Visiting Friends; Tennessee Karaoke

October 26, 2007 -- Heiskell, TN near Knoxville

The Excapees Raccoon Valley RV park was nearly full when we checked in here on Wednesday. We had to take a spot with no hookups. But yesterday, Thursday, a full hookup site opened up and we moved. Even though we can exist without hookups for a week or so, it's nice to at least have some electricity and water, which was our limiting item this time as we only had a nominal amount in the tank.

This is the first time we're staying at an Escapees park. It's an organization we joined a few months ago that promotes safe and responsible RV'ing and stays on top of changes in laws affecting the lifestyle. They have a number of RV parks around the country and offer deep discounts to members. This is the oldest park in the system and while it has a charm to it, it's old and was designed with much smaller RV's in mind. Thus, sites are small and maneuvering can be a challenge at time. On a positive note, the people are wonderful. We've met too many people to remember. Last night, the park had their regular Thursday night music jam session -- an ever-changing number of musicians from the area show up and just play. Anything goes, but mostly country and bluegrass music (after all, it is Tennessee!). It's truly not a concert or performance... just a jam session. People from the park sit around in chairs and, if they're so moved, join in. If someone plays an instrument, they can jam along. Ditto if you sing. I can best describe it as "Tennessee Karaoke". We had a blast and the clubhouse was full of campers who felt the same way.

Earlier in the day we drove into Knoxville. Something we just had to do this trip was to meet with some old friends from my days in the fastener business. We were invited to Gene & Becky's club for lunch and then went over to their house to visit for a couple hours. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with them and promised to stop more often as we come through in the future. Thanks Gene and Becky for a wonderful time, and thanks Butch, for putting this together on such short notice.

We're going to do a little touring of the area near here today. We're about 10 miles north of Knoxville and there's large lake nearby -- part of the TVA system of dams, rivers, and waterways. Tennessee and the Carolinas have been on our radar screen as a possible place to settle in the future, so we're going to get started on our review of the area today.

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