While in Knoxville visiting Cristina and David, we stayed in the Volunteer Park Campground in Heiskel, TN which is about 10-12 minutes north of Knoxville. The Campground was quiet and nice. See my review in RV Parky under the campground link on this web site.
Knoxville is a small city or big town depending on how you look at it. It is the headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority, but most importantly as pertinent to us, it is home to the University of Tennessee where both David and Cristina are working on their respective degrees. The UT is a huge research university and, judging by the construction around it, it's growing by the second! It not only has every possible major, it also houses a veterinary and a medical school. I was very impressed with this institution. While in Knoxville, we visited the World Fair Sphere and the Market Square, as well as the UT's botanical gardens. See pictures below. We also had wonderful Tennessee BBQ at Buddy's, which I highly recommend. We finally made it home today. Quoting Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz, "there's no place like home!" Some bigger RVs definitely feel like a home, but not the Casita. The Casita is simply a travel trailer, or as one of our campground admirers put it "a bedroom on wheels." LOL It however is very efficient and has allowed us to travel long and far, we also sleep on our own bed and have our private bathroom! We take a brief break now to take care of housekeeping matters. I will take some time to organize the website where I have the blog and to look into acquiring our own internet hotspot so that we won't have to depend on campgroun WIFIs, which are not always reliable. If you are following my blog, check back in a few weeks when, hopefully, I would have planned our next escape. We stopped here to split the trip home in two sections. The campground is excellent. Everything is perfect except for the fact that it does not have many trees, and that the area where it is does not promote long stays. The campground is more like a stop on the road for many campers. It's called The RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads. I'm attaching pictures, and I've also reviewed it in RVParky, as I do with all the campgrounds where we stay. The area of Roanoke Rapids has not impressed me. There is a magnificent lake, around which there are huge homes, but there is nothing more worth mentioning in the area. We ate lunch at a quaint restaurant in town called Oscar's and received very good service. The food was good also. On the way back, we came across a log cabin show place and took a look at them, then proceeded to the campground. Our campground neighbors' parents (phew!! got that? LOL) asked us us to show them the Casita. This is something that happens often, people find it cute and those who know that is made of fiberglass become very interested when they see it inside. In one campground, someone asked us what was it going to be when it grew up. LOL We are always very noticeable because we are usually the smallest RV in the campground. Our campground will, probably, not make the top campground list, but we are fully hooked for a very reasonable price. In my brief experience camping, I can honestly say that campground ratings are not always accurate. Personally, I dislike the fact that neither KOA or Good Sam allow user feedback. This is, perhaps, why I appreciate the RV Parky application, and RVparksreview.com which allow for user feedback. Since becoming a camper, I've joined so many camping and discount clubs, I'm beginning to loose track of them! First, there was AAA, but now there's Good Sam, Jellystone, Passport America, Escapees and just today I discovered another one called Encore/Thousand Trails. I will not be joining the latter, though, enough is enough! If I could get a discount based on all my memberships, I could probably camp for free! However, campgrounds only let you use one discount per stay. Yet, no matter the memberships or the reviews, selecting a campground is always a gamble and invariably, I'm sure there's no camper who hasn't ended up in that one campground with no WIFI, no laundry facilities, old bathrooms, dirt roads, unleveled sites, parking lot like sites with no shade, tons of mosquitos, no amenities and paying either cheap or expensive. Price does not always guarantee better in the camping world. It is always a gamble no matter how much you pay. Our campground this time is The Oaks in Point South, SC. This is a Passport America campground, with a reasonable rate. There's a pool, but the internet is only available at the clubhouse next to the office. At least, they were honest enough to say it upfront! unlike others who claim to have it and don't have it at all. Cable is free and there are some activities in the clubhouse towards the weekend. Like a potluck on Thursdays and BBQ on Fridays. The sites are not that leveled, which is not uncommon, it has dirt roads, but it's nicely shaded. Not bad for a two day stay for the money. If anyone wants prettier, and is willing to pay more, Camp Lake Jasper is a much newer campground and a very good choice, also in the area. Since we had already explored Beaufort and Hunting Island on our trip south, today we explored Edisto Island and Beach. In brief, Edisto Beach is too far, and too crowded for what it is. It's basically a residential beach community of owners and renters. Lots of huge houses, many of them for sale. Given the choice, I'd pick Beaufort and Hunting Beach over Edisto. In truth, I've seen plenty of better beaches. Even the boating is not great because the area is gravely affected by the tides, which means that boating in and out will depend on the tides. Below are some pictures I took of the campground and Edisto Beach. We spent an extra day on town to do three things: go to a gigantic Saturday flea market off of I-95, go to St. Augustine's new destillery and eat at an English pub on Route 1 near the airport. The flea market was your typical flea market with the zillion things you've never imagined you'd ever see in your life. It was also 96 degrees under the never ending tent! The series of conjoined tents have an east and a west entrance. By the time we exited the west end we drove directly to our Casita, turned the AC to high and rehydrated our lives again. Once recuperated from the heat, we made our way to the distillery. This is a new attraction in town. They've only been open for a year. So far, they only distill vodka and gin, but are aging rum and bourbon as well. The tour is free and very instructive. The distillery utilizes local farmers to supply their grain and, as part of their sustainability efforts, recycle their mash by-product to the farmers for feed and soil fertilization. At the end of the tour, one can sample the gin and the vodka. After the tour, and in great need of food, we made our way to King's English pub. Here we discovered that in England, or in an English pub, when invited to a "pint" it means a beer and if invited, one is then obligated to a "round" which means the obligation to invite the other person to another beer. The proverbial expression "the more, the merrier," stems from the tradtional "round" to reciprocate each invite. Tomorrow, we begin our north bound trek, making a couple of stops here and there. Below are pictures of the pub and of St. Augustine. We came back to our lovely little town, after spending a few days with our friends in Cocoa Beach. Unfortunately, we were so busy catching up, I forgot to take any pictures there. We, however, had a great time with our friends. Back in St. Augustine, we toured the beach area and the lovely town. I also took awesome pictures which I'm posting below. We extended our stay to do a few other things we have not done before. For those who read this posting and don't know our history with St. Augustine, know that since 1987, we've owned a timeshare here and have spent innumerable and very wonderful and memorable vacations here with our children. St. Augustine has always been a home away from home to us. Everytime we come, we love it. For anyone who has never been here, you are missing a very memorable vacation and, one if not, the most charming towns in Florida. St. Augustine has an awesome beach and more history than most towns in the US. It also has a zillion restaurants, hotels and small inns, as well as innumerable attractions. One could never go wrong coming here. From Tampa we drove south and camped in Brendenton, still in the gulf coast. Our campground was a mobile home community with sites for temporary rentals. It was called Winterfest Manatee. It was fine, except it had no WIFI, contrary to its advertisement. We toured Brandenton and Sarasota, as well as Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte. We liked Port Charlotte most of all. In particular an area called Grassy Point, where there were plenty of houses with wide canals. See pictures below. Anita and Frankie went all out for us, and we had a great time. Even backing into their driveway was easy with all the help given! On our first night there, we went to the theater with them. We saw Menopause, the Musical where Cindy Williams (Shierly, from Lavern and Shierly) made cameo appearances. I'm attaching a picture of her below. Almita, Art, Jackie and Elena joined us for a wonderful dinner feast prepared by our hosts. Anita's cooking is superb and Frankie is a master rotisseruer! Frankie showed us their RV which, I concluded, can fit two Casitas inside! It's definitely a very comfortable unit in which they have and will enjoy many trips. While there, we visited Tarpen Springs, a Greek enclave, known for the harvesting of sea sponges. It was there that I purchased a type of plant that lives, literally, from air. We also had saganaki, Greek flambé fried cheese, for the first time ever. I'm attaching a picture of the flambé part. Below I'm also including pictures of the flora and fauna in their beautiful neighborhood and of the airy plants. Can you believe that's a squirrel hanging from the lanai? |