Frankturman

Wednesday, December 02, 2009 We spent the first week of November touring Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the surrounding area. We stayed in a nice campground just off of Interstate 40 and north of the park. The national park is beautiful this time of the year with the leaves in color. At times we thought that the leaves that had fallen from the trees and were lining the forest floor added to the spectacular view. We also had some disappointments in the area. The commercialism of the area leading to the national park is an eyesore, distracting from the natural beauty of the area. There is a dichotomy in a county where there are no liquor stores (Dry County) but they allow adult entertainment establishments next door to children’s entertainment. This does not compute for us. From the East Tennessee area we moved to North Carolina, spending three days in the Chapel Hill, Durham area. We have some friends from our military days who are living in Durham and we had a wonderful time visiting with Pete and Dolly. We look forward to the time when we can return to the area and spend a little more time renewing our friendship. We then moved to Fayetteville and spent a few days with Dan and Marge another retired military couple whom we had not seen for over 25 years. It is funny how you can just pick up with some people where you left off. We had a great time renewing our friendship and getting reacquainted with them. Following our visit in Fayetteville we moved to the Atlantic Coast staying at the Onslow Beach RV Park in Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Our parking spot was about 100 Yards from the beach. We had a great time here touring the area and visiting the old towns with great history. One of the memorable towns was New Bern about 50 miles north of the campground. There is the classic architecture of the 1700 and 1800’s that is well preserved. We also enjoyed the great seafood that dominates that restaurant fair. I think that the first few days Julie must have eaten fried oysters every lunch. We also enjoyed picking up fresh seafood and cooking our own meals. We had some vary nice days while we were at Onslow Beach with the temperatures reaching the mid 70’s so we were able to enjoy long walks on the beach picking up some east coast seashells for our grand children. We were also able to find a few sharks teeth to send to them. We left there on Nov. 30 and moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where we again are camped within a few yards of the beach. As I write this today it is raining hard, so there will be no beach walks.

In October we covered most of three states: Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee. We moved from Sparta Il., to Fort Knox, Ky., and stayed there for 10 days. During this time we toured a good part of Northern Kentucky, enjoying the sites and tastes of this area. There are a great number of adventures to take part in in this part of the country. We visited a bourbon distillery, wineries, Mammoth Cave National Park, and a number of Kentucky towns with their wonderful old homes and buildings. Many of the towns are going to great efforts to restore their downtown areas and by all appearances are quite successful in their efforts. We then moved to Indiana, staying in a nice park in Jamestown, which is just west of Indianapolis. We were in the area of the Covered Bridge Festival, a gigantic flee market and food fest that takes place every year in mid-October. The leaves in this area were starting to turn, so the views were spectacular. The sounds and smells of fall were everywhere, with farmers in the fields harvesting the corn and beans. There was a farmer in the RV Park who was able to answer our questions on harvesting methods and equipment. The modern equipment is highly technical with GPS, and moisture sensors are installed in the combines. Next we moved to Nappanee, Ind., to the Newmar Factory to have some much needed work done on our coach. We were there for five nights and with the coach in the shop all day we enjoyed the local area. This is the heart of Indiana Amish country, so there were horsedrawn buggies and people on bikes everywhere. They have special horse parking areas at the grocery stores, as well as at most shopping areas. We were able to visit one of the tourist attractions and learn a lot about the Amish way of life. Again, the leaves in this area were at their peak, so we were able to enjoy the fall colors. We took in a tour of the Newmar factory and enjoyed seeing how the coaches were made. They are producing about 15 coaches a week now, one of the few who are producing anything. Our coach work was completed on Friday and we moved on Saturday morning back to Fort Knox. We spent three nights there resupplying before moving on to the Nashville, Tenn., area. We enjoyed this area immensely as the leaves were at their peak when we arrived; however, many have now fallen as there was a rain and wind storm last Friday. We do not normally enjoy the large cities and so have avoided the downtown area of Nashville. We have enjoyed the rural areas surrounding the city. Again, the small and medium size towns have done a remarkable job of restoring and maintaining their downtown areas. Most towns have some type of square in the central district, which has been revitalized, and most of the store fronts are occupied. Tomorrow is moving day, so we head to eastern Tennessee and the Great Smokey Mountains.

Tuesday, September 29 We were in Charles City, Iowa, for Labor Day weekend. While we were there we attended a Thrashers Reunion at an active museum that specializes in steam engines. They had a number of working steam tractors that were used to power the threshers. The day we attended they were threshing oats, large sheaves of oats were hauled to the threshing machines on trailers or sleds and then put into the threshing machines by hand. Grain came out one end and the straw and chaff out the other. They also had a large number (over 200) of tractors dating from as far back as the early 1900s. In addition to the threshing machines, there were bailers that worked, some of which were stationary so the straw had to be put into the bailer by hand. We were impressed with this operation because for years we have traveled the Dakotas and Montana where these threshing machines sit on hill tops along the road ways and are called prairie dinosaurs. To find some in working condition and actually get to see them working is great. We both grew up listening to our parents and grandparents stories of threshing and how much work it was. My estimate is that they had to handle the grain 6 or 7 times before the task was complete. This is compared to modern equipment where it is only handled once before it is in the truck. I would recommend this or other reunions of this type any time you happen to be in the area where one is occurring. The one in Charles City is held every Labor Day weekend. The following week we went to Amana Colonies Iowa, a lovely collection of small villages started in the mid 1800’s by a religious sect from Germany. Until 1932 they operated the colony as a true commune. They have a huge RV Park there that can accommodate over 500 RV’s. The local economy is now based on farming, manufacturing (Amana Radar Range was made here), and tourism. While in Amana we also made a side trip to the Amish area in south central Iowa. Kalona has a wonderful museum that takes visitors through the local history as well as a Mennonite museum that details some of the history of their religion. The following week we moved to Mahomet Illinois. The main purpose of this stop was to spend some time with one of our nieces who lives in a small town about 40 miles south west of Mahomet. We had a wonderful time visiting their home and hosting them at our home on wheels. While we were in Mahomet we traveled to Springfield to visit the Lincoln home and museum. Both were enjoyable however we enjoyed the home, which is run by the National Park Service, the best. This week finds us in Sparta Illinois at the World Shooting and Recreation Complex. They have a huge RV park here with over 1000 sites most of which are not occupied. This is a complex built to host large Trap and Skeet competitions. This is a great example of the things that can be done with an open pit coal mine when it plays out.

When we last added to this blog we had moved to Bemidji Minnesota. We spent a week there touring the surrounding area. We went as far north as International Falls and the Voyager National Park, Not much to see there with out a boat. We also visited much of the surrounding area within a 100 Mile radius of Bemidji. We next moved to Superior Wisconsin, staying in a nice RV park on the east side of town. We toured the northwest shore of Lake Superior (Northeast Minnesota) as well as the area south and east of Superior. We found a winery in the town of St Croix Falls that had some good grape wines. Most of the wines in this part of the world are fruit wines, apples, plumbs and rhubarb. We were also able to visit the Lake Superior Islands National Lake Shore, again not much here to see without a boat. The following week we moved south to Ft. McCoy Wisconsin, this military post has a nice campground however it is a little expensive for a military base. We enjoyed touring in this visiting most of the area within 100 miles of the area. We are currently back in Minnesota staying in the town of Prior Lake which is southwest of the Twin Cities. We have a nephew here so have had a great time visiting him and his wife. We spent yesterday at the Minnesota State Fair and had a good time doing all of the fair things, touring the animal barns and eating all of the great fair food. Tomorrow we move to Charles City, Iowa where we will spend the Labor Day weekend.

The past four weeks have been full of family visits. We left Montrose and drove to Castle Rock CO. via I-70 with its high passes (over 11,000 feet). While in Castle Rock we visited Julie’s cousin Diana, as well as spending a little time touring the area. After 4 days in Castle Rock we moved north to Cheyenne, WY, spending a few days there touring the local area. One highlight of the visit was finding a Cajun restaurant in Laramie WY about 35 miles west of Cheyenne. Tommy Jack’s had excellent gumbo as well as oyster and shrimp po-boys. We enjoyed our lunch and will return again one day. We next moved to Custer SD to spend a wonderful afternoon with Julie’s cousin Roberta who lives in Edgewood. We moved from there to Bismarck ND with an over night stop in northern SD to rest up. Bismarck is the home town of a number of our relatives so we spent 10 days there visiting Frank’s mother, brothers from both sides as well as niece’s, nephews, and cousins. We both originated from Bismarck but have not lived there for 40 plus years. From Bismarck we moved to Aberdeen SD for another family reunion. Julie’s cousins from her mother’s side had a reunion at Wiley Park in Aberdeen. There was lots of food, stories as well as a trip to the bumper boats and go-carts. We spent Sunday recovering from the fun filled weekend before moving to Fargo ND to visit one of Frank’s brothers and his family. Wednesday we moved to Grand Forks Air Base to resupply at the Commissary and Exchange. Then today we moved to Bemidji MN where we will spend a week getting back into our normal routine, which has been destroyed over the past month. Our normal routine is to move about 300 miles once a week and spend the days touring the surrounding area, thereby seeing all of the country a little at a time.

I do believe that Newmar is still out there. These are tough times for all of the RV industry. People want to buy a coach but are unable to get loans. This is a big problem for the manufactures. Frank Turman F245446 A Full timer

Wednesday, January 06, 2010 Following our rainy week in Myrtle Beach, SC we moved to Hardeeville, SC which is just north of Savannah, GA. We had a wonderful time there although it did rain a lot. We were able to visit the historic parts of Savannah as well as the resort areas of Hilton Head SC. We ate lunch at a number of the great restaurants in Savannah as well as some nice country cafes in the local area. The seafood continues to be one of the great benefits of visiting this area. The next week we moved to Kings Bay Navy Submarine Base in southeast GA. Where the weather improved immensely with some warm days in the mid 70’s. We were able to visit the historic town of St, Mary which labeled as the second oldest city in United States; the oldest city being St. Augustine a few miles to the south. This area has a rich history of both Spanish and English colonization with a number prerevolutionary war battles fought in the area. We paid a visit to the Okefenokee Swamp, St Simons Island, and the Cumberland Island National Sea Shore. This is one area we will visit again. The week of Christmas was spent at New Smyrna Beach FL. We had good weather for most of the week and had a very enjoyable time visiting St. Augustine, Cape Canaveral, as well as other locations in between. One of the most memorable trips was to Blue Springs State Park to see the Manatees. In the cooler winter weather the Manatees move into the warmer spring fed waters of the park, we were able to observe quite a few because of the clear waters. Too bad the waters are closed to swimming as it would be an experience to swim with them. The week of New Years we moved to Old Town FL, a small village 40 miles west of Gainesville. Here we were able to visit some of the smaller towns and villages of the west Florida Coast. Most of the coastal towns are remote with only one way in and out of the town. This is a quiet area of Florida where wild boor hunting appears to be the sport of the winter. Following the New Years weekend we moved to Panama City, FL. where we will be spending the next week. The weather has also turned cold here with freezing temperatures most nights. Wednesday, December 02, 2009 We spent the first week of November touring the Great Smokes Mountains National Park and the surrounding area. We stayed in a nice campground just off of Interstate 40 and north of the park. The National Park is beautiful this time of the year with the leaves in color. At times we thought that the leaves that had fallen from the trees and were lining the forest floor added to the spectacular view. We also had some disappointments in the area. The commercialism of the area leading to the National Park is an eyesore, distracting from the natural beauty of the area. There is a dichotomy in a county where there are no liquor stores (Dry County) they allow adult entertainment establishments next door to children’s entertainment. This does not compute for us. From the East Tennessee area we moved to North Carolina spending three days in the Chapel Hill, Durham area. We have some friends from our military days who are living in Durham and we had a wonderful time visiting with Pete and Dolly. We look forward to the time when we can return to the area and spend a little more time renewing our friendship. We then moved to Fayetteville and spent a few days with Dan and Marge another retired military couple whom we had not seen for over 25 years. It is funny how you can just pick up with some people where you left off. We had a great time renewing our friendship and getting reacquainted with them. Following our visit in Fayetteville we moved to the Atlantic Coast staying at the Onslow Beach RV Park in Camp Lejeune Marine Base. Our parking spot was about 100 Yards from the beach. We had a great time here touring the area and visiting the old towns with great history. One of the memorable towns was New Bern about 50 miles north of the campground. There is the classic architecture of the 1700 and 1800’s that is well preserved. We also enjoyed the great seafood that dominates that restaurant fair. I think that the first few days Julie must have eaten fried oysters every lunch. We also enjoyed picking up fresh seafood and cooking our own meals. We had some vary nice days while we were at Onslow Beach with the temperatures reaching the mid 70’s so we were able to enjoy long walks on the beach picking up some east coast seashells for our grand children. We were also able to find a few sharks teeth to send to them. We left there on Nov 30 and moved to Myrtle Beach South Carolina where we again are camped within a few yards of the beach. As I write this today it is raining hard so there will be no beach walks.