I thought it more fitting to post a tribute to Liberty last night so I delayed our normal "arrived at" post until today. AS mentioned before we got a late start yesterday on our drive down here, but we departed at 1130 hrs Central time and headed east on the Cumberland Parkway.
It was a gorgeous but a very sad and emotional drive through the hills of Kentucky and Tennessee. We drove on east to I-75 then south to our campground which is not far north of Knoxville TN. I opted for I-75 rather than trying to navigate the smaller roads in the country, and that turned out to be a mistake. There was road construction on I-75 choking it down to one lane southbound and traffic was backed up 45 minutes to a crawl.
At 1652 hrs Eastern time we arrived at our campground which is called Raccoon Valley at Volunteer Park in Heiskell TN. The drive was 221 miles.
The office here was is apparently not staffed onsite, and there was a map with our name on it waiting for us so we made our way to our campsite and then called and changed to a vacant one next to it so our Directv would work. The sites are gravel and not real level, but the power seems solid and the water pressure is adequate. The spacing is a little tight and not much grass. The campground seems to be occupied by quite a few workers or seasonal folks and it is kind of trashy. If I had it to do over again I might have stayed elsewhere, but this will work for six nights, no problem. AT&T (our data hotspot) and Verizon (our cell phones) signal level are both adequate.
The empty site next to us was supposed to be our original site. That tree blocked line of sight to the Directv satellites.
Yesterday was tough emotionally and today was not much better. We spent the morning reviewing the research we had done after redesigning our trip and identifying new overnight sites. We booked a river boat lunch cruise for tomorrow (Wednesday) and bought tickets online for that. Sadly we are no longer on a time crunch, and it is the strangest feeling. I honestly do not know how to deal with that yet. We got up this morning to a very quiet RV which would normally be filled with a multitude of tasks involving Liberty: feeding, giving her morning pills. playing toys, walking around the campground and pottying, etc. For the last several years since Liberty has been on heart medication we have been on a 3-4 hour time limit to be gone due to the Lasix making her pee frequently. She never, ever had an accident in the coach. All of that is gone so there is a huge hole here. We got Liberty before our other Schnoodle, Wrigley, was gone, so it has literally been decades since we have been without a four-legged companion. Before Wrigley was our Dalmatian Buddy. Before Buddy was our Sheepdog Fonzi. I know this will subside, eventually.
So back to this morning, we identified places to see and things to do while we are here, and then I printed maps with coordinates like I always do. I needed fuel after our journey yesterday, so we picked a venue for this afternoon (Tuesday) with fuel nearby - the Museum of the Appalachia just 8 miles away. After lunch we headed that way. I found a station that accepts our EFS TDS fuel card nearby which saves us $0.40 a gallon. The going rate for diesel is $3.35 and the EFS station is $2.95
After lunch we drove north to the next interchange, fueled the truck and then headed to the Museum of the Appalachia which is a "living mountain village" that is Smithsonian Affiliated. This museum started in 1969 with one cabin. It now occupies over 65 acres and includes dozens of log structures and over 250,000 artifacts in 3 buildings, with vast collections of folk art, musical instruments, baskets, quilts, Native American artifacts, and more.. It's mission "seeks to not only preserve the artifacts of an earlier time, but to instill in the community a greater knowledge of and appreciation for the history & culture of the people of Southern Appalachia." They have the most authentic and complete replica of pioneer Appalachian life in the world.
Gift shop
The self-guided tour appropriately starts and ends in the gift shop. They also have a restaurant that serves down-home food for lunch. After paying our fee they provide a tour map and it shows 35 log cabins, barns, farm animals, churches, schools, and gardens on their 65-acre site. Some of the buildings are as simple as authentic one-room cabins or as elaborate as huge barns and a Hall of Fame museum. So we started out and made it through quite a few before the nearly 94F outside temperature with humidity did us in.
For the sake of time, I've included some pictures and details on a few of the many displays and then a few other pictures to give you an idea of what they have here:
Tom Cassidy's Cabin: This is an example of the authenticity of what is on display here. This happens to be the first display. It is a cabin owned and occupied by Tom Cassidy, a bachelor and musician from Union Co, TN. He lived in this one-room shack until he sold it to the museum and it was moved here in 2007. It is exactly as it was when Tom left it.
Tom said, "I've got that little cot in there, a chair, a stove for heat and cooking, a fry pan, a bean pot, an old dresser, my fiddle, and my pistol. What more does a man need?" Awesome!
James C. Hubbard had this one-room playhouse built for his only daughter Gwen when she was five years old. Six years later the Tennessee Valley Authority bought over 42,000 acres of land including the Hubbard farm for the construction of the Norris Dam. It was moved intact and much later donated to the museum by 84 year old Gwen Hubbard Sharp.
Appalachian Hall of Fame: It is devoted to and contains artifacts from various notable, historic and famous Appalachians. There are displays of Indian artifacts, musical instruments, and other Appalachian items:
Cherokee baskets
Tools
Indian artifacts
Fiddles
Banjos
Tools to create rifling in gun barrels
We toured many more of the 38 buildings, many of them farm buildings and a few more pictures:
A gunsmith shop with a complete barrel rifling machine
Stone grinding wheels
Leather shop
1874 metal jail cells
Mark Twain Family Cabin
Peacocks strutting around the grounds.
Hacker Martin Gristmill
This place is massive and very interesting. We are glad we visited. As mentioned before, tomorrow we have reservations for a lunch riverboat cruise on the Tennessee River.
