Returning to the Mothership

Wednesday November 15th 2017
 Piper and I started our adventure by heading west on I 40.  Going through the mountains on I 40 is a interesting experience especially when pulling a trailer. This is a two lane each direction mountain pass with lots of hills and curves.  Several fatalities occur on this road  each year when tractor-trailers try to take a curve too fast and flip.   I planned for two stops to get piper out so she could walk around during this trip.   Or total drive time should be about six hours so I'm trying to break it up every couple of hours.  

Our first stop was at Pet Safe dog park in Knoxville TN. This is the most awesome dog park I have ever seen.  Here is Piper with the dog statue at the park.

We got our second walk in at Lebanon Tennessee and then arrived at Oliver sales office  just after dark.   I pulled around back of the building to block noise from the road and got a great nights sleep.

Thursday November 16th
 Today we dropped or flank sea turtle off at the all of her production factory to get some work done and piper and I headed off to a local park to do some more walking.   We spent the day kicking around Hohenwald.  Many walks in the park and a trip up the Natchez Trace Parkway to visit fall hollow waterfall.
 Finally after about eight hours and being bored out of our socks the trailer was ready for pick up.  The folks at Oliver put in some overtime and managed to get almost everything taken care of in one day.  The best part is that our on board heater is now working again, fixed under warranty. We got some other minor warranty work done and a replacement bathroom window put in. I don't have any idea how the bathroom window got broken in the first place but at least now it's fixed.
Left Hohenwald at around 530 local time and drove three hours to Crossville Tennessee where we once again stayed at our friendly Cracker Barrel restaurant. Cracker Barrel's are pretty awesome places to stay when you're RVing. They have RV parking spaces and are always accommodating when you request overnight parking. Plus they make a pretty mean fried chicken BLT.

Arrived in Asheville

 I've been falling behind a little bit in the blog.  And it's probably going to get worse I can't put pictures in directly from my iPad. The pictures I put in so far have been from the Oliver website. I can link to them to get the into the blogspor site, but I can't keep doing that so I'm going to write up our trip and then add the pictures when I get home.  So if the blog is a little boring my apologies and we will spice it up with pics later.

 We are staying at a campsite called mama Gerties in Swananoa NC.  Arrived on Monday and will be staying through Wednesday morning.  Donna has been awesome about planning the meals she filled up the pantry with all kinds of stuff and brought hotdogs and steak in the yeti cooler.  So we had hotdogs for breakfast on Tuesday and steak cooked over campfire for dinner.  I wasn't a believer that you could get steak cooked decently over a campfire but I was wrong about that.   The steaks came out awesome the only hitch was we didn't put the sweet potatoes in early enough so they were a little under done.   We didn't really even eat them anyway since there was so much steak we had a great night and then went to sleep woke up Wednesday morning and got ready to get out of my Mama Gerties.

 Wednesday morning is a travel day for me and a real estate hunting day for Donna.  We broke camp, hitched up, kissed goodbye,  and then Piper and I headed west to Hohenwald Tennessee.   I'm going to Hohenwald to get some repairs done on our Oliver trailer.

Caves and Cracker Barrell

Sunday November 12th - Winchester VA to Abington VA
Left the Wal Mart after gassing up (still getting 11-12 mpg) and headed to Luray Caverns. We walked Piper and then went on the cavern tour.  Piper took the tour in her backpack and was wonderfully well behaved.  

Baby it's COLD Outside.....Part 2

Saturday November 11th   -   Home to Winchester VA
Left home a bit later than planned...which turned out to be fine.  Visited with some friends in PA and then pushed on to Winchester VA.  Arrived around 10pm at the local Wal Mart and pulled up at a fairly secluded and not too bright section of the lot.  We came in so late and there were other trucks and RV's that we didn't even bother to ask, we just slept.   Well..... kinda.... Set up the Mr. Heater buddy and it wasn't really working that well. Found out later that the 1 lbs. can of propane must have not been working right.  Cold until around 2 am when the can went dry.  Put a new one on and fired it up and got that nice orange glow.  Trailer was warm in about 5-10 minutes.  Slept fitfully keeping an eye on it so all in all, not the best nights sleep.   Still our first Wal Mart stay went fairly well.

This was what I was keeping my eye on all night.  Warms the space up pretty well but there is no optimum space in the trailer for it.   Once our heater is fixed I will probably use this to get the trailer warm and then the onboard heat to keep it warm.  But that's only when we are without hookups.

Baby it's COLD outside!

Its is dropping to about 20 degrees tonight.  The FST is full of the pink stuff...... that's RV Antifreeze in case you were wondering.  We were planning on running south to avid the cold and then winterizing when we got back but Mother Nature had other ideas.

We are heading out in the morning.   Keep an eye out for more posts.
Gregg & Donna and Piper.

Heading Home on Wednesday......
Easy trip home. Only a three hour drive with a park walk along the way. Arrived early afternoon and just chilled until...

Friday / Saturday....
We headed down to the NJ Festival of Ballooning and stayed in a private yard. Boondock camping. Weather was iffy so we just stayed Friday night and then headed for home.  It was nice to just relax under the awning for the afternoon. 

Donna relaxing under the awning

Our Boondock Campsite near the NJ Festival of Ballooning

At Lake George... Tuesday
No Rain!  Nice mix of clouds and sunshine.
So, we decided to head back up to Ticonderoga for two reasons.  One to visit Mount Defiance which overlooks that he fort and Lake Champlain. 

Mount Defiance at Ticonderoga NY

The other was to Boldly go....
Where No Dog Has Gone Before

We went to the Star Trek "Original Series Set Tour".  Now if you read that carefully you will realize it doe NOT say Star Trek Series ORIGINAL SET Tour.  This was a re-creation of the Star Trek set.  This is why I was convinced that it was a ploy to separate tourists from their money. 
But Donna had checked TripAdvisor.  She always does and it got great reviews.  So, off we went, until we were told that Dogs were not allowed.  After some negotiation, we were allowed to take piper on the Enterprise set if she stayed in her backpack.  Yes... Piper has a backpack.  

Piper getting used to her new backpack

So off we go on the Star Trek tour.  It was a blast!  First we beamed up to the ship.

Beam me up Scotty!

Then we visited Sick Bay...


Finally we visited the bridge where we got to sit in Captain Kirk's command chair.

Gregg & Piper in Captain Kirk's chair

So, that is how Piper truly went where no Dog has gone before.  If you ever get up to Ticonderoga NY make sure you hit this tour. It took about an hour and was a blast.  

At Lake George......
We planned to stay 3 nights at Lake George exploring and seeing the sights.  I spent a lot of my youth at LG camping with my Dad on the islands.  Some of it looked familiar.... especially the no-see-ums and the rain.  We woke up to some serious rain that lasted most of Monday.  

Deciding not to let the rain bother us we hit the road to Fort Ticonderoga which is about an hour north of Lake George Village.  The fort was pretty awesome and Piper was welcome in most areas. 

Donna & Piper at the Kings Gardens - Fort Ticonderoga NY

The gardens were beautiful and we had the whole place to ourselves.  

I had a mild flashback at the fort's courtyard.  I suddenly remembered watching a demonstration of musket fire there when I was young. 

Fort Ticonderoga Courtyard

Heading back to LG the weather started to break so we went walking at town.  Returned to our campsite with some takeout salad from the Log Jam restaurant.  

Second Leg...   Corning NY to Lake George NY

We hit the road late morning after breakfast.  Susan made us an awesome zucchini egg bake and we were able to grab a shower before leaving. Tough to say goodbye to them.  Hope to see Alex again before the Christmas holiday. 

Google maps says the drive is about 4 hours.  It takes us a bit longer as we go slow in town and set the cruise at about 65 mph on the highway.  Truck gets between 12-13 mpg with the trailer in tow.  Anything over 10 mpg is a gift. :-)

We stopped about half way to pick up a nail clipper for Piper and then took a nice long walk at Neahwa State Park. 

Arrived at Lake George and the Adirondack Camping Village about 5pm and set up camp. 

First Leg... NJ to Corning NY
We arrived late Friday at Alex's apartment building. Our plan was to celebrate an early birthday and spend Saturday and part of Sunday with Alex and Susan. 
Our accommodations for the two nights we were at Corning were the parking lot of Alex's apartment complex.  This was an overflow lot that is lightly used so we had pretty much the whole thing to ourselves. 
Evenings were cool in the mid to high 60's and we set the MaxxAir fan to pull air out of the trailer and opened the windows over our bunks.  The result was a cool breeze that was like air conditioning.  We were able to adjust temp by controlling the opening of the windows and adjusting the fan speed with the remote.  Very comfy and very convenient. 

On Saturday we celebrated Alex's birthday with a cake and visited wineries and distilleries.   Great day... I bought a $50 bottle of Rye Whisky and not to be outdone... Donna bought a $100 bottle of wine. 
The ice wine was pretty awesome, but the whisky was better and I still have some left! 
Here is Alex and Susan with the cake that Oma sent up for his birthday. 

Late July New York State Trip
note that we are not blogging this trip as we go but after we have returned.

We start by picking up the Flying Sea Turtle from the RV storage a week before our departure date.  That gives us time to do any maintenance, cleaning, and stocking the trailer for the trip.
One thing that needed to be done is this years wax / gel coat finish for the fiberglass.  I used the RV ZEP floor finish trick. It took a few days but I think it is a good way to protect the gel coat finish.
Here is a pic of the ladder I got to be able to get up to the top of the trailer.  The ladder platform stands at 6 feet off the ground.

To cover the entire trailer you have to climb this thing about 20 times.  Nice workout and clean trailer all at once.  Best part about the ladder is that it is pretty safe.
Now all Donna has to do is stock and pack up the inside of the TT and we are good to go.

Just Starting Out.....

First Post on the new Blog!
Last summer we picked up our new Oliver Legacy Elite 2 travel trailer.  We are just over one year with our Flying Sea Turtle and have enough of a comfort level to start writing about our adventures.

We just finished a trip through upstate NY, and are planning a November adventure down to Tennessee and the Carolina's.

There will be several posts over the next week or so about our trip.  We are back now and are playing blog catch up.

Oliver is considered the Cadillac of the fiberglass travel trailers.  We have a 2016 Ford F-150 as our tow vehicle.  This is a great combination of livability and portability.  Not to mention power on our TV.  We have been up and down quite a few steep grades and this thing tows like a dream.

Here is the url for the Oliver LE2 site in case you want more detail about Oliver Travel Trailers.  
https://olivertraveltrailers.com/trailers/legacy-elite-2/

And here is a picture of our rig and us shortly after we picked it up.