We Break Our First RV Etiquette Rule

Saturday, September 11

The first time I've been out of New York on this particular day.  The horror will never leave me.  We were listening to a local country music radio station and the announcer recounted  (in his wonderfully melodic North Carolinian accent ) exactly where he was when he heard what had happened.  "It's the JFK moment of a whole new generation, folks."

Today was a driving day - 300 miles to Nashville, Tennessee, all of them along glorious interstates, so I offered to take the morning shift through the Great Smoky Mountains to Knoxville.

Sure, all smiles and confidence now ...

It's so lovely around Asheville and I was looking forward to some spectacular views of this most visited National Park in the country.  We knew there were rain showers coming towards us but they didn't mention these showers were the remnants of a tropical storm.  Soon after we entered the mountains the skies opened up and closed in on us.  Not only was it dumping down but there was fog too. There was no place to safely pull over so I had to keep on driving.  Dan was a little white knuckled beside me when the visibility dropped to about 20 feet and water started to pool on the road.  Can't say I blame him - I would have been a babbling wreck if it were me in the passenger seat.  As it was, I felt absolutely fine (yes, yes, I know, control issues) and plowed on through it. 

It eventually cleared by the time we pulled into a packed rest stop just before Knoxville.  We have to use the Truck parking lot and even that was full, so before long another RV  (a really old one, made ours seem positively deluxe by comparison) pulled into our slot behind us.  We were just getting ready to leave when someone knocked on our door (attack Schnoodles and guard birds went crazy.)  It was the old guy in the RV behind us. His battery was dead, could we give him a jump?  And here's where we failed.  We didn't help a fellow RVer out. (Forgive me, Cousin Debs, my RV maven.)

Dan said we didn't have any jumper cables (no problem, the old guy had some), that the last time he gave someone a jump he blew out his own engine's alternator, that this was a rental and we couldn't really take that chance (and I agreed - I saw us stuck in that rest stop for hours), and finally that he wasn't sure he could manage to turn the RV around in this very crowded lot with all these big rigs coming and going (no problem, the old guy offered to do it), that he was really, really sorry but this was a rental and we just couldn't help him.  The old guy had a look of disbelief on his face.  We slunk out of that rest stop as fast as we could trailing waves of shame.  I still feel bad. I wonder if we now carry The Mark, if the word is out on the RV network that the Yankee Renters are not to be trusted.

We rolled into the Jellystone RV park in Nashville just as another storm was about to hit.  Turns out we're on the banks of the same river that flooded downtown Nashville back in May, and the Grand Ole Opry which is just down the road, and this park too.  But I was more worried about the darkening sky and the wind which had really picked up.  I asked Nancy the "Park Ranger" about tornadoes. "Oh sure, we get 'em - but we haven't had one in ages."  I didn't find that reassuring.  We are in a trailer park.  We might as well have a great fat target painted on our RV.  Maybe I should be asking about sirens and shelters when I check in from here on.

But the storm passed over us.  There was no one we'd heard of at the Grand Ole Opry, which turns out to be neither Grand nor Ole

nor even open due to ongoing restoration, so we had an early night.  We're heading to Memphis tomorrow for two nights (and two days of pure barbecue heaven) and staying at another irresistibly named trailer park.




As we said goodbye to Yogi and Boo-boo, we joined an RV convoy.  Get a load of this guy's giant carbon footprint.

Yes, that's a 45 footer towing a Hummer - overcompensation or just plain "don't give a damn"?