Dale and Lisa's Travels: October 2013

How the time flies! Well, the long awaited 'Newmar Hoots Looking for a Roost' rally unofficially started on Tuesday, October 15th at Two Rivers Landing in Sevierville, TN. It's a beautiful park, a 10 in our book, with paved roads, concrete pads, nice clubhouse, great staff, pool, river views and immaculate restroom/shower facilities. We arrived on Wednesday, October 16th, one day before the official start on the 17th. We were immediately met by the first of Dale's cyber buddies, Steve Morrison (FLSteve formerly skmwalden), the owner of a 2013 Dutch Star who had arrived on Tuesday. Soon after we were greeted by the ringleader of our gang, Denis Krill (Deek), another 2013 Dutch Star owner. Over the next couple days we met and became fast friends with the owners of another 10 Newmar coaches. A total of 12 Dutch Stars and 1 Mountain Aire ended up attending the first Newmar Hoots Roost. It was amazing how well everyone got along considering that most of us had not met other than online. The group represented 12 different states, and all walks of life and ages ranging from late 30's to mid 70's. There was one other couple, John and Diane Gaquin (JFXG), who were fellow full-timers. They've been on the road about a year and a half. It was also great to see Phil and Jo Ellen Essman (pessman) whom we had met at Newmar the week of September 23rd as they picked up their new Dutch Star and we had our new windshield installed. On Friday a 'home tour' was held. Everybody got to go in and visit each other's coaches. The tour started at 2:00 and took until close to 5:00 by the time everyone was done looking at each coach. It was amazing how different the Dutch Stars were even though they were basically the same model. Everyone enjoyed seeing how each couple had accessorized their own coach. And, yes, I now have some new 'honey-do's'. Friday evening Midway RV in Grand Rapids, MI, our dealer, provided a scrumptious BBQ dinner for the whole crew. There were three other couples besides us who had bought from Midway which gave them the greatest presence at the Roost. Buddy Gregg RV of Knoxville also added to the festivities by bringing in a 2014 Mountain Aire by Newmar (next model up from the Dutch Star) for all of us to drool over. However, even with a hefty discount off of the $450,000 price tag there were no takers in our group. Buddy Gregg then provided a very nice breakfast for the group on Sunday morning. Saturday night saw 19 of us going to the Smoky Mountain Opry in Pigeon Forge. It was a very entertaining variety show which was well worth the trip. Highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area. Our group actually grew to 15 coaches as two more unexpected Dutch Stars popped in as they had heard of the Roost and were close enough to stop for a night or two. The first of our original group of 13 to depart was Ronnie (Redbaron73) from Texas. He left just after 6:30 AM on Sunday and headed up to Nappanee, IN for some warranty work on his coach. Four more coaches left Sunday after Ronnie. Four left on Monday and Deek left on Tuesday. As each coach left, blowing their Hadley air horns as they departed, we felt more empty. We did some touring in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park on Monday, but the heavy traffic volume kept us from getting all the way to Clingmans Dome. Tuesday we chilled at Two Rivers and went to dinner in the evening with the last of the Hoots: Mike and Suzan (MJFZ), and John and Diane (JFXG). We left about noon on Wednesday leaving John and Diane (JFXG), our fellow full-timers, to be the last to blow the Hadleys as they left the park. This was our first gathering of this sort, and after the fun we had and friendships we made we are looking forward to the next one wherever that might be.

Pulling into Two Rivers Landing RV Resort

Two Rivers Clubhouse

Nametags provided by Charlie (harleychief)

Hoots street gang. Fear this!

Inspecting MNBob's sophisticated p__p macerator

Out to Joe's Crab Shack Wednesday night with the early arrivals

Bush's bean factory tour. It was a gas.

Bean tour group

Potluck Thursday night could have fed the whole campground

More of the potluck

Thursday potluck

The whole gang less Jo Ellen Essman

View of all the Hoots coaches from across the river; ours is hidden behind the trees on the left

Our Hoots leaders Steve (FLSteve) and Denis (Deek) in action

The coach tour

Our coach during the coach tour

Phil's (pessman) display paying homage to his Cardinals before the World Series started

Bob (MNBob) recovering from a hard day of touring coaches

Friday night Midway dinner

Friday night dinner

Family music group, The Ransom Notes, played for us during dinner Friday night

Sunset in front of our campsite

Saturday trip to the Smoky Mountain Opry

High season in the Smokies

Near Sevierville

The last of the Hoots out for dinner Tuesday evening

On Wednesday, October 23rd, we drove to Hixson, TN, a suburb of Chattanooga, and set up camp at Chester Frost county park. Chester Frost is a very good park with water and electricity hookups, but no sewer. There are a mixture of older and newer bathhouses that were cleaned daily. We had a very nice spot (no. 4) right on Chickamauga Lake. We spent the next five days monopolizing the time of our friends, Mark and Linda Willmann. We've known Mark and Linda since our old motorhome days when our families went on St. Matthews Lutheran Church campouts. We eventually joined a bible study group that Mark and Linda were involved in. Over the five day period they showed us the highlights of Chattanooga. It became obvious why they are so excited about their new environment. Chattanooga is a great community with plenty to do to keep one young and active. Our Jeep was really put to a test as each time we went to Mark and Linda's house we had to climb up the side of their mountain going from less than 700 feet of elevation to nearly 2100 feet in a matter of a few very twisty steep miles. We finished up the extended weekend on Sunday evening by having a Skype session with our bible study group in Michigan which Mark and Linda had been a part of until moving to Tennessee.

Mark & Linda with Dale

Mark & Linda's house near Signal Mountain, TN

The grand lobby of the historic Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel

Lobby of the Choo-Choo

You can stay in an original train car at the Choo-Choo

Train yard and guest room at the Choo-Choo

Taken overlooking Chattanooga

Walnut Street walking bridge; one of the longest pedestrian bridges in the world

We took this for our daughter Kristy

Our campsite at Chester Frost county park

Campfire courtesy Mark

Fishermen outside our window one morning at Chester Frost

Our new traveling buddy, Hoot, courtesy Linda

Monday, October 28th, we drove from the Chattanooga area to Murphy, NC to visit Dale's cousins, Mike and Lisa Evans, and Brian and Mary Karvonen. Brian and Lisa are two of Aunt Irene's children. Aunt Irene, sister to Dale's mom, Helen, passed away early last year at the age of 91. We, along with Helen, had stopped to see her on our way to spend February and March, 2012 in Florida. She passed a few days later. It was good to see everyone; although Ian, Mike and Lisa's son, is away at college in Washington, D.C. We stayed at Rivers Edge Mountain RV Resort. It was another very nice resort with concrete pads, paved roads, cable and WI-FI. We would give it an 8. On Tuesday, we golfed 9 holes with Brian and Mike. It took a fair amount of patience on Brian's part to golf with us. The reason we say this is Brian recently won his golf club championship. At 73, he still shoots a mean game of golf. He shot 37 with us on Tuesday. What he doesn't have in distance he makes up for in his short game. Lisa and Mary made a tasty North Carolina style pulled pork and beans dinner Tuesday night. The leftovers they sent with us made for a tasty dinner Wednesday night after we arrived at our next destination just outside Asheville, NC. The drive to Asheville from Murphy took us through the Nantahala River Gorge. This was the most beautiful drive we've had yet with respect to color. The mountainsides were covered in shades of yellow, orange, and red. The Nantahala River was the site of the 2013 ICF Canoe (kayak) Freestyle World Championships. The river itself had very little water flowing through it at this point in the year which made the rocky bottom seem even more omenous. It's hard to imagine anybody going down it in a kayak and coming out the other end in one piece. We plan to tour the Biltmore on Saturday which is the start of their Christmas at the Biltmore season. More on Asheville and the Biltmore Estate in our next post. But before I leave you I need to mention that the drive from Murphy to Asheville was not without a few tense moments. As you can imagine, or if you've ever driven it, the road through the gorge, although beautiful, is not very wide. Well, at one of these typically narrow sections, Dale noticed a biker coming the opposite way. No problem…. until an impatient driver in a Penske rental van decides he needs to pass the biker over a double yellow line and use a third of the oncoming lane. Yes, our lane. We couldn't believe this dimwit didn't see us. Kinda hard to miss the BBB. Remember those Hadley air horns all of us Newmar Hoots enjoyed sounding as we left the Roost? Well, Dale got to use them for their intended purpose. They got the Penske driver's attention in short order. After passing the bike he made a quick dive back into his lane just missing us and the biker. Looking in the rearview mirror Dale could see the biker giving the Penske driver an unfriendly hand gesture. Hearts came back to a normal beat after a few moments, but Dale thanked Newmar for the Hadleys!