We were parked at Convenient Campground in Red Bay last night. It’s just a gravel parking lot but we were off the road enough that we had a quiet night, slept well. We were back up at 6:00am to be ready for the Tiffin supervisor who always visits you at your RV sometime after 7:00 am your first morning. We were still sitting at the table finishing up breakfast when the phone rang and the person on the other end asked us to come to Bay 7 ASAP. What? No visit from the supervisor? Nope. Straight to the bay. Guess our problem description was adequate. Talk about going from a slow relaxed morning to top speed in less than a minute. We made it to Bay 7 in about 20 minutes. As usual we had two very nice young men assigned to our coach and they began work on our slide out immediately. Since you are not allowed to stay with your RV, we spent the next three – four hours roaming around Red Bay, visiting the grocery stores, the Tiffin Hospitality Center, the parts store and getting our walking in for the day. Shortly before lunch we received another call asking us to return to Bay 7. The work was complete and we were good to go! They found a wire from the slide controller to a motor had come disconnected inside the wall. Apparently a known issue because they had a retrofit on hand to apply to keep it from happening again. So relieved and the cost of the repair was much less than we expected. We grabbed some lunch and were on the way to Pine Mountain. We will get some estate work done here tomorrow morning then we plan to return to SC. It was a good day.
In our Red Bay Tour today we found this at the Big Star grocery. Of course we had to buy it. And no, we haven’t tried it yet.
So… Another month has slipped away. It’s been a busy month and a hard month in some ways. The estate sale at Aunt Helen’s house is now complete and the house is now empty. We are thankful that project is complete. We have spent time cleaning out and then cleaning up. We are praying that God will bring the family He wants to have the house, to make Pine Mountain their home and be good members of the community. Of course, we want that to happen NOW, but… we know that God’s timing is perfect timing and that’s what we want.
Good friends that Anne worked with invited us to Destin a few weeks ago. As we were preparing to make the trip south, we realized we couldn’t remember when we had last slept in a house that didn’t have wheels underneath. They have a beautiful new home there where they can walk out their door, onto their deck and into their boat. It was a great weekend of visiting and catching up. Of course, we also had some great seafood and fun time on the water. So blessed to still have friends from the years at Cullman Internal Medicine. We plan to stay in closer contact since we both have plans to have extended time on the Gulf Coast. BTW, we were able to sleep just fine in a house without wheels.
We enjoyed some time on the water with our friends in Destin.
We attended at wonderful worship service on the beach before we left Destin.
We decided to take a few days “off” to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary in Maggie Valley, NC. We are so blessed! We were able to meet up with Barry and Donna on Saturday for a hike and lunch. We share the same anniversary day but different year. After lunch, while walking around in Cherokee, a large herd of elk walked out of the woods and into the town. The huge buck stayed in the edge of the woods for a while then began bugling, and shortly, all the ladies and children rejoined the buck and wondered across the parking lot and back into the woods. Such a treat to watch! We also got to meet some NOMADS for dinner on Monday night. It was a great few days of celebrating our 40th.
In Maggie Valley we stayed at Stonebridge RV Park. This is the “brochure” style picture of our site.
This is the “reality” version. Our slideout was less than 6′ from our neighbor’s slideout.
However we did have this nice view out our windshield at our site
We had a delicious breakfast one morning at The Buttered Biscuit near Lake Junaluska.
We visited Soco Falls which is just a few minutes from Maggie Valley.
The trail to Soco Falls can be interesting. At least someone has left some ropes there to make it easier.
We visited Mingo Falls on our way to meet up in Cherokee.
We went to Mingus Mill to hike one of the trails after meeting up with Barry and Donna in Cherokee.
We chose the Mingus Cemetery Trail. Good choice.
The bull elk acted like he owned Cherokee and all its streets.
Some of the rest of the herd enjoying the river. A group of folks floating on tubes went by shortly before this.
We also took a ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped for a hike at one of the overlooks.
The Grassy Ridge MIne Trail
Some of the lush flora along the trail
It is another rocks and roots trail typical of the Smokey Mountains
The NOMADS friends we visited are workcamping at Lake Junaluska so we hiked around the lake there after visiting them.
A hedge on the Lake Junaluska Trail
When in the Maggie Valley-Waynesville area you have to visit Mast General Store.
As we were preparing to leave Maggie Valley, one of Fred’s slides wouldn’t retract. Max was able to bypass the motor and get some help to push the slide in so that we could drive Fred and meet Randy and Debra for a few days of fun at South Cove County RV park in Seneca, SC. There we had fun visiting, resting, kayaking and of course eating. We played mini golf for the first time in a very long time. Oasis Ranch mini golf was different than any we have played before. There were water hazards with large fish, sand traps and all sorts of curves, inclines, and dips. It was also nicely shaded and lots of fun.
The view from our campsite at South Cove County Park
Pocket stew cooking on the campfire
We really enjoyed kayaking with Randy and Debra.
Oasis Ranch has the nicest mini-golf course we have seen.
Sunset at South Cove County Park
We left South Carolina yesterday and are now back in Red Bay, Alabama at Tiffin Motor Homes factory service center hoping to get Fred repaired this week. We are fortunate that we can live with the one slide in but sure will be glad when we have that added space again. We usually enjoy our time at Red Bay and have already returned to our favorite pizza place and visited with the owner there again, and then back to our favorite ice cream shop. Now if we can just get good news in the morning about the timing of our repair. It’s really not fun to have both RV’s in the shop. We will keep you posted. Prayers appreciated.
RVing With a Purpose 