July 17: Blue Heron Camp Ground

It was a fun adventurous drive here. About 3/4 of the way to our new location, Larry decided he needed a Big Mac (hasn't had one in months). We pulled into a McDonalds that was in a shopping center so we had lots of room to park. He got back into the truck and I drove so he could eat. We drove out the steep driveway and onto Hwy. 27 and got stopped by the curb - I turned too sharp. Tried to pull over the curb but the truck would not budge. Tried to back up - same thing. Got out and looked. I had buried the jet ski hitch into the steep asphalt drive as the trailer came up onto the highway. Meanwhile, I'm blocking the two north bound lanes of traffic. Nothing embarrassing there. About the time I decide to call 911, a motorcycle cop shows up to help--said someone had already called us in. At just that same time, a wrecker drives by and turns around to see if he can help. Larry's theory is that when we get pulled up over the curb, it will lift up the hitch and all come free. Now another officer (lady) has shown up in a car to help direct traffic. Larry gets into the truck just as the wrecker decides to start pulling. We still had the truck in Park. Made quite a bit of noise. Larry got out and explained to him that he really did not want to be in that gear to be pulled--I didn't hear the conversation, but I'm hoping that's how it went down. In the meantime, we've drawn a crowd that was going into McDonalds. This guy said he had 30 years experience in this sort of stuff and we needed to be pulled backwards to get unstuck. We were just going to drive it further into the asphalt by being pulled. I told him Larry's theory but he didn't look too convinced. Larry put the truck in drive and the tow truck started pulling. The trailer came up over the curb and, indeed did lift up the hitch and pulled the jet ski right along into the street. And the gentleman standing behind me said "Well, he just made a lier out of me!" and off he walked into McDonalds. The tow truck driver didn't take any money (probably hoping to get away before we discovered that the transmission was broken) and the officer said Wal-Mart could cover the expense of having the divot repaired in the drive. Off we went, me still driving, trying to determine whether the transmission was indeed still intact. So far, it seems to be working properly.

This camp ground is indeed very quiet. I haven't even heard any birds; however, the Cicadas are out and quite loud, but not nearly as loud as the tree frogs. If we were tent camping, we would not be getting any sleep tonight. We BBQ'd for dinner and went for a bike ride (still have a healing blister on my big toe). We hooked up all our lights for the first time and here's a picture. Hanging from the awning are trailers (like small light blue Air Streams) and cars (Larry says they look like Metropolitans) and there is rope lights on the ground. We are able to park the truck and jet ski in the handicapped accessible camp ground next to us because the attendant said no one would be there for several days.


Tennessee and Kentucky seem to have this really unusual phenomenon - no wind. Our campfire smoke goes straight up. We can leave our awning out over night. We have to swat the bugs away. And best yet, when we get all hot and sweaty - no breeze to cool us off. Kansas is looking better all the time. When they do get a breeze of 5 to 10 MPH - they call that winds. If the weather man says tomorrow will be windy, we expect a breeze to help cool us off and deter the bugs.

My signal here isn't too bad - just a little slow. I'm not going to have much to blog about because we plan to hang here and explore the immediate area. There are some more falls we can hike to (less than a mile and after the blisters heal) and a scenic train ride. There's a raging river somewhere close by that we want to go look at. AND, I'm really hoping to see a black bear up close. Larry put up the bird food tonight and put away the BBQ grill so as not to attract them. Hope when I do see one that I'm coherent enough to grab the camera and not wet my pants.