Tag Archives: I-65

2014/04/27 (N) Camp Turkeyville (MI)

We had a somewhat longer drive today of 250 miles.  That is still within our comfort zone, but we did pull into a rest stop and have a bite of lunch.  Our route from Columbus Woods-N-Waters Kampground took us north on I-65 to Indianapolis, Indiana.  I-65 through Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky had been a fairly good road (except for the construction backup we encountered south of Louisville, Kentucky).  I-65 through southern Indiana was not as good and the condition of the road suggested that we had finally returned to the land of four seasons where a bitter winter had taken its toll on the roads.

The path from Camp Turkeyville to Cornwell's Turkeyville complex.

The path from Camp Turkeyville to Cornwell’s Turkeyville complex.

Bruce at the Turkeyville narrow gauge RR X-ing.

Bruce at the Turkeyville narrow gauge RR X-ing.

We picked up I-465 on the south side of Indy and took that around the city to the east and onto I-69 at the northeast corner.  I-69 runs northeast from Indy past Ft. Wayne, and on into the center of Michigan.  In all the years we have driven back and forth between Detroit, Michigan and St. Louis, Missouri the southern terminus of I-69 has always been the northeast corner of Indianapolis.  Not long after merging onto I-69 we noticed that the exit signs had small additional signs stating the “old” exit number.  The new exit numbers were 200 miles higher!  That seemed to indicate that I-69 now started somewhere 200 miles to the southwest. Linda did a quick Google search on her smartphone and found out that the southern terminus of I-69 is now Evansville, Indiana.  We have never been on the new stretch of this Interstate.  Until today we didn’t even know they were building it.

The Turkeyville narrow gauge RR.  You can just see the two trestles from here.

The Turkeyville narrow gauge RR. You can just see the two trestles from here.

The Turkeyville General Store (gift shop).

Linda at the Turkeyville General Store (gift shop).

Our destination was Camp Turkeyville, a relatively new RV park at Cornwell’s Turkeyville complex near Marshall, Michigan.  The RV park had good gravel interior roads and sites.  We had one of the full hookup pull-through sites as we were only staying one evening, not unhooking the car, and needed to dump our waste tanks before leaving in the morning.  The sites were generous in terms of size and spacing, with angled approaches which makes getting in and out easier, but they lacked trees and shade.  Most of the sites did not appear to be level (ours wasn’t) but they were close enough that we were able to level our coach.

Turkeyville antique barn (rear, left) and signs for the various attractions.

Turkeyville antique barn (rear, left) and signs for the various attractions.

After we got set up we went for a walk and checked the place out.  Some of the sites have metered electric, so the RV park is clearly looking for some percentage of the sites to be seasonal or annual residents.  Amenities included a pool with a community building that had restrooms, private shower rooms, and a meeting room with limited kitchen facilities.  There was a small playground and a walking path to Turkeyville.  Turkeyville has a narrow gauge railroad with two trestles, a few farm animals (goats, rabbits, ponies), and a couple of dozen turkeys walking around loose.  There is an antiques barn, a restaurant, a dinner theater, and a “general store,” aka gift shop with a lot of interesting food items if you are not a vegan.  Our FMCA GLCC chapter has held rallies here the last couple of years but so far we have not been able to attend.  It looked like a good venue for a rally of 10 -15 rigs and 20 – 30 people.  The RV park will easily accommodate more rigs than that, but the meeting room would be crowded beyond 30 people.

We settled in for the evening with an eye on the weather.  The forecast called for rain and increasing winds from a storm system that was causing death and destruction across the Midwest and south.  That always makes for a good night’s sleep in an RV.  Fortunately we had a short drive the next day and did not have to leave early in the morning.

 

2014/04/25 (F) National Corvette Museum

As forecast, we had thunderstorms overnight.  Light rain started before we went to bed, but the most intense weather was between 3 and 4 AM with lightning, thunder, and intermittent heavy downpours.  It is impossible to sleep through such weather even if we could completely darken the bedroom, which we cannot, as the sound of the storm is omnipresent and the wind rocks the motorcoach.  Once the storms subside, however, the sound of gentle rain on the roof makes for ideal sleeping conditions.  The good news was that none of our usual leaks appeared.

The National Corvette Museum main entrance, Bowling Green, KY.

The National Corvette Museum main entrance, Bowling Green, KY.

We had three things on our agenda for today—breakfast at Panera, the National Corvette Museum, and grocery shopping—all of which were in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Since we were having breakfast out we did not make coffee at home and used the time normally devoted to breakfast to take showers.  Mundane, perhaps, but we keep the cats’ litter tray in the shower, so using it for its intended purpose requires at but more work than it might otherwise.

We left around 9 AM to dark, cloudy skies but with a forecast for steadily improving conditions across the region throughout the day.  We took I-65 to make time and took exit 22 onto US-231, the main commercial drag into Bowling Green.  We stopped at the visitor information center and got some local maps and information.  The Bowling Green Panera was just down the road and we were there by 10:30 AM.  Maybe it’s a southern thing, or perhaps a smaller town thing, but this was the third Panera we have been in recently where we had to wait in line while the person behind the counter carried on a personal conversation with the 1st person in line way beyond any reasonable definition of customer service.  But I was patient and eventually got our bagels and coffee.  Not that I had much of a choice; it was the only Panera for 100 miles or more in any direction from where we are camped.

Panera is a great place to sit and enjoy unlimited free refills of excellent coffee and use free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi is not secure but they do require you to log in to their network to accept their terms and conditions of use.  Part of those T&Cs is a notice to please limit your use of the system to 30 minutes during the busy lunch period.  We have never seen that enforced until today when both of our iPads got cutoff and we received a message that we would not be allowed to reconnect until after 2 PM.  🙁   It was past noon by that point and we were ready to move on anyway.  The place was busy, but this was the first time we had ever had our use of Panera’s Wi-Fi system curtailed.

This Corvette was being raffled off at 4 PM.  1,000 tickets, $250 each.

This Corvette was being raffled off at 4 PM. 1,000 tickets, $250 each.

We headed over to the National Corvette Museum where a big “bash” was taking place.  The museum was open for general admission, but plant tours required reservations which were no longer available as of two weeks ago.  The main parking lots were filled with Corvettes and we were parked in a field a short distance away.  Because of the “bash” the lobby was packed with vendors and people, but once we paid our senior admission of $8 (each) and went into the display area it was quiet and not crowded.

The NCM was built, and is run by, a private foundation.  It is not owned, or operated, by General Motors but enjoys a very close working relationship with the company, including the fact that it is on the same street as the factory where the cars have been built since production was moved there in 1981.  Neither of us are “car people” but we found this to be an excellent museum and thoroughly enjoyed our time looking at the cars, reading about them, and trying to photograph them in the subdued museum lighting.

Because the “bash” was going on, the museum had opened the area where a massive sinkhole opened up on February 12, swallowing eight priceless Corvettes.  Since that event all of the cars had been recovered from the hole and put on display “as is.”  Most were badly damaged, some beyond recognition or any hope of repair.  Work was also underway to stabilize the sinkhole and ultimately rebuild that part of the museum and return it to service.  We had to sign liability waivers in order to enter this area of the museum and see the sinkhole.  After we were done in the museum we walked around part of the parking lot looking at the Corvettes parked there before walking back to our car.

We back-tracked towards downtown and stopped at a Kroger’s supermarket across the street from the Western Kentucky University medical complex.  This was the largest, and nicest, Kroger’s store we have ever been in.  We picked up the things we needed to take care of our food needs for the rest of the trip home.  Linda found a “power mix” of salad greens that included Mizuna, a slightly peppery and very tasty green that we had not heard of or seen before, even at a Whole Foods.

We took US-31W from Bowling Green through beautiful rolling farm lands back to Cave City.  After unloading the groceries I had a brief chat with one of the guys from the Airstream caravan who filled me in on a few more details about how the caravan operates.  The whole group had also been at the NCM today and got to tour the factory.

Linda made a pot of crushed lentil soup for dinner, from a recipe she has used before, and served it with a salad of the wonderful “power mix” greens and an “Asian” dressing.  On a walk after dinner we met a young couple, also out for an evening stroll, with their 2-year old, Dakota.  They said he enjoyed RVing, especially the rocks and the trains, and was a good traveler.  As long as he likes trains he has a bright future ahead as an RVer.

 

2014/04/21 (M) Cave Country (KY)

We only had 191 miles to travel today, so we were in no particular hurry to leave this morning.  We were up early enough to have a couple of cups of coffee and a banana and take showers.  RV parks, like motels, usually have posted times for departure (latest) and arrival (earliest).  If the park is not crowded, or not expecting to be, you can usually hang around a little beyond check-out time or arrive a little before check-in time; but if you push the limits on this you may be asked to pay for an extra day or wait in a holding area until check-in time.  I walked up to the office of Northgate RV Travel Park to let the owner, Wes, know that we planned to leave around 10 AM and he seemed fine with that.  I also checked the park egress to US-31 to make sure we could leave the way we planned.  Wes’ dog, Dottie, followed me around for a bit.  Dottie looked to be at least part Border collie, and was very sweet.

We chatted with our neighbor for a while.  He and his wife were Royal Canadian Air Force mechanics who had been full-timing for the last three years since they retired from military service.  We had also chatted some with Eric yesterday.  The only long-term resident of the RV park, Eric is a young EMT for whom Wes has provided a small trailer to live in.  We also met and chatted with some other RVers on our strolls through the park, all of them passing through like us.  One younger couple was from Wyandotte, Michigan, an old community south of Detroit where one of our best friends grew up.  His “Big M” (University of Michigan) hat was the conversation starter.  They were headed to Pensacola, Florida to visit the Naval Air Station and see the Blue Angels.  Their kids were on (presumably) on spring break.  They were familiar with Wayne RESA, from which I retired in June 2012, which surprised me.  We always seem to meet interesting people in RV parks.

We pulled out of Northgate RV Travel Park at 10:30 AM, turned onto northbound US-31, stayed to our left and almost immediately were on the entrance ramp to northbound I-65.  Fifteen miles later we were in Tennessee.  I-65 in Alabama, at least the part we traveled, was an excellent road through attractive countryside and that continued to be the case in Tennessee.  In fact the road got even better as entrance ramps were usually longer, forming an entrance lane that eventually merged in to the right hand lane of the Interstate.  At larger interchanges, and near cities, there were often double entry lanes that merged down into a single lane and then into the traffic flow.  The total distance for these merge lanes was often 1/2 mile, plenty of distance and time to get up to speed and merge.

Getting through Nashville was the only tricky part of the drive, and it wasn’t that bad (hey, we made it).  Traffic was congested, made a bit worse by some construction, but it moved along.  To stay on I-65 we had to negotiate at least five places where the road split, alternating “keep left, keep right, etc.” but our Rand McNally RVND 7710 GPS provided lane information in navigation mode, and Linda was watching the route on a map and her smartphone, so we knew where we had to be.  Actually, what we did was get in the center lane with all of the long-haul trucks, slow down, and follow them.  The center lane generally allowed us to go either left or right as required and had the added advantage of keeping us out of the right hand lane with all of the exiting and entering traffic.

We stopped at a Pilot truck stop at Exit 6 in Kentucky and put 86 gallons of #2 diesel in the tank bringing the tank level up to 3/4.  That was enough fuel to get us home where we can put in additives and top off the tank with fuel blended for the cooler Michigan climate this time of year.  The fuel stop added 20 minutes to our trip and we finally pulled off I-65 at exit 354 at 2 PM CDT.  It was less than 1/2 mile to Cave Country RV Park from the exit.  Linda got us checked in and the woman in the office escorted us around to our site in a golf cart.  The normal route in was blocked by a disabled motorhome being hooked up to a wrecker for towing.  We heard it was an electrical problem, but it doesn’t really matter; RVers always feel for their fellow travelers when equipment problems develop.  As an interesting side note, the woman in the office was a seasonal worker who had been at Williston Crossings RV Resort for the big Carriage 5th wheel rally that took place the last week or so that we were there.  IN some ways RVing is a small world and people who have been on the road for quite a while tell us that this sort of thing happens more than you would expect.

We had a mixed greens salad and an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable Pizza for dinner and then went for a walk around the RV park before taking a quick drive through town to locate the grocery store.  In spite of its location near the entrance to Mammoth Cave NP, Cave City did not appear to be a prosperous place.  Many business were closed, the buildings vacant and for sale.  Most of the newer/nicer businesses (motels, restaurants, filing stations) were right at Exit 354, including Cave Country RV Park.

Cave Country RV Park is a well kept basic park (good gravel interior roads, no swimming pool) conveniently located to I-65 and the entrance to Mammoth Cave National Park.  It has a laundry, restrooms, and a lounge with a pool table, a big comfy couch, and a TV.  The office has a small store with the usual essentials, such as electrical and sewer adapters.  It is located next to a major CSX rail line, but we like the sound of trains, so that was OK with us.  (It is not unusual for RV parks convenient to highways to be adjacent to railroad tracks.)   Given that it is the Monday of Easter week it seemed odd that the park wasn’t even half full, although rigs continued to arrive after sunset.    Rain was in the forecast for the overnight and it rained briefly for the first time just before 9 PM.  We were able to pick up CBS over the air, presumably from Bowling Green, Kentucky to the southwest, and watched a little TV before turning in at 10 PM.

 

2014/04/19 (S) Sweet Home Alabama

We woke around 6:30 AM to thickly overcast skies and temperatures in the mid 50’s.  We tried to keep to our morning routine as much as possible, minus the coffee and breakfast.  There are certain things we do that alert the cats that we will be starting the engine and moving the coach and, once altered, they immediately go to their “safe places” under the front passenger chair.  We wanted the cats to eat, have some water, and use the litter tray before we tipped them off.  We got dressed, made the bed, and checked e-mail, RVillage, and Feedly (iPad blog aggregator/reader); in other words, a pretty typical morning.  We were also checking the weather conditions along the route we planned to follow, but the cats didn’t know that.  As far as they knew it was just another day in paradise.

I had disconnected the water hoses (fresh and waste) and stowed them last night along with the water softener.  Around 8 AM we hooked the car to the bus and got it ready to tow.  That was the first clue.  Linda straightened up the inside while I disconnected the shore power cord and stowed it for travel.  Those were the big clues.  I switched on the chassis batteries, the engine accessory air valve and the air valve for the toad brakes, and verified that the inverter was working.  Linda double checked that the bays were closed and locked and then we did our light check.  She stayed outside the coach while I fired up the engine and let the air pressure build up.  The cats were already under the seat before I turned the ignition key.   As I pulled slowly out of our site Linda verified that the wheels on the car were rotating (transmission in Neutral), the front tires were tracking (turning L or R to follow the bus, indicating the steering column was unlocked), and that I had adequate clearance as I turned onto the park access road.  She climbed on board, closed and locked the door, and put her seatbelt on.  We pulled out of Live Oak Landing at 9 AM.

Our destination today was Northgate RV Travel Park just north of Athens, Alabama.  After a short 1.5 mile drive from the Live Oak Landing we picked up US-331 and headed north for Alabama.  I think today was the first time either of us have been in Alabama.  I have the vaguest recollection of having been to the NASA Space Museum in Huntsville many years ago, but the more I try to remember any details the less certain I am that it ever happened.  The only time I have ever been in Mississippi was the summer of 1975 when I flew to Columbus Air Force Base from Plattsburgh Air Force Base in northeast New York State as part of my summer ROTC training.  It’s possible that we also stopped in Huntsville, Alabama but if we did the memory of the trip is lost for now.  (If only I had a pensieve.)

We followed US-331 north as far as AL-97 which took us NNW to I-65 northbound somewhat south of Montgomery.  The rest of the trip was on I-65 north.  At exit 354, just 15 miles from the Tennessee border, we looped around onto US-31 south.  The entrance to Northgate RV Travel Park was 1/4 mile down on the right (west) side of the road.  I don’t know about the rest of Alabama, but this was a beautiful drive through woodlands of mixed hardwoods and conifers.  We started our trip at ~20 feet above sea level and ended at ~800 feet ASL, but we climbed much more than this suggests as we went up and down rolling terrain that included some long, steep grades.  There were also very few straight sections as the roads curved back and forth.  I’m not sure why, but I expected it to be flatter and more open/agricultural.

Entrance to Northgate RV Travel Park in Athens, AL.

Entrance to Northgate RV Travel Park in Athens, AL.

We arrived at Northgate RV Travel Park at 4 PM and checked in with the owner, Wes.  This a simple RV park with great access from I-65.  There are sites for ~20 RV’s, all with 30/50 A electric power and water, and most with a sewer connection.  The interior roads and sites are gravel.  There are some bushes but no trees, and no frills here; this is a corner of Wes’ farm.  No bath/shower house, no pool, no laundry room, and no credit cards; Just a convenient place to stay, with good hookups and useable WiFi at a fair price, while traveling through the area.  This is an overnight stop with no long-term or seasonal residents and Wes will let you stay up to week, if you ask nice.  Wes has two very friendly dogs who roam the park checking on guests and the rules are pretty simple, “don’t ride the cows and don’t milk the goats.”  We logged in to RVillage and checked in to our new location.