Blue Ridge, GA - Day 1
Thursday, May 6
We started our day at Chester Frost Park campground in Chattanooga, TN by having breakfast and doing some school in the RV, and then packing up to head south around 11:00am. This campground is beautiful; it’s right on the water and has so many activities to do, but they are hard & fast with their rules and regulations so we knew we had to be out of our camp spot by Noon today or deal with the grumpy park rangers. Such a bummer when an awesome recreational site is tarnished by rude people.
Anyway, I followed Andi over to the RV dump station within the park to dump our sewer and waste water. Finally, we were on our way around Noon. We decided to leave the Jeep unhooked and have me follow behind the RV in it since we were navigating through the heart of Chattanooga. Once we got through most of the traffic, we’d hook the two vehicles together.
Andi and I met at the Sam’s Club in Chattanooga. Even though their sizes are bigger than we have room for in our small RV, Sam’s pricing and the quality of meat and produce is better than what we’ve seen in smaller grocery stores around here so it makes sense to shop there when it’s an option. We purchased fresh fruit, salad greens, chicken, beef jerky, and snack bars + a rotisserie chicken to eat for lunch today. There was a million more things I wanted to buy, but we just don’t have the room in the RV! We have to practice mega restraint in that store when traveling.
I find Sam’s Club snack offerings to be an interesting aisle to shop depending on where we’re visiting. Tory requested applesauce Go-Go-Squeeze pouches, but they didn’t have them at the Chattanooga Sam’s Club. Instead, they had mini pecan pies, Krimpets (personal-sized butterscotch sponge cakes with icing), peanut butter-filled Kandy Kakes, Big Texas cinnamon rolls, and Twinkies. I’ve never even heard of some of those brands, but it’s safe to guess people in this area love cake.
After we finished shopping, we put the slide out on our RV and ate lunch in the RV. Andi cut up the rotisserie chicken we’d just purchased and I made salads to go with it. Tory and Aden ate a piece of pizza and a hot dog from the Sam’s Club Food Court. As we were cleaning up lunch, a woman knocked on the RV door. I thought she a store employee who was going to tell us we couldn’t have our slide out in the parking lot, but instead it was a woman in trouble. She said her car broke down and she had two kids she needed to feed. She was looking for gas money and food for her kids. I don’t know if her story was true or not, but we gave her some cash to help. I would hope that if we were broke down on the side of the road that someone would come to our aide.
Andi hooked up the Jeep to the back of the RV and we headed off shortly thereafter.
About 30 minutes into our drive, Andi and I heard a weird metal sound. He asked me to walk back in the RV to check on the Jeep. At first glance it looked fine, but then I noticed it coasting toward the back of the RV without anything stopping it. It looked like it was going to slam into the back of the RV as he slowed down, but the two arms that attach to the Jeep’s front bumper were stopping it. I also noticed the Jeep’s license plate was dangling from the bumper which seemed odd. I told Andi he should pull over so we could take a closer look.
We’re not exactly sure, but we think a shard of metal must have gotten into the level which helps the Jeep brake when the RV brakes. The lever wasn’t doing its job which caused enough pressure on the hitch to pop one of its pins out of place. Without the pin, one of the crossbar arms that attaches the front of the Jeep to the back of the RV became unattached! Luckily, we heard something happen and pulled over right away. And thankfully, we weren’t in heavy traffic on the interstate. We were driving on a two-lane highway in Georgia. If the Jeep got loose from the back of the RV, that could have been really, really bad.
Andi got the other arm unattached from the Jeep and I drove it, following behind the RV to the nearest hardware store. Meanwhile, Andi called the hitch company and they helped him determine what might have happened to it, and also what he needed to do to fix it. Andi bought the parts at Tractor Supply and we spent an hour in the parking lot fixing the issue.
Fortunately, there was no real damage to the back of the RV or to the Jeep. Everything seemed to be working fine, except for the missing hitch pin. Squirting some grease into the brake level on the hitch seemed to dislodge whatever was stuck in there.
We hooked the Jeep to the back of the RV again and tested it. Everything seems to be working fine now. We were only a few minutes away from our campsite between the towns of Blue Ridge and Morganton, so we drove there next.
There was only one first-come, first-serve site left for the night so we booked it. I wasn’t sure we wanted to stay here long since tomorrow’s forecast looked like rain all day, but the campground host was so welcoming and invited us not to run off before we’d had an opportunity to explore the area. “Don’t you go running off now,” he said. “The sunsets are the prettiest I’ve ever seen here, and this area has too much to do.” He said he used to live in Nebraska — no wonder we liked him so much!
After Andi and I got the RV settled into its camping spot, the four of us hopped in the Jeep and decided to check out the town. I was surprised to see all the shops & restaurants Blue Ridge had to offer. Seems like this is “cabin country” for people living in Atlanta. We walked down Main Street and browsed in the few shops that were open. Then, we hopped back into the Jeep and drove back to our campsite at Morganton Point Recreational Area belting out Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee” the whole way.
I’d marinated some pork chops earlier in the day, so Andi threw those on the grill while I steamed broccoli on the RV stove. We ate outside at the picnic table. The evening turned out to be nice and relaxing after a stressful driving day.
