September 25, 2007 by steve.

Well, another weekend another camping trip. The CurbCrusher’s loaded up and made the 35 minute drive to Disney World on Friday (Sept 21). Nothing but a reason to live in the motorhome for the weekend. We lazed around the campground, wandered over to Downtown Disney.

There’s not a lot to say about Ft. Wilderness other than “Disney.” It is located a boat ride away from the Magic Kingdom and a bus ride away from Epcot and MGM Studios. In addition, there’s all the other Disney attractions: water parks, hotel pool jumping and more. Every night there is a “campfire” in the meadows at the campground and Chip and Dale come out to play. Then they show a movie on the screen. Think of it like a drive in movie (for those old enough to remember them) without the drive in part.

The sites we’ve always had have been full hookup (water, sewer and electric) and Little CurbCrusher always has a good time, even if we don’t go to the parks. There is a large pool at the campground, and playgrounds scattered around the whole park. The rates can get expensive, that’s why we only go when we can get a “Florida Resident” rate that is just outlandish as opposed to exorbitant.

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September 20, 2007 by steve.

Well we finally made the first trip that was longer than two and half hours in the motorhome. I’ve become much more comfortable driving the coach that I was on the first couple of trips. Initially I had reached a comfort level by limiting my speed to 60 MPH. I’ve now become comforatable driving at around 65MPH. Because of the towing limitations of the Saturn 65MPH is the max speed I’ll run.

The motorhome is much more “loose” on the road than the truck/5th wheel combination. This is especially true when driving in tight traffic. I feel much more claustrophobic driving the motorhome in the middle of traffic that I did the truck/5th wheel. I also felt comfortable running about 70 MPH in the truck. The truck always felt solid on the road. The motorhome fees a bit more mushy.

Traveling through the city of Atlanta was an experience. We had made two round trips to north Georgia via I-75 while we owned the 5th wheel. On both trips, we drove through the middle of Atlanta, and used the HOV lane. This trip on the way north we went through the middle of Atlanta on I-75. We did not use the HOV lane. It is my opinion that the lanes on I-75 within Atlanta are smaller than the lanes outside of Altanta. We drove through on a Saturday, and it was fairly stressful driving through the middle. On the way home, we took I-285. It is only about six miles longer, but it is much less stressful. On I-285, I was able to establish a position in the middle lane, and not have to worry about as much merging and rushing traffic as I-75 through the middle of the city had. All in all, I’ll take the bypass next time.

As far the family traveling in the motorhome, it is a much superior experience to the truck/5th wheel. Little CurbCrusher is homeschooled. So when we left White Springs, FL on the way to Chattanooga, Mrs. CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher spent the first couple of hours doing school work. Then Mrs. CurbCrusher joined me in the co-pilot seat and Little CurbCrusher did some school work, read for a while, watched a movie. When I got hungry, Mrs. CurbCrusher was kind enough to get up make me a sandwich and get me a drink. We pretty much only stopped to get gas on the way up. On the way home, we stopped at a couple of rest stops and I got out and took a walk.

Another item to note is my mind set while driving. When I drive long distances in a car, I find myself constantly calculating how many miles per hour I’m averaging. My goal is to always average at least 65 miles an hour, so I’m looking at the distances to cities, figuring out what time I’ll get there and happy when I beat my calculations. The same thing with mile markers and counting down to state lines. In the motorhome I find myself just chugging along enjoying the drive. It is much more relaxing.

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September 15, 2007 by steve.

Well, we did it, our first long trip in the motorhome. The CurbCrusher clan drove from Cloudland Canyon back to Orlando on Thursday. Because there was not internet access for most of the trip, I wrote about the trip in OpenOffice and then I’ve cut and pasted into the blog, and edited the timestamps on the post to match roughly when I actually wrote the entry.

It is good to be home, but now we have to catch up on all the mundane chores that we got to ignore for seven days. Grass needs to be cut, laundry done, the house cleaned and all that. It was great to get back and find out that someone other than the family reads this, thanks Lou.

Having spent a while driving the Itasca, I want to write a summary of my thoughts on driving the motorhome on a long trip versus the fifth-wheel, and I want to explain how we got started RVing, as I mentioned in my response to Lou, that may help others that are thinking about RVing, but not sure about it. I’ll probably try and post something about the driving this weekend, but may hold off on the other.

The next trip is already planned, but its a short one. Next weekend we are going to head over to Fort Wilderness, the campground at Disney, for a weekend. Hopefully this will be a more relaxing weekend that the last trip to Ft. Wilderness three years ago when we left early because of Hurricane Jeanne so we could batten down the house before the storm.

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September 14, 2007 by steve.

The last stop on the CurbCrusher Fall 2007 tour was Cloudland Canyon State Park in north west Georgia. On Tuesday morning, we spent a lazy morning cleaning up camp at Raccoon Mountain and then moseyed a bit south, twenty-five miles to be exact, to Cloudland Canyon. We approached from the west, taking I-24 west from Chattanooga, then exiting a Trenton, Georgia (exit 11) and heading east on state road 136. 136 is a mountain road (Ok I know the people out west laugh at the mountains on this side of the country. But for someone that lives in the flat lands of Florida, when the elevation exceeds about 40 feet above sea level, you’ve got a mountain.) that winds up to the park entrance about seven miles from the interstate.

We arrived and headed for the West Rim camping loop. Cloudland Canyon has two camping loops that are about a two - three mile drive from each other. The West Rim has the bigger sites so we headed that way. Georgia State Parks let you reserve a “type” of site, and then when you show up you look through the available sites of that type and choose the one you want (as opposed to Florida State Parks were you reserve a specific site number). So we drove through the West Rim loop and looked at all the “green” sites. There were about a half dozen RV’s in the loop, and probably another three or four tents. We finally settled on a pull through (one of four in the loop) that was behind the playground and a bathhouse, although the woods were so thick that you could not see the playground or the bath house from the site. The site was extremely large, and gave you a good sense of privacy. There was electricity and water on the site. There were a number of “gray water dump” sites located around the loops, and then a full dump station located on the way out of the camping area.

One of the attractions of Cloudland Canyon is that there are two waterfalls located in the canyon. Well when we checked in the ranger told Mrs. CurbCrusher that because of the drought the waterfalls have dried up. This was a bit of a disappointment, as I am a waterfall fan. We decided to hike to the waterfalls anyway. So we started our first hike of the day. One big problem was that we started the hike without looking at the map closely. The Waterfall trail starts on the East Rim of the canyon. We were on the West Rim, and needed to take the West Rim trail over to where it crosses to the East Rim. Since CurbCrusher was responsible for reading the trail map, and he didn’t do it right, the family started off toward the 4.2 mile loop section of the West Rim Trail, instead of toward the Waterfall Trail. There were some beautiful views of the canyon, and different rocks and fauna, but after about a mile we reached the start of the loop. Needless to say Mrs. CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher were not amused that we were at the start of the 4.2 mile loop, and so CurbCrusher actually read the map and we turned around.

After a bit of a rest, we drove over to the East Rim. The East Rim camping loop is more compact, and the sites do not seem to have as much foliage between them. There is also the parking for the day use near-by the campground, and the East Rim cabins are located right next to the camping loop.

We hiked the Waterfall trail to the dried up waterfalls. This trail is a mix of walking along a packed dirt trail, and descending steps to the canyon floor. You get about half way down and the trail splits, one way going about a tenth of a mile to one waterfall and the the other going about three tenths of a mile to the other. CurbCrusher is not convinced that the signs indicating the distance are accurate, as it seems that you go three tenths of a mile horizontally, and about six tenths vertically. And of course the real problem is that once you get to the bottom of each of the trails you have to climb back up. Somewhere I thought I’d heard Mrs. CurbCrusher say there were 400 steps to the waterfalls. On the way down I quit counting at 170. On the way up, I figured I’d count and when I got to about 230, I should be where I quit counting on the way down. I quit counting at 300 on the way up and I still could not see the place I’d quit counting on the way down.

While hiking and walking around the camping loop, we had seen a number of different leaves. We stopped by the Ranger Station and they lent us a guide book for identifying trees. After we had tried as best we could, we took some leaves back up there when we returned the book and they helped up identify them. Little CurbCrusher completed the Junior Ranger program during our stay at this park, and was able to get three nice patches.

The weather was wonderful. When we arrived in the park it was sort of drizzly and cloudy, but with a nice breeze that kept it feeling cool. The first morning we woke up to our outdoor thermometer reading 62, which is the coldest we’ve seen since February/March of this year. At night once the sun went down the temperature dropped in to the low 70’s fairly quickly and we were able to enjoy the ambiance of a small campfire for the first time a few months. This was what CurbCrusher had in mind when he talked about going to the mountains in September on vacation.

We would definitely like to visit this park again, especially once the waterfalls come back. This park is only about a half hour from Chattanooga, so it would be possible to use this park as a base to visit Chattanooga. The only thing is that the gates on this park are closed from 10PM until 7AM, and they don’t give you a code to get in and out like they do at other parks.

Some pictures can be found here.

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September 13, 2007 by steve.

Well the CurbCrushers intended to eat most all their meals at the campsite. But after arriving at the Cloudland Canyon State Park, Mrs. CurbCrusher noticed an add for a place named the Canyon Grill that was located close to the park. CurbCrusher got a little worried about going out to dinner when the family stopped by the Ranger Station to return a book and asked about the place. “Oh its a 4 star restaurant. People come from all over to eat there.” Now this can be good or bad. When people talk about fancy eating places, CurbCrusher immediately assumes that your talking about dressing up nice, getting food that looks real pretty, but there just isn’t much of it. Seeing as how we were in our camping clothes, jeans t-shirts and sneakers, I figured we might soon find ourselves back at the RV fixing dinner.

The Canyon Grill is only open from five to nine at night Wednesday through Sunday. It is also located only about a mile from the park entrance, so we got there about fifteen minutes before they opened. Mrs. CurbCrusher decided to walk in and see if they had a menu. When she returned to the car, she said there wasn’t a “set” menu as they fixed items that were available fresh, and there was no kids menu. The lady she had talked to did say that they had a chicken strips kind of appetizer that would probably appeal to kids. Well, we had fifteen minutes to kill, and in CurbCrusher’s mind this place was looking worse and worse. All the clues, “fancy restaurant”, “no kids menu”, “fresh items only”, pointed to a hoity toity unfun place to eat. We drove toward Chattanooga and enjoyed the scenery and decided we’d give it a try.

The CurbCrusher family arrived back at the Canyon Grill about five minutes after five, and were immediately seated. So at least were dressed decently enough to get in the door. The menu was a pleasant surprise. Some seafood, and a selection of beef, pork and poultry along with a couple of pasta dishes. The person seating us and the wait staff were very friendly. I started to think this might not be to bad afterall.

Little CurbCrusher ordered the chicken strip appetizer, Mrs. CurbCrusher ordered a pan seared pork dish with black beans and a backed sweet potato as sides, and I ordered the grilled chicken breast with lima beans and baked sweet potato as sides. Then they brought the bread. The bread was warm from the oven, and very light, with a heavenly taste. This was looking much better. While we were waiting for our food another half-dozen diners were seated, and it became clear that we were dressed just about right. Some folks were dressed up a little more and others a little less.

The meal arrived and all doubt about coming to eat at the Canyon Grill was removed. The chicken strips were breaded and fried, but the breading was light and flavor of the chicken was preserved and it was excellent. The pork was fixed with some kind of sauce, but it melted in your mouth when you chewed it. The chicken was moist and tasty. The vegetables were so good, that I’m not sure they were really vegetables. If I could have, I’d have seconds and thirds of the lima beans. Little CurbCrusher loved the baked sweet potato, between Mrs. CurbCrusher and myself giving her parts of our sweet potatoes, I think she may have eaten a whole one.

All in all it was a wonderful meal. Little CurbCrusher and Mrs. CurbCrusher did not finish their meals, and we took a go-box back to the RV with us. We had the left overs for lunch and dinner the next day while driving back to Orlando. From the maps and advertising, the Canyon Grill is about eighteen miles from Chattanooga, so if you find yourself in Chattanooga on Wednesday through Sunday nights, find your way out there for a great meal.

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September 11, 2007 by steve.

The CurbCrushers stayed at the Raccoon Mountain RV Park and Campground located on the southwest side of Chattanooga off of I-24. There was not a lot of research to picking this campground, CurbCrusher Googled Chattanooga Campgrounds, and then checked for reviews on the rvparkreviews web site. That combined with the Raccoon Mountain web site helped determine that we’d give this park a shot.

This park has about 157 sites, but not all are RV sites, and four cabins. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, and checked right in and parked and hooked up. We were in one of a number of pull through sites that had electricity, water, sewer, cable TV and wireless. The only real issue with hooking up was that the utilities were located toward the front of the site. That placed the sewer outlet more than 20 feet from the hook site on the rig the way I first parked, so I had to move up about six feet to get the long sewer hose hooked up. There was a concrete pad with a picnic table that served as a porch, placed perfectly for the RV door and steps to open onto.
We never had anyone located next to us, so we didn’t suffer from the closeness of other sites. The sites were not as far apart as you would find in a state park, but were not so close that you couldn’t open slides and awnings. During our entire stay, the park probably never had more than fifteen rigs in it, so it was never crowded.

There is a pool, go-cart track and cave tour located at the campground. When we arrived on Saturday, the go-cart track and pool were open. On Sunday they closed the pool around 6:15PM. On Monday they had no intention of opening the pool or the go-cart track. Mrs. CurbCrusher went to the office and chatted with the manager for a while. The go-cart track opened for a couple of rounds. She made a second trip to the office, and the pool opened. Interestingly enough once the pool opened, about a dozen folks headed over to it.

Monday afternoon, we visited the caverns. The cave tour last about 45 minutes. This cave was discovered by local farmers, and they hired Leo Lambert (the man who discovered Ruby Falls) to explore the cave. Leo then gave guided cave tours for a time here at Raccoon Mountain in the 1920s. Our guide’s enthusiasm left something to be desired, but the cave was interesting. You see a lot of the same geological features that you see at Ruby Falls. Raccoon Mountain Caverns is also a lot less confining feeling than Ruby Falls was. Of course we only took the “Crystal Palace” tour, where you can pretty much walk standing up the entire time. There is a “Wild Cave” tour that last two hours, and you get to crawl around and get muddy. I imagine that tour is not for the claustrophobic.

All in all the CurbCrushers enjoyed their time at Raccoon Mountain. If we find ourselves in Chattanooga again, we would probably stay there. Since the park is so convenient to I-24, it might also make a good overnight park when transiting the area.

Pictures can be found here.

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September 10, 2007 by steve.

For the second day of our Chattanooga visit we started off with some history. The CurbCrushers drove back into Georgia to the Chickamauga National Military Park. Point Park located on top of Lookout Mountain is considered part of this park, but the battlefield from the Battle of Chickamauga is located about 15 miles southeast of the Incline Railway.

This park is one of the first (or maybe it was the first) National Military Park. One of the interesting things about this park is that is was created while a number of the vetrans of the battle were still alive. The survivors of the various units returned to the park, and placed a variety of monuments and markers that show where their units were located during the battle. This makes for an interesting visit. Probably about a close as you can get to standing next to a Civil War veteran on a battlefield an have them tell you what happened.

Entering the park from the north, you come to the Visitor’s Center. There you can pick up a map of the park that has a self-guided auto tour. In addition there is a good presentation in the museum area of how the battle unfolded. With that overview, what you see driving around make a lot more sense.

The drive takes about an hour to an hour and a half if you only stop at the seven points on the tour map. You get a real feel for the scope of the battle that took place. When one thinks that this all took place communicating by messengers on foot and horse back, it is no wonder that all of the miscues that took place happened. This battle took place toward the end of September, and if the weather when the CurbCruhsers was there the middle of September was anything like what the Union and Confederates experienced in 1863, there was a lot of hot marching that took place.

Pictures can be found here.

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September 10, 2007 by steve.

Our final stop on the tour of Lookout Mountain sites was Rock City. This is the place of “See Rock City” fame, and once again classifies as one of the “Original American Theme Parks” in CurbCrushers book. Once again, the sign of a classic, Free Parking.

Rock City is an attraction that grew out of an individuals garden at one point. There are a number of natural rock formations that you walk through. It is very much of a self-guided tour. There is pretty much one way through the park, and you just follow the signs and walk through. Little CurbCrusher’s two favorite places were, Needles Eye and Fat Man’s Squeeze, where the rocks get very narrow and short. Everyone enjoyed the Swing-A-Long Bridge, and the waterfall on the side of the mountain. The final thing you walk through is a cavern that re-creates scenes from fairy tales and Mother Goose.

It took about an hour and a half to walk through the gardens. Everyone enjoyed the trip. This is a garden, so there are various botanical features throughout the park. However, the CurbCrushers visited in September, the fall, not spring time, so there were not a lot of blooms and color coming from the plants. We all imagined that this would be a really pretty place to visit in the springtime. Little CurbCrusher enjoyed her trip to Rock City so much that she wanted to visit again the next day.

Pictures can be found here.

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September 10, 2007 by steve.

Following the spelunking that led to Ruby Falls, the CurbCrushers did a mostly outdoor activity. We drove to the top of Lookout Mountain and headed to the Incline Railway. This railway runs up the east side of Lookout Mountain, and drops the passenger off about three blocks from Point Park. Point Park is a National Park, part of the Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park, which is one of the first National Military parks ever created.

We visited Point Park first. This is a self guided walking tour that visits the positions the Confederate defenders of Lookout Mountain held, and some plaques that discuss how the battle unfolded down below. This is actually the end of the battle for the area around Chatanooga, which started in September of 1863 and lasted through the end of November when Lookout Mountain fell to the Union forces.

Following the tour of the park, we simply rode the Incline Railway to the bottom of the mountain, and then back up. There is really nothing at the bottom of the railway except the parking and the gift shop and snack shop. Of note is that if you drive to the top of the mountain, as the CurbCruhser family did, you pay a dollar an hour to park at city run meters. If you park at the bottom and ride the train up, it’s free.

The brochures here say this is the steepest inclined railway in the world. It does seem to have a fairly steep grade right at the top, and I think it is that last 100 yards that gives it that claim. CurbCrusher was not overwhelmed by the Incline Railway, I’ve been on others. As a matter of fact if Little CurbCrusher had not been with us, we probably would have skipped this attraction.

Pictures can be found here.

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September 10, 2007 by steve.

Well when in Chattanooga, you head to Lookout Mountain. So the CurbCrushers started their Chattanooga tour with a trip to Ruby Falls. Ruby Falls is an underground waterfall that was opened up for access to the public in the 1930s. CurbCrusher loves the “old school” tourist attractions and this one lives up to being a great place to visit. Start off with the free parking. Living in the tourist “hold-up” country of Orlando, Mr. CurbCrusher has come to expect that you not only pay outrageous admission prices, but you also pay through the nose to park. So when we pulled up to Ruby Falls and no one had their hand out for a parking fee, I knew it was going to be a good day.
There were no real lines at any of the three places we visited in Chattanooga, so once we bought our tickets, we waited about five minutes until the elevator was ready to head down 260 feet below Lookout Mountain. A short elevator ride, and you find yourself exiting into a cave. For the next hour and ten minutes you are guided through the cave. The guide stops and explains various rock formations that you encounter along the way. The trip culminates with the arrival at Ruby Falls.

The tour lets you spend about ten minutes in the falls room. The only negative is that the falls are never lit with good white light that lends itself to photography, they are constantly changing from blue, to red lights, with mood music in the background.

The trip back to the elevator is fairly quick. You walk along the same path that you took to the falls, but don’t stop to talk about anything. As you come upon groups making their way to the falls, the guides call out for the group making their way to the falls to move over for the “survivors.” The people on their way to the falls suck it up, and squeeze against the narrow cave corridor, and those going back suck it up and try and move by them without getting stuck. As CurbCrusher found, depending on your size (and CurbCrusher is not small) and the size of the person you are passing, you may get real friendly.

Another elevator ride and you’re back on the surface, at the level of the observation deck. A quick trip to the observation deck, gives you some great views of Chattanooga. Of course this is followed by the required trip through the exit gift shop.

CurbCrusher says the trip is worth the price. There are warnings that it is cold in the cave. While Mrs. CurbCrusher and Little CurbCrusher both wore long pants and jackets due to this warning. CurbCrusher himself wore a short sleeve shirt and some zip off cargo pants. Everyone was comfortable on the cave tour.

Pictures can be found here.

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