some milk all over the outside fridge, some milk under it, some by the area under the stove and around the wall, some ran by the wall into the front door, and under the flooring down to the steps. Yikes. Carol cleaned it all up as well as she could, I’m just hoping there was not too much milk that went into the insulation under the flooring, and that we won’t have any nasty smell of spoiled milk around. Carol took care of that while I finished setting up, and then she heated up some leftovers for lunch. I got all the stabilizers setup, especially with how high one side was sitting. The door side is sitting so high that the steps are way off the ground, making the last step still high enough that it’s almost a drop. Hahahaha. But, there’s no movement inside, and the trailer does not move at all as we go in or out.
The girls were doing some drawings as we ate, and kept drawing for some time. Carol and I were sitting outside, we had a beer and lunch, and then just chatted for a bit. We’ve been talking about business plans, what to do this summer, etc. Then we decided to get some groceries for the next couple of days. I had told the girls to go outside and play, but they insisted in doing their drawings inside, which has been a theme now, we get to a new place and instead of going outside they decide to do stuff inside the trailer.
But, as we talked about leaving, Bella decided she wanted to play in the playground, and jumping pillows and what not. We left and drove around the campground to kind of check it out. We stopped first by the largest playground, where they have two jumping pillows, pedal carts, gold mining, pickel ball, etc. We stopped there and the girls played for about 30 minutes.
It was actually a bit warm, so they got hot pretty quick. When they were done, we continued driving around the campground and eventually came by the pools. The girls wanted to check out the pool water temperature so we stopped there. The pools are not heated I guess, so the water was quite cold. And as we continued driving out, the drove by the big water slide, which was closed. And we also drove by the big water park, which was opened but completely empty, likely because the water is cold there too. We may check it out closer on Saturday.
We drove into town to get groceries and the one we chose was an IGA, which is connected to a gas station. We didn’t need a lot, so any place would likely do it. We got some bread, milk, apples and snacks. I wanted to make burgers tomorrow and so we got buns, but then they didn’t have the actual burgers in small packets. They only had a box with 4lbs of hamburgers, which were 16. Way too many for us. Carol decided to just get some ground beef and make the burgers tomorrow. It was definitely an interesting store, had enough of what we needed, but not a ton of options. But we were clearly in the neck of the woods once a skinny and very pale guy walks in with no shirt on, talking loud and obviously under the influence of something :). After we got what we needed, we headed back, stopping to fill up the truck on the way.
Then, once we got back, Carol started making a pasta sauce with shrimp inside, and I was cooking the pasta on the stove outside, while enjoying a beer and checking Facebook. The pasta was delicious, and everyone had seconds. After dinner, we all showered and got ready for bed. We watched a bit of TV too, and I was laying on the couch with Bella and kept dozing off. I just remember her looking at me a few times as I was opening my eyes from being out, as if she caught me hahahahaha. And that was it for our first day here.
We had a good moving day, and just relaxed at our campground in Cave City, Kentucky.