Since it has been awhile since we posted, I thought I would catch you up with what we have been doing.
We did go to Gatlinburg on September 11 and had a great day! The weather was beautiful. We bought 11 candles of different scents. They are all soy candles which we prefer. So far our favorite scent is lemon grass. We visited the Crafters Loop in Gatlinburg and went into three candle shops. One candle shop called Dick and Marie’s has homemade canned items also. We bought some pumpkin butter which I really like but Jeff isn’t too fond of. We stopped at Misty Mountain Soap Company and bought some Mountain Energy lotion and Wild Berry lotion. The Mountain Energy has a citrus, predominantly orange scent. It really smells divine! After the loop we went to downtown Gatlinburg and noticed it was pretty busy for a Tuesday so we didn’t stop and shop. Next time we want to head to the Distillery that just opened up in town. Yep, they sell “shine.” Jeff wants to try it. We then headed to Pigeon Forge and noticed how crowded they were, also. Up and down the highway was an antique car/truck show going on. You could spend a whole day there and not see all of the vehicles that they were showing. A few of them looked like the American Pickers tv show should buy and restore, but many of them were already restored and absolutely beautiful. It takes us two hours to get back to Dillard so we got back at 5:45 and just had some soup for dinner.
The next day, Wednesday, September 12, we had a great dinner at Lucios Italian Restaurant in Franklin with our friends Cheryl and Steve who own a site in River Vista. They have an absolutely loveable dog named McGee who gets along really well with Kozmo. The food was too much for me to eat and I brought about half of it home. I had the eggplant parmesan and loved it. They give you unlimited salad and garlic rolls with your meal. I was the only one to bring something back from the main entrée. Cheryl and Steve brought back a piece of crème brulee cheesecake and Jeff brought back a chocolate peanut butter piece of cheesecake. I also bought the same cheesecake that Cheryl and Steve bought. The desserts were OK, something I wouldn’t get again though. Great company and a great evening with Cheryl and Steve was what it was all about!
A couple who live in StrawBerry Ridge where we have our manufactured home in Valrico, Florida came up and stayed in their motorhome in River Vista. They visited with us for a couple of hours. Bill and Katherine were on their way back from Kentucky and this was their first stay at River Vista. It was strange seeing them because I was walking Kozmo one morning and I noticed a man just staring at me as I walked. Well, it was Bill and it was a pleasant surprise! They had a great time!
Our neighbors who are seven sites down from us had a yard sale last weekend. Bobbie and Frank are trying to sell their site and motorhome so they were getting rid of stuff they no longer needed. They were selling a four burner stainless steel gas grill that also had a side burner and a side rest stand. It came with a rotisserie and a 20 gallon filled propane tank. We took a look at it and it was in great shape so we bought it for a fantastic price! We grilled some chicken on it and just love it. They also threw in the cover for it so it will stay outside on the deck under cover when we leave for Florida. We are going to grill some Mojo chicken today on it and have some black beans and yellow rice to go along with it.
Our best friends Linda and Bill got here yesterday and stayed with us for about four hours before heading back to Auburndale, Florida. Two weeks ago they took the auto train out of Sanford, FL with their motorcycle and got off at the final destination for the train in Virginia. Then they proceeded on their bike to Maine where Linda’s Mom and Bill’s parents live. They were both born there and the pictures they sent back were gorgeous! Needless to say they had lobster that is dirt cheap up there, and really enjoyed their stay. They stopped here long enough for us to enjoy each other’s company and eat at Oinkers in Clayton on their way out. They were headed to Milledgeville, GA for the night and then should arrive back home on Friday. It is always so GREAT to see them. Linda retired in June from the same school that I taught at. Bill is still working at Customs in Orlando.
Our weather in Dillard is very nice. We did have some mornings in the 40’s that warmed up to the low 70’s with some beautiful breezes. You can tell JUST A LITTLE BIT that the trees are starting to change colors, or maybe it is my eyes that are seeing the colors and they aren’t really there??? October will be a busy month for us since Jeff has us doing a wine and cheese gathering the weekend of October 5 and a dance and beer fest on October 6. It will be OKTOBERFEST WEEKEND at River Vista. Jeff came up with the idea for the weekend and proposed it to the managers. They liked it and gave the go ahead. Check out the video Jeff made to promote it on the internet on the River Vista Facebook site. Click the arrow to start it, then enlarge it in the lower right corner to see it full page.
Two weekends later a Bluebirds FMCA Club Rally with 75 coaches will be showing up in River Vista and Jeff will be giving them a Jimmy Buffet type of dance that they wanted. He was recommended to them by the office staff here at River Vista last winter and they called him last February to book it. It should be a good crowd. The following weekend is Halloween and Jeff will do his usual Halloween dance for kids first and then the adults. They’ll be costume contests for both adults and kids. The campground is booked to capacity for that weekend. Hopefully the following week we will be heading south. We think we are going to Navarre Beach in the panhandle to a campground that recently opened up called St. Rosa RV Resort. At least that is the plan for now.
Jeff’s computer has really been acting crazy for a month now and he finally succumbed to buying a new HP one. Why didn’t he just take it to get repaired is a question that cannot be answered. But then again it is old! He ordered it from Best Buy and it should be in next week in Waynesville for us to pick up. I am so afraid that his old one will die when he is DJ’ing a dance and then he will have to use mine, which does not have all the songs he will need, plus it does NOT have the Virtual DJ software that he desperately needs.
We travelled to Hiawassee on Wednesday and bought two pumpkins, some apples and peanuts from a neat road stand. I thought we would travel back by using a scenic route that we had not been on called Persimmon Creek Road. Well, we travelled on it for a while and it was OK but then we started to use the GPS to get us back to Dillard. It took us on a narrow gravel road up in the mountains for 7 miles. I was NOT going to drive that for 7 miles so I kept looking for a way to back out and go back down. I found a very narrow space that I had to pull back and forward about 6 times and was very happy that I did. That was about 7/10 of a mile of hard driving with bumps and trying to miss tree limbs in the road. I know Jeff’s back was killing him every time I moved the truck and I was only going about 8 – 10 miles per hour in first gear. NEVER again!!! Kozmo probably thought we were crazy since she was bouncing up and down too!
I got rid of our vegetable garden since it did not produce much of anything to write about. I will try harder next year and not try to plant so many different vegetables and use a different method than what I did this year. Pitiful gardener I was for sure this year.
I am going to stop and enjoy the rest of the day!
‘Til next time….
