Living Our Dream

Nashville, TN to Frankfort, KY

Frankfort, KY - Events of Friday, July 27 to Wednesday, August 1, 2012

On Friday, we got moving relatively early because, not only did we have drive of over 4 hours to our next destination in Frankfort, KY, we would also lose an hour going from the Central Time Zone to Eastern. In addition to all that, we also had to hook up the car and then stop at the dump station on our way out of Lock A Campground.

By the time we hitched up, corrected a minor problem with one of the turn signals on the toad and dumped, it was after 9:30 when we got on the road. We didn't pull into Still Waters Campground in Frankfort until almost 3:00 PM by the time we also stopped for gas.

We stayed at Still Waters when we visited the Frankfort/Lexington, KY area back in 2010. Located about 10 miles north of Frankfort and about 30 miles from Lexington, Still Waters is a little out of the way; but it is a nice, quiet campground with full hookups on the RV sites, and with water and electric only on a couple dozen tent sites. The RV sites on the eastern side of the campground where we were located had 30/50-amp electric, but we think the sites on the western side have just 30 amps. The roads are gravel, and the RV pads are grass and gravel. The RV sites are all back ins, and they are fairly widely spaced.

Our site at Still Waters Campground

There are quite a few permanents at Still Waters, but most of the sites are neatly kept.

A mixture of permanent and transient sites at Still Waters Campground

Still Waters is located on the Kentucky River, which is a smaller river that is suitable for fishing and canoeing. The campground has canoe rentals and a van that will take paddlers and their canoes upstream. 

For the last few times we have been traveling (at least since we left Memphis), we have been hearing a noise from the engine of the motor home that sounded like an exhaust leak. Paul suspected a broken exhaust manifold stud, which not uncommon on the 8.1 liter gas engine we have. Paul had been under the motor home several times, but was unable to track the leak down. At Lock A with a relatively clean, paved pad, he was able to climb underneath and get a good look, and he finally found the broken bolt.

The engine used in our motor home was also used on some GM pickup trucks. Although a few Chevrolet and GMC dealers work on motor homes, most do not. Only those dealers who also sold GM medium duty trucks have the heavy-duty jacks, lifts and tools that are required for a lot of the work on larger vehicles. Therefore, Paul decided a Workhorse repair shop would be our best option for repair since Workhorse manufactured the chassis of our motor home. We found Bluegrass International Trucks in Georgetown, KY about 45 minutes from Still Waters was listed as a Workhorse repair facility, so we decided to bite the bullet and get the repair done while we were in Frankfort. Navistar, the parent company of International Trucks, apparently signed up some of their truck dealers to help expand the service network for Workhorse motor home chassis when they bought Workhorse a few years ago.

Before we left Nashville, we made an appointment at Bluegrass International Trucks for the Tuesday after we arrived in Frankfort. We got up early on Tuesday morning and drove to Georgetown. Unfortunately, when we got to the repair shop at 8:00 AM, they had no record of our appointment. They were backed up, but agreed to squeeze us in.

Bluegrass International Trucks

They pulled us into a service bay in fairly short order. As you can see in the photo below, there were school buses on both sides of us. There were about two dozen more school buses parked all around the lot. Most were new and were being prepped for delivery to the various school districts. There were also some older buses that were being serviced to get ready for the upcoming school year, which starts in just a few weeks here in the South. All those school buses was the reason Bluegrass Trucks was so busy.

Our motor home was surrounded by school busses

In order to remove a broken exhaust manifold stud, you first have to remove the entire exhaust manifold. Unfortunately, additional studs usually break when you try to remove the manifold because the studs and nuts get quite rusted because of all the heat. We knew getting the motor home repair completed in one day was iffy, but we were hoping they would allow us to stay in the motor home in the parking lot if they had to keep the rig overnight. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't getting the old studs out that was the biggest problem. The 8.1 liter GM engine used on the Workhorse chassis uses longer manifold studs than those used in the GM pickup trucks, and no one in the area had a new stud kit for the motor home version of the engine in stock. The shop couldn't get the parts until the following morning. And once they got the old manifold off, they couldn't move the motor home out of the service bay, so we weren't able to stay in it.

There are numerous motels in the area, but after watching episodes of the Travel Channel's Hotel Impossible, we have become really wary of staying in a motel. The program features Anthony Melchiorri, known as "The Hotel Fixer," who helps struggling hotels and motels uncover their problems in order to become more competitive and improve their businesses. The TV program is an excellent marketing resource for RV sales because of all the hidden problems and behind the scenes deficiencies it reveals in many hotels and motels!

We did some checking online at Hotels Guides and searched for pet-friendly accommodations. We decided on the Best Western a few miles away. We could have gotten a less expensive room, but we chose a motel that was rated very high by verified guests and at a price point we could manage. 

We stopped in the motor home and packed our overnight bags and grabbed computers and reading material. By the time we left the repair shop a little after noon, they had not only removed the old manifold, but they had gotten all but one of the old studs out. That one had not broken, and they were probably waiting for the penetrating oil to do its work.

View of the left side of the engine through the wheel well

Except for going out for a quick dinner, we spent the afternoon and evening at the motel. We watched the Olympics, read and played on the computer. We took along our Verizon modem, but the motel had free Wi-Fi, and it was pretty fast. Freeway adapted well and not only enjoyed all the new smells, but didn't find anything objectionable under the bed. LOL

The motel turned out to be very nice. The room was clean and up to date, and the bed was fairly comfortable. They had cookies and popcorn from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening (the chocolate chip cookies were excellent), and they had a hot breakfast buffet in the morning. The breakfast buffet wasn't nearly as good as the one at Der Dutchman in Berlin, OH; but it wasn't bad, and it certainly was convenient. There were scrambled eggs (they weren't even rubbery), sausage patties, sausage gravy and biscuits, cereal (hot and cold), fresh waffles, sweet rolls, muffins and fresh fruit (bananas and apples).

When we called Bluegrass Trucks on Wednesday morning, they told us the parts had come in as scheduled, and they were busy putting things back together. We checked out of the motel a little before the 11:00 AM check out time and headed a few miles up the road to Bluegrass Trucks to wait. A little before noon, we saw the motor home being pulled out of the shop for its test drive. It took about 45 minutes to get the paperwork squared away. Apparently, someone with the authority to add up all the charges must have been at lunch. The price was around $600, which, according to one of the RV forums Paul participates in, was very reasonable. After we paid the bill, we were were finally on our way.

We commend Bluegrass Trucks for their excellent service. Even though our appointment somehow got lost, they bent over backwards to accommodate us. They made every effort to meet our needs and were pleasant and professional. We highly recommend them.

It was great driving the motor home with a quiet engine again. We got back to Still Waters and got set up in time to finally have lunch in the middle of the afternoon.

We love our home on wheels, but we didn't realize how much until we had to spend a night without it. We really enjoy being home again. We're taking it easy for a couple of days. Margery isn't feeling her best, but we're sure to get into a little something. Stay tuned.

Berlin, OH to Vidalia, LA

Vidalia, LA - Events of Tuesday, May 29 to Friday, June 1, 2012

On Tuesday morning, we said our good-byes to Lora and J. Michael and pulled out of Scenic Hills RV Park around 9:20 AM and headed south. Lora and J. Michael, who had a fairly short drive back to Pittsburgh, left a bit later than we did.

Our original travel plan before our detour to Pittsburgh and Ohio was to leave Summerdale, AL, then spend about a week in New Orleans. From New Orleans, we planned to drive north to Vidalia, LA where we had reservations for a front-row site along the Mississippi River for three weeks. In order to fit in the detour to Pittsburgh, we eliminated the stop in New Orleans and shortened our stay in Vidalia.

We had to travel four days in a row after leaving Scenic Hills so we could make it to Vidalia in time for our modified reservation. Some of those were longer travel days than we usually like.

Our first day was a drive of about 6 hours. On top of the scheduled 6-hour drive, we had a 20 or 30-minute delay north of Louisville getting past an overturned semi in the median. The accident was probably due to heavy storms that passed through the Louisville area earlier. Fortunately, the storm missed us. We didn't pull into Grandma's RV Camping in Shepherdsville, KY until almost 3:30.

We stopped at Grandma's last year when we visited Louisville, and we stopped there about two weeks prior on our way north. Grandma's has a combination of pull-throughs and back-ins. The roads are paved, and the sites are all gravel. There are small, paved patios that are not well placed, so they aren't very useful. The sites are all gravel - there is no grass. There are full hookups with 30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi. The sites are fairly close together, especially the pull-throughs. There is a good bit of traffic noise from the interstate, and there are also trains.

We got the same site at Grandma's heading south as we had going north.

A view down the row behind us at Grandma's

Our second day of travel was a bit shorter at only 4 hours. Not only that, but we gained an hour going into the Central Time Zone. We pulled into our second night's stop at Parkers Crossroads RV Park in Yuma, TN around 1:00 PM CDST.

Parkers Crossroads RV has mostly pull-through sites. The sites are all full-hookup. We're not sure about the sites in other parts of the campground, but all the sites in the area we were in had 30/50-amp electric. There is also free cable and free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi seemed a little slower than our Verizon 3G, but it was usable.

Parkers Crossroads also has a nice swimming pool and a fishing lake.

The roads and most of the pads at Parkers Crossroads RV are gravel, but there are 6 extra-long pull-throughs in the back section of the campground where we were that have concrete pads. Some of the gravel sites didn't look too level, so we're glad we got one of the paved sites.

Three of the paved sites have a good bit of space between them, and the other three don't. The sites are angled which helps create some privacy. However, the angle is so severe that the three sites that are close together have their neighbor's driveway passing right through their living space. We had one of the more closely-spaced sites, and there was no room for our picnic table on the door side of our motor home - it was located on the opposite side of our site. That wasn't a problem for us because we rarely eat outside anyway, especially since the weather was very hot.

Sites at Parkers Crossroads RV Park with paved pads

Our site at Parkers Crossroads RV

The other minor problem was the height of our concrete pad. The others were a little high, but the surrounding ground sloped up to meet the level of the concrete. Our concrete sat about 4" above the ground on the door side. Our steps hung over the edge of the concrete making the last step about 10" high. Fortunately, either the campground or a previous long-term guest left a nice wooden platform to ease the transition from the last step to the ground.

The campground itself was quiet, but there was a fair amount of traffic noise from the 4-lane road that runs past the campground. Fortunately, the traffic diminished at night.

The price at Parkers Crossroads RV of $28 a night isn't bad for full hookups, free cable and free Wi-Fi. We recommend requesting one of the longer, paved, pull-through sites especially if you have a big rig.

We hit the road again the next morning for the third leg of our trek to Vidalia, LA. It was another 4-hour drive to the North Abutment Corps of Engineers Campground in Grenada, MS. We usually don't stay at Corps of Engineers campgrounds on travel days because very few of them have pull-through sites, but this one does.

According to the reservation web site, many of the pull-through sites are non-reservable. That meant there was a good chance we could get a pull-through in the middle of the week without making reservations so we could save the reservation fee. Half-price camping of $9 with our America the Beautiful Pass made it even better.

North Abutment COE is a beautiful campground located on Grenada Lake. There are several camping loops, and all the loops have a mixture of back-in and pull-through sites. Many sites are shaded, but some are open. The roads and pads are all paved, and the sites are gravel. The campground is either fairly new or it has recently been redone because all the pads looked like new concrete, and all the sites have 30/50-amp electric. There are also water hookups.

The campground is set up for self-registration, at least that's the way it was when we were there in the middle of the week. We found a nice pull-through site that was out in the open so we would be able to use our rooftop satellite dish for TV and not have to fuss with the tripod. Another plus was the fact the site had a nice view of a small, secondary lake.

Our site at North Abutment COE

View down the road at North Abutment COE

North Abutment COE was nice break in our rather hectic travel schedule. It was nice to be back in nature at a quiet Corps of Engineers campground with widely-spaced sites rather than at a private campground close to our neighbors and close to the interstate.

Speaking of being back in nature, we had a persistent visitor while we were at North Abutment. There was a bluebird who kept returning to our mirrors all afternoon, all evening, and the following morning to try to chase away what he must have thought was another bluebird that was invading his territory.

Bluebird trying to chase away the other bluebird in the mirror

We were on the road again the following morning for the final leg of our journey to Vidalia. It ended up taking us about 5 hours including a stop for fuel. We pulled into Riverview RV Park around 2:00.

Riverview has mostly pull-through sites, full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, and free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi was faster most of the time than our Verizon 3G; but the Wi-Fi dumped us offline frequently, especailly in the evening. There is also a swimming pool and hot tub that are open year round. The roads are gravel, and most of the pads are paved. The sites have grass between them, and they are fairly widely spaced.

Our site at Riverview RV Park

View up the road at Riverview RV

The campground is located on the earthen levee on the Vidalia, LA (western) side of the Mississippi River directly across from Natchez, MS. The levee is slightly higher than most of the sites, which means you can barely see the far bank of the river from your RV. You have to walk to the top of the levee to watch the riverboats and barges pass by. However, the levee is a little lower at the south end of the campground, so if you have one of the last 6 or 7 sites, you can not only see the river from inside your RV, but you can see it from sitting under your awning outside your RV. We had the 5th site from the end in the front row, so we had a great view.

The view across from our site at Riverview RV

As we mentioned, Vidalia is located right across the river from Natchez, MS. Established by French colonists in 1716, Natchez is one of the oldest settlements on the lower Mississippi River. It has a rich history as a ceremonial and trade center for Native Americans and as a center of commerce for European colonists and American settlers. Natchez remained largely undamaged during the Civil War, so many historic homes and buildings remain today. Natchez was the main reason we decided to stop in this area, but there are things to see and do on both sides of the river, so stay tuned.

Change in Plans

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Tuesday, May 15 to Friday, May 18, 2012

The plans for our spring and summer travel that we made before we left Florida at the end of March were to head to New Orleans after spending about 6 weeks in Summerdale, AL. From New Orleans, we were going to meander northward up the Mississippi River stopping at a few new locations and at several of our old, favorite haunts before taking our time as we made our way east to the Pittsburgh area for family visits and our annual doctor and dentist appointments in the fall.

However, we got word about two weeks before the end of our stay in Summerdale that our daughter, Lora, who is a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant, achieved her goal and met all the requirements to become an Independent Sales Director for Mary Kay. To become a director, she had to recruit the required number of consultants to her team, and the team had to meet the initial sales goals set forth by headquarters.

Lora's debut as a director was scheduled for Monday, May 21 in Pittsburgh. Less than 2% of all Mary Kay Consultants become directors, so her accomplishment is quite a feat. We are so proud of her. We didn't want to miss celebrating her achievement which takes so much self motivation and hard work, so we rearranged our schedule so we could detour to Pittsburgh to attend the event where Lora would debut as a director.

As we have mentioned before, we usually don't travel more than 4 hours a day, and we usually don't travel more than two days in a row. However, we didn't want to cut our time in Summerdale short, so we made an exception for our trek to Pittsburgh and traveled 4 days straight. We tried to keep our travel time as close to 4 hours a day as we could, but we ended up traveling almost 6 hours the first day before our planned stop at Cullman RV Park in Cullman, AL.

Cullman RV Park has all full-hookup, pull-through sites. The space between the sites is fairly decent for a private campground, and most sites are nice and long so you don't have to unhook if you're only staying one night.

Our extra-long pull-through site at Cullman RV

Some of the other sites at Cullman RV

The campground is a couple of miles from the interstate on a dead-end road, so it is pretty quiet. You can barely hear the faint whine of the traffic off in the distance late at night when everything else is very still.

When we called Cullman RV from the road to make sure they had a site available, they warned us to follow their signs after we turned off the main road. Apparently, most GPS units are like ours and want you to go down a narrow, gravel road to get to the campground. The gravel road is a shorter distance, but it is very narrow with lots of overhanging trees - not a good idea with a big RV. The campground signs have you follow the paved road. The paved road is a little rough, but it is better than the gravel road.

Most of the interior roads at Cullman RV are paved, but a few are gravel. All are quite narrow, but at least there are no trees or other obstructions near the roads. If you have to swing wide to make a turn and get over onto the grass a little it's no big deal.

The pads are gravel, and there is nice grass between the sites and shade trees here and there. There were quite a few of what looked to be permanent residents at the lower end of the campground, but all the sites were neat and well kept.

We're not sure about the Wi-Fi at Cullman RV. Sometimes we could get on, and sometimes it asked for a password. The connection was fairly fast when we first got there in the afternoon, but it got real slooooow in the evening. We ended up just using our Verizon Broadband.

We hit the road fairly early the next morning because we had a 5-hour drive to our second overnight stop, and we also knew we would loose an hour going from Central Time Zone into Eastern. Our second stop was at Grandma's RV Camping in Shepherdsville, KY about 20 miles south of Louisville. We stayed there last October when we visited Louisville.

Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios; but the patios aren't very well placed and therefore aren't very useful. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is fresh, clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 30/50-amp electric. There is supposed to be free Wi-Fi, but it required a password. Since we forgot to get the password when we checked in, we just used our Verizon Broadband. The utilities are also toward the rear of the site, which is not bad for 5th wheels; but with a motor home, we needed all 30 feet of our sewer hose.

Our site at Grandma's RV

The view down our row shows how close the sites are.

Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Fortunately, we didn't hear as many trains this time as we did last fall.

We hit the road fairly early again the third morning, but not as early as the first two mornings. Our drive was a little shorter this time at about 3½ hours. We were originally going to stop at Deer Creek State Park to the southwest of Columbus, OH, but we decided at the last minute we would be better off having full hookups and a pull-through site so we could save time on the morning of the last leg of our journey to Pittsburgh by not having to take time to go to the dump station and hook up the toad.

We found Jackson Lake Campground in Canal Winchester, OH a little to the southeast of Columbus. It is a little far from the interstate (about 10 miles), but it is the only campground we could find near where we wanted to stop. The upside to being far from the interstate is no traffic noise.

Our site at Jackson Lake Campground

Jackson Lake Campground has apparently gotten some negative reviews on rvparkreviews.com due to poor maintenance, particularly the rest rooms. However, Jackson Lake has new owners who are trying to fix things up. The property is very large so there is still a lot to do, but they have apparently made progress.

The campground was nice and peaceful when we were there in the middle of the week; but there looked to be a lot of seasonals, so it could be a bit zooey on weekends.

Some of the seasonal sites at Jackson Lake

The sites at Jackson Lake are fairly large, but some have side-by-side hookups. Since it was during the week and it was before Memorial Day, we had the place pretty much to ourselves except for some of the seasonals.

We thought the nightly rate of $35 was a bit high (even with full hookups) for the caliber of the campground; but on the other hand, Ohio state parks charge $27 a night for electric only.

There are tent sites with no hookups and RV sites with full hookups. Some sites have 30-amp electric, and some have 50-amp electric. The ones with 50 amps don't have 30-amp receptacles at all. The roads are dusty gravel, and there are remnants of old asphalt paving near the entrance.

The sites in the center grassy section can be used as pull-throughs if there is no one in the site behind. The seasonal sites are around the perimeter and are in the shade and are dirt and gravel. Wi-Fi is available for a fee. There are also rental cabins, a lodge that is in the process of being remodeled, a swimming pool, a rec hall, horseshoe pits, a volleyball net, frisbee golf, and picnic pavilions.

In the evening we took Freeway for a walk over to the fishing lake then settled in for an evening of TV.

Jackson Lake Campground fishing lake

We got on the road the final morning of our trek to Pittsburgh around 9:00 AM, and it took a little less than 4 hours to get to Lora and J. Michael's house. We will only be in Pittsburgh for a few days because Lora and J. Michael are going camping for Memorial Day, and we need to vacate the RV pad beside their garage so they can bring their trailer back to pack it up for the weekend. The good news is we'll be camping with them over Memorial Day. We'll let you know where that is, and we'll give you an update on our activities in Pittsburgh in our next post.

Louisville, KY

Shepherdsville, KY - Events of Wednesday, Oct. 5 to Friday, Oct. 7, 2011

After 8 days at Caesar Creek State Park in Willmington, OH, we drove about three hours southwest to Grandma's RV Camping about 20 miles south of Louisville in Shepherdsville, KY. Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios; but the patios are a little too far toward the rear of the sites for motor homes. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is fresh, clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi. The utilities are also toward the rear of the site, which is not bad for 5th wheels, but we needed all 30 feet of our sewer hose for our motor home. The next photo, which was taken when the sites on either side of us were unoccupied, shows our site at Grandma's.

And below is a shot looking down the road from our site.

Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the traffic noise almost covers up the sound of the trains. Oh yeah, and if the wind is blowing the right direction, the campground is also on the glide path for the Louisville airport.

We complained about cool weather up north, and with a general warming trend across the eastern half of the country plus moving a little farther south, the 50 to 60º highs and 40º lows have given way to highs around 80º and lows in the mid 50s. Not only that, but the sun is out a lot more than it was up north. Ahhhh, that's more like it!

We continue to be in relaxation mode, but there were a few things we wanted to see in the Louisville area. One was the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Louisville Slugger, whose official company name is the Hillerich & Bradsby Co., is the world's largest manufacturer of baseball and softball bats. Hillerich & Bradsby also makes sports and recreational gloves and golf clubs. The most distinguishing feature of the museum is the "Big Bat," which is the world's largest bat.

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The 120-foot tall bat is hollow and is made from steel. It weighs 68,000 pounds. It would take a real power hitter to swing that one!

The museum is loaded with baseball memorabilia, and it has several displays depicting the history of the company. J. F. Hillerich opened a woodworking shop in Louisville back in 1855. The shop made bed posts, stair railings, bowling pins and butter churns. Although the story is sometimes disputed, legend has it that Hillerich's 17-year old son, Bud, took off work one afternoon in 1884 to watch Louisville's professional baseball team play. Pete Browning, who was a star player for the Louisville Eclipse, broke his bat during that game.

As the story goes, young Bud offered to make Browning a new bat at his father's wood shop, and Browning got three hits with his new bat the next day.

With Browning's success, Bud got orders for more bats from Eclipse players. The elder Hillerich didn't want anything to do with baseball bats; but word of the success of players using bats made at the Hillerich shop spread, and he eventually relented and began to embrace the new addition to his business.

The bats were originally sold under the name "Falls City Slugger" because of the location of Louisville near a waterfall on the Ohio River. Bud changed the name to Louisville Slugger when he took over the business from his father in 1894.

In 1911, Frank Bradsby joined the company. Bradsby became a full partner in 1916, and the company name was changed to Hillerich & Bradsby Co.

A factory tour is included in the $10 museum admission fee ($9 for seniors), but photos are not permitted inside the factory itself. Therefore, Margery missed getting a picture of Paul swooning at the smell of fresh sawdust when we first entered the factory. He still misses his workshop.

There are, however, a couple of displays in the museum that relate to the manufacturing process that we could photograph. The logs in the next photo show how the blanks for the bats, called billets, are taken from the logs. The log to the left shows the more modern method where a boring machine extracts the billets from an intact log. This method maximizes the number of billets that can be obtained from each log. In the method shown on the right, the log is first split into wedges, then the wedges are turned on a lathe to form the billets.

Another display in the museum shows the process that turns the billets from wedges. Those are mannequins in the photo below, not real people. The display is very realistic right down to sawdust everywhere, including on the workers themselves.

On the factory tour, we learned how bats are made from the billets. Most bats are made from ash, but some are made from maple. Maple is more brittle and prone to breaking, but some players think maple gives them an advantage.

Minor league bats and bats for the general consumer market are made on tracer lathes. The cutting head on the lathe follows a stylus that traces a metal pattern of the bat's contour. The pattern can be changed to produce different sizes and styles of bats. It used to take 20 minutes for a skilled operator to hand turn a bat. A tracer lathe can turn a bat in 30 seconds.

Bats for professional players are made on CNC (computer numeric control) lathes because these lathes can programmed to produce an almost infinite combination of size, shape and weight characteristics. Of course, these characteristics must be kept within the limits of the rules. Professional players take thousands of swings a year, and they can feel subtle differences in their bat. Over their careers, they develop preferences for certain characteristics in a bat. The machine can remember each program, so changing from one style of bat to another is as easy as pushing a couple of buttons. A CNC lathe takes about 45 seconds to turn a bat.

After the bats are turned, they are sanded and branded. Some bats are flame tempered and some bats are dipped in color. The bats are then finished by dipping them in clear lacquer.

After we finished the factory tour, we had time to look around the museum a little more. Although Paul was somewhat of a baseball fan when he was a kid, neither one of us follows baseball today. If you are an avid fan, however, there are lots of things of interest. For example, you can don white gloves or batting gloves and handle bats used in actual games by well-known players such as Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench.

Other historical bats like the one shown below belonging to Babe Ruth are much more rare and are housed under protective covers.

Babe Ruth, who played from 1914 to 1935, was the most prolific hitter of his time. In fact, his 1927 record of 60 home runs in one season stood for 34 years, and wasn't broken until 1961 by Roger Maris. He is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. There are several mannequins of famous players including one of Babe Ruth in a classic pose watching the ball go over the outfield wall.

There were numerous other bats on display including one belonging to Joltin' Joe DiMagio shown below partly out of the photo to the right. Paul was more interested in one of the bats in the drawer (the one just visible over the top of the drawer front) that belonged to Roberto Clemente.

Roberto Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, played his entire 18-season major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972. Clemente is considered by some to be the greatest right fielder to have ever played the game. His career was cut short in 1972 when he was tragically killed in a plane crash while helping in a relief effort to aid earthquake victims in Nicaragua. As we said, Paul did follow baseball back when he was a kid, and he was fortunate enough to have seen Roberto Clemente play in person several times.

Another famous Pittsburgh Pirate was Honus Wagner. Wagner played from 1897 to 1917, mostly for the Pirates. He is considered to be one of the best short stops ever, and he was an excellent all-round player. The photo below shows his jersey and one of his bats. Honus Wagner was the first baseball player to endorse the Louisville Slugger bat.

The museum also has a 20-minute movie about baseball. Since our parking meter was about to run out and since we don't follow baseball, we decided to skip the movie.

Everyone on the factory tour receives a miniature souvenir bat. Paul tried his out next to the "Big Bat" on our way out of the museum.

We found more to do and see in the Louisville area, so stay tuned.

Pittsburgh to Red Bay, AL

Just about the time we left Pittsburgh the weather finally warmed back up. It was in the upper 60s the day we arrived, but then the highs dropped into the 50s with lows in the 40s for the whole time we were there. It was also cloudy, rainy and dreary. When we left, the 5-day weather forecast was finally calling for partly to mostly sunny with highs in the 70s every day. Oh well, that's Pittsburgh weather for you.

In spite of the fact it was getting warmer again, we still headed south. Our first stop was at Caesar Creek State Park where we stayed Labor Day weekend. We arrived on Thursday, and as is usual for the middle of the week, we had the campground pretty much to ourselves.

As we described in our earlier post about Labor Day at Caesar Creek, the campground has electric only hookups (30 amp) and the sites are widely spaced.

The final destination for this leg of our travel was Red Bay, AL, which is where our motor home was built. Our electric awning had been acting up and frequently balked when we tried to deploy or stow it, and some of the clear coat paint on the top of the front cap had started to peel. We could probably get any RV dealer to repair the awning, but we wanted to stop at the factory repair facility in Red Bay to have the top of the cap repainted before the peeling got worse.

Tiffin Motorhomes (TMH) has a campground with about a hundred full-hookup sites adjacent to their repair facility. We have stayed there several times before - once to have fogged dual-pane windows replaced and a few times to tour the factory. We know from experience the campground empties out somewhat on Fridays and fills up again by the middle of the afternoon on Sunday. Once the full-hookup sites are gone, there are a couple of electric-only sites, then you get to dry camp at the far end of the campground. 

Because Margery had one last doctor appointment on Wednesday, we couldn't leave Pittsburgh until Thursday. Therefore, we had to make tracks to get to Red Bay on Saturday in order to have the best chance of getting a full-hookup site so we wouldn't have to dry camp with the highs in the upper 80s that were being predicted for Red Bay for the following week. That meant driving about 5 hours a day for three days in a row. We could have taken our time and arrived the following Saturday, but we hear the repair facility gets busier and busier as it gets later in October because early snowbirds stop for repairs on their way to Florida.

Our second overnight stop was at Bluegrass Music RV Park in Franklin, KY. Bluegrass Music RV has full hookup sites, some with 30-amp electric and some with 50-amp only. There is free Wi-Fi, the roads and pads are gravel, and there is sparse grass between the sites. Most of the sites have decent spacing for a private campground.

Bluegrass Music RV is a Passport America campground, but we thought the price was a bit high at $23 a night after the 50% discount. Some PA campgrounds discount their entire camping fee, but others discount only the base camping fee, then add on chargess for things like sewer hookups and 50-amp service at the full price. We're not sure because we didn't get an itemized bill, but we're guessing Bluegrass falls into the latter category.

The entrance to Bluegrass Music RV is between a Speedco truck service garage and the Pilot truck stop; and even though the campground has a large sign across the road from the entrance, the entrance is a little hard to see. We almost ended up on the truck scale at the Pilot. The campground is far enough from the road there wasn't any noticeable noise from the Speedco or the Pilot. If there was any noise from Speedco or Pilot, it was drowned out by the noise from the interstate.

The drive for our third day took us on Natchez Trace Parkway. Natchez Trace Parkway is under the juristiction of the National Park Service. It follows the approximate route of Natchez Trace, which was a Native American trail that was later followed by traders in the 1700s and early 1800s. The traders would take flatboats down the Mississippi, sell their cargo and sell the boat for its wood, then follow the trail back north. The trail ran from present-day Natchez, MS, to Nashville, TN.

Natchez Trace Parkway is a slower-paced, scenic drive that has a 50 mph speed limit for most of its length. Commercial trucks are not permitted, and there are no stop signs, no traffic signals, and no towns directly along the road. We drove it this time on a Saturday, and there were lots of bicycles and a little more traffic than usual, but it was still an easy road to drive. The road is lined with woods and farms, and there are pull-offs where you can see and walk the historic trace.

We arrived at the Tiffin campground in Red Bay in the early afternoon and got one of the last 4 full-hookup sites. The campground is intended to be used by those waiting for service, not as a destination campground, so it is nothing fancy. The sites are close together, and although most of them are pull-throughs, they are too short to leave your toad attached. But the campground does have full hookups, free Wi-Fi and cable; and at a price of only $10 a night it's a pretty good deal.

The campground is located on the site of an old airport, and the main road of the campground is the old runway. The rest of the campground is somewhat dusty gravel. The photo below shows our site at the Tiffin Allegro Campground.

There are occasionally one or two motor homes in the campground that are not made by Tiffin, and we even saw a 5th wheel there once. Those people probably were making a one or two night stop for a factory tour rather than waiting for service. Staying here is like suburbia where all the 'houses' look the same. You'd better remember your site number since it would be easy to park by the wrong RV!

The campground is pretty quiet on the weekend except for new people pulling in. By Sunday evening, the electric-only overflow sites were filled, and new arrivals were starting to use the dry-camp area. On Monday the bustle starts when employees begin arriving about 6:00 AM. Rigs start pulling out of campsites and into the service bays around 6:45. There are over 40 service bays.

There are two ways to get service for your motor home at Red Bay. You can make an appointment ahead of time and get right in on your scheduled day. The problem with that is the appointments were running almost a year out. They recently started a new system where appointments are made on a quarterly basis. We're not sure exactly how that works yet.

The other way to get service is to just show up and wait for an opening. This is what we do, and it also seems to be what most other people do. A few years ago, they designated some of the service bays as express bays for work that is estimated to take less than 3 hours. A lot of work falls into this category, and customers with small repairs can get in and out in a few days.

The paint and body shop at Red Bay is always very busy. Tiffin works with a couple of body shops in town, and they recommended one of those to us to get the top of our cap repainted. Since our peeling clear coat was a simple job of sanding and repainting, using the body shop in town would save us several days of waiting. The body shops in town are used by Tiffin all the time, and they are familiar with the Tiffin paint formulations.

Our awning repair fell in the under three-hour category, but we still had to "hang loose" to find out exactly when we would get called to a service bay. We'll tell you all about the rest of our stay in Red Bay in our next post.