It occurred to me, looking over my blogs from this trip, that many readers, especially non-campers, might want to call me personally and yell "Are you crazy?" Maybe so. In a little over two weeks, we encountered paralyzing traffic jams, tornado warnings (not just watches), mechanical issues, and communication breakdowns--not to mention that we are both 75. So why do we do it?
There's no easy answer to that question unless it would be yes, we are crazy. But for us, it does balance out. There's the people. We got to spend time with my equally crazy sister and her family and our blossoming granddaughter. We got to meet our granddaughter's boyfriend and hear about their exciting plans for their lives. And the casual acquaintances in the campgrounds--the woman, who after traveling the world in her career, wanted to see our own country and decided an RV was the best way to do it. She had sold her house and just begun full-timing. The couple who had camped for years within twenty miles of their home and were trying to get up the gumption to take off on much longer trips. The young couple who had just bought a small trailer with plans to go off-roading. The hosts who were always helpful.
There were sights that you don't see touted in every travel brochure but well worth our time. The Old Stone Fort in Tennessee and the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina were both fascinating. The waterfalls in Tennessee and Georgia were beautiful. We prefer parks to private campgrounds because they were usually chosen for reasons other than proximity to an interstate. The land may have been donated simply because the owner wanted to share its beauty. Or the motive may have been to preserve a piece of history, such as Old Stone Fort or the Cherokee lands in Georgia at Vogel State Park or, as our last stop, Lincoln's New Salem Village. There were the interesting small towns, such as Blue Ridge, Georgia, who have revitalized themselves as shopping and craft centers.
And of course there's the scenery. We spent a lot of time in the mountains of Tennessee, north Georgia, and Alabama. We enjoyed the lowlands of Mississippi and the plains of Illinois. I am a sunset fanatic and those are easier to miss if you stay in a hotel. We like having the comforts of home with us and don't think its any more hassle to set up an RV than to haul luggage into a hotel and pack it back up and haul it out at the end of a stay. So call us crazy. We probably are, but don't bother us with that--we're busy making plans for the next trip.
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