Travel Days
How We Travel
Paul drives the truck pulling the camper and I (or Josh) drive the car following behind. Josh is still a new driver but gets better and more comfortable the more he drives. He doesn't like to drive too much but we encourage him to so he gets more and more practice. I always ride in the car when Josh is driving so I can help him navigate and it allows me to work on the road. I drive whenever I do not need to be online for work and when that happens, Shelby rides with me. Having two vehicles does increase the fuel costs but we enjoy having the car when we are in one place for months at a time. It is also handy when Paul has to drive to a work location and I am not without a vehicle. While we are not sure if we will always drive the two vehicles (especially when we decided to go out west) for now we do.
How I work on travel days
I have a simple inverter that plugs into the cigarette lighter (telling my age here; I believe its a 12V accessory socket). I am able to plug in my laptop, my phone and my Verizon jetpack (that supplies my wifi). I could use the hotspot on my phone for Internet and I have from time to time but the jetpack works so much better. Working on travel days is not ideal only because I don't have a nice comfortable office setup but I am able to do everything I need to do. We stick to interstates and large highways as much as possible on travel days when I am having to work. This keeps the Verizon cell signal from being lost. If we are needing to travel into an area without cell service I will make sure that I am not working that day. We also limit the number of miles we travel when I am working so that we are not on the road all day.
Goal when traveling:
- Try to only drive 200-300 miles a day. We do not like traveling all day and we only drive around 60 mph in order to not cause any unnecessary stress or strains on the truck. This also assures that we are not on the road all day and helps when I am working.
Sometimes this rule of thumb has to be broken because of deadlines for jobs and the distance between our destinations but we try and stick to that as much as possible.
Traveling from Altoona, Iowa to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (883 miles)
Stops:
1.) Riverside, Iowa (116 miles)2.) Starved Rock State Park in Oglesby (Utica) Illinois (two day stop) (147 miles)
3.) Earl Park, Indiana (130 miles)
4.) Elizabethtown Kentucky: Well this was supposed to be our stop (260 miles) but someone wanted to keep going to we ended up just zooming through Kentucky and not stopping other than for gas!
5.) Rocky Top Tennessee, Escapee's park for two nights. (200 miles)
6.) Destination: Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Mill Creek Resort for one month (58 miles)
Fuel Cost: $260 for both the truck and car to get from Altoona to Pigeon Forge
Camping Costs: $105 on the road; $1,000 for the monthly spot in Pigeon Forge (a little high but not unexpected for the area).
I will have to work daily and Josh will start school the day after Labor Day but we will do things in the evenings and on weekends while Paul and Shelby will explore and do things during the days. This is a month of play for them.
Riverside, Iowa:
Future Birthplace of Captain Kirk and a fun geeky stop for any Star Trek fan! Great Internet signal and a nice city park; quiet, small place, not too many people around.
Josh's Last day at Adventureland: He ended up being a super hard worker and received great reviews from his managers there; they are going to miss him. He did enjoy having something to do this summer! He loves to travel and explore new places; embraces the fun in everything!!
Starved Rock State Park, Utica Illinois:
Beautiful hiking trails and canyons; June-August the waterfalls are dry so that was a little disappointing; still beautiful but if given a chance to go back I will go back during the fall or spring when the waterfalls are present. The campground only had electricity and there were water sources around but not at every campsite. There was a dump station. The sites were spread out and it was a nice little campground, just disappointed that there wasn't water at every site. It was $25 a night.
It's hard to capture how huge the canyons were and some were small, but this one was massive; no waterfall, just a trickle of water flowing down. It was nice exploring the trails and the weather was beautiful; not hot at all!!
Earl Park, Indiana:
The first place in Indiana we planned on staying had a private even going on and was closed to the public so we had to find something else last minute. We ended up back tracking though but made it up the next day. I couldn't get a picture of Welcome to Indiana because the small highway only had a small Indiana State Line sign. The first town we came to had a sign I was able to capture.
We found a city park in Earl Park, IN which has several spots with electricity and water for only $15 a night; we just stayed the one night. They were getting ready for a festival so we were directed to park in a vendor spot since so many people were coming in for the festival; it was a nice little area and a beautiful, well maintained playground. Not bad for an overnight stop.
We Zoomed through Kentucky:
Rocky Top and Knoxville TN:
Raccoon Valley RV Park which is an Escapee's park. It was only $20 a night for full hook ups. The spaces were a little tight but it was nice and clean. The bathrooms were exceptional clean; although I like to use the camper bathroom, the kids like to use a bath house, especially when they are well kept. We enjoyed spending some time visiting the area and learning about the coal mines that used to be there. Downtown Knoxville has some great little spots.
Coal Creek is an old mining area; it was interesting learning about the coal mines and the tragic accidents that occurred.
Pigeon Forge, TN
Mill Creek Resort
So Far, very beautiful area and we lucked up and was able to secure this place even with Labor Day coming up. We are paying a monthly fee for this campground and it has all of the amenities so it is definitely worth paying the extra amount for it. The trolley stops at the campground and it is near everything. I am looking forward to a relaxing, peaceful and also fun month! The temperatures are warmer than what I like so far but hopefully some cooler weather will be here soon.
Although we have visited the Smoky Mountain National Park many times before, it is the first time to visit this area since we have been full time; This National Park Stamp book is a great way to document all of the National Parks; not sure how long it will take to make it to all of them but it will be fun trying to make it to them all!
Home for the next month!!
