Outside Knoxville--4/22

We talk to our neighbor in a 2006 View (the same as ours but a year older). They are from Quebec and have been in Mexico and are now headed home. He says they are all vacationed up and it’s time to be home. They carry bikes and keep them covered with a rubber cover, but he reports that they get all wet under the cover and rust. He says they keep 2 bikes to put on the RV and 2 bikes at home for good. Again we have a poor internet connection, so I go to the office. Fine connection there. I work there and then send Norb down to check his e-mail there, too. I have been checking e-mail via the iPhone, but it’s a lot easier on the PC. And I can’t post anything to the blog from the iPhone. I get the RV ready to go, including dumping the black and gray water. A first!

We check out the Asheville Botanical Garden. It should be called the Botanical Woods. Pretty unimpressive for a botanic garden, but a nice enough walk in the woods. As we head north we are still undecided about where to go. At the rest stop we decide to head toward Oak Ridge, TN, but first we will do the Civil War Trail in Knoxville. Go to the Visitor’s Center to pick up a map and are told, “Sorry, honey, but we are out of them right now.” So much for that. So on to the TVA/Melton Dam Park.

We find a beautiful campsite overlooking the lake. Someone is just leaving the site as we come up; they have even paid for this night. The couple at the site just below us has their freezer plugged in and various appliances—microwave, coffee maker, electric fry pan—piled up on the picnic table. It turns out that he is a carpenter, he has lost his job and they are essentially homesteading in the park. They go to Wal-Mart to buy a canopy to keep the appliances out of the rain. Another family comes up from swimming in the lake and finds that their truck won’t start. They go to Wal-Mart to buy a tent because they have to spend the night while waiting for someone from Arkansas to bring them the part for the truck. Things are going bad in rural America, folks.

We make a campfire with a few scraps of wood and pine cones, invite our neighbors above to join us (Dale and Mary Ellen) and have a very pleasant evening.