18th to 19th July 2018......Clarksville and on route to Chattanooga, Tennessee....

We have a day off today and go downtown to historic Clarksville...
The iconic buildings of small town USA and fascinating to us...

The Customs House Museum....
Built in 1898 to house the international post office and customs house for the booming tobacco trade...

Two old boys on a bench !!!
The one on the right looked so comfortable that Yorkieman thought he would emulate him....
Had I have had time I would have photoshopped the garbage bin !!! 

The Columbia River at the McGregor Park, Clarksville...
We had a really nice stroll along the riverside walk...not too far with temps in the high 90s....

The Columbia River also flows through Nashville, back in 2010 when we hired a camper and stayed in Nashville we did a duck boat tour on the Columbia River...

The railroad bridge across The Columbia River...
In 1906 a passenger train was close to tragedy when the engineer had not realised that the drawbridge was open to allow passage of paddle steamers on the river....luckily just the mail and baggage cars were lost into the river and no lives were lost....

This is some pile of scrap metal....there was a big yard near the RV park and quite fascinated us....we are easily pleased !!!

Sorry folks what with the air con problems and playing catch up this photo was missed off  from a few days ago when we were in Marshfield but thought it worth adding for the effects of the rain on the window and the lovely evening sky.... 

Thursday 19th July....
Our journey today is mainly I-24 east past Nashville...
Nashville skyline and the iconic "Batman" building"....

Nashville is a really easy town to walk around which we did in 2010 and crossed most of the bridges in this photo....

Steep downgrades through the Monteagle Mountain, thank goodness once again for the exhaust break...
When doing research for the blog I discover that this section of the I-24 is one of the most hazardous stretches of the US interstate system where it crosses the Cumberland Plateau.....
There were many fatalities before the runaway truck ramps were added but still a hazardous stretch....
Fortunately Yorkieman (and Mrs Blogger) didn't know this !!!
Check out the lyrics of the Johnny Cash song Monteagle Mountain...

The route today takes us close to the Alabama border into Georgia and back into Tennessee....
We also "loose" an hour as we enter the Eastern Time Zone.....

We arrive at our home for the night north of Chattanooga (cue song) and our last stop before we get back to the beginning.....
There is a huge amount of history in this area and we did spend some time here back n 2012 visiting the many historic sites of the War Between The States...
Of course we also went downtown and visited the Choo Choo, how could I not !!!
Tomorrow we will start on our last segment of our journey back to the beginning to Lake Keowee, South Carolina...
Until the next post...
Yorkieman & Mrs Blogger.....

13th to 17th July 2018.....Missouri to Tennessee....

Friday 13th !!!!!

Just 127 miles journey today and via a pretty easy route recommended by the RV park owner, agriculture and very neat communities....

We pulled into Walmart Springfield parking lot at 11.30 to meet up with Ken our RV mobile repair man and true to his word he has the correct unit...

   Temperature is triple figures...Ken is on the roof assisted by his son Kyle, I was too hot and bothered to even think about taking a photo which of course I now regret !!!!  Great guys, right from the get go when we spoke to Ken a couple of days ago he was confident of getting us "fixed up".....just as well as we were ready to decamp to motels.....They had a big diesel generator to test the new unit and let it run for a while while we had a chat about travel.....we had to smile about it being  fixed in a grocery store car park, can see that happening in Tesco or Sainsbury's....

We are over a thousand pounds poorer (we knew that from the moment the old one went kaput) but hey ho all part of home owning and once we get to RV Express 66 in Marshfield 20 miles farther along the I-44 from Springfield we set up camp and start the cooling process....

So Friday 13th was actually a good day......

Saturday 14th July...
This and next pic interesting sky at our RV Park, RV Express 66, Marshfield Missouri....this is our second stay here (2016) small and next to the interstate but our kind of park....

Sunday 15th July...
This is a connection road  from I-44 to the US60 and just called Road A....
We did check out the road yesterday on our free day at Marshfield for towing along as a big "dip" and concern about bottoming out but it knocks 50 miles off the route and all is well.......

It's a longer drive today but very pretty, rolling hills, farms and a very nice rest area for our coffee and cookies, then on through The Mark Twain National Forest and The Ozark Mountains & Plateaus....
The small communities were lumber based towns....

After Poplar Bluffs the scenery changes back to agriculture, soyabean, corn and rice.....
We had a slight hiccup as the exit ramp to access the RV Park at Sikeston was closed due to construction but good detour and arrived at our RV Park and set up camp before a late afternoon thunder storm and heavy rain...
We have a day off tomorrow but do check out a route to avoid the construction...
We do have to laugh as everywhere we have stopped on the this road trip we are told that it's unusually high temperatures for this time of year !!!
The weather has gone crazy as UK are experiencing the hottest summer since 1976 the year Yorkieman and I met......

Tuesday 17th July...
And once more on the road again and heading east to Clarksville, Tennessee...
Only 152 miles along the US60 east but an interesting and at times stressy drive...
Sadly this photo doesn't show that the road for some miles is "raised" as in a levee...we are near the Mississippi River....

The first of two narrow bridges....this one across the Mississippi River and into Kentucky...

The Mighty Mississippi....

This is a busy truck route and we met several on this bridge, hence I missed taking a photo of the Kentucky State Line board, I needed to be lookout man  for how close we were to the railings !!!!

Phew we made it across without any scrapes !!!

Yikes another one, this time across the Ohio River....

I did manage to multitask and snap a couple of pics of the barges...

And another one but this time "normal" road width but one lane closed for construction !!!!

We passed through some small towns and at times not sure we were on the right road but we made it to Paducah and the I-24 east..

Well this has certainly been a drive of several parts today, interesting,  pretty and stressy....
The last 40 miles of the I-24 to the Tennessee Border was the most awful road surface and serious concerns by us for the tyres !!!
However we arrived at the Tennessee Welcome Centre in one piece and time to take a breath before the couple of miles to our RV Park in Clarksville and our home for the next 2 nights....
Our song for the day was Kentucky Bluebird...but now we are here it has to be Last Train To Clarksville....
And of course they say that the temperatures are unusually high !!!
For now until the next post, it's time for a few bevvies...
Cheers from Yorkieman & Mrs Blogger.....

8th to 13th July...Kansas & Missouri.....

Today we are On The Road Again...cue for a song...after a great stay at Haggards RV Park and the lovely Nancy we must move east.....the fridge really struggled overnight to get down to an acceptable temperature with no a/c and we will have to throw out some  food  but that's life....We are really surprised to find that after leaving the Rocky Mountains the eastern part of Colorado is flat agricultural and cattle land much like Kansas & Nebraska....

We love the small towns and iconic buildings ...

Oh my a water-tower !!!!
I shall make no excuses that on this last major road trip blog I shall add a few of these guys....

The lunch sandwich stop is at a really good rest area in the small town of Eads Colorado....
Very interesting historical markers about the area and town and the Plains Indians and the dreadful Sand Creek Massacre that happened not far from here....

We are once again navigating by silo...fascinating....

This photo really doesn't show how precarious the hut is at the top of  the silo....it all seemed to be abandoned and a puff of wind let alone a tornado will bring it crashing down...

And we say goodbye to Colorado and hello again Kansas...

Fort Wallace Museum, one of those places that you find in the "middle of nowhere" much like Eads but a fantastic source of information and such a lovely curator she was so knowledgeable.....we had limited time as a long drive today and also we loose an hour a few miles up the road when we go into Central Time Zone but we did do a shortened tour....as well as information about Fort Wallace they have the bones of a full sized Plesiosaur which was excavated not far from here in 1867 and their main benefactor has just given them a huge collection of Pump Organs...so fascinating and a shame we didn't have more time to spend here.....

Oakley Kansas our home for the next two nights...
Our living area is pretty much unbearable without the a/c & temps of 38C but there is a nice breeze and the fridge is ok and the bedroom a/c is still hanging in there....

Monday 9th July...
We had thought to drive 30 miles down to Monument Rocks but with the high temperatures and a 10 mile dirt road to actually get to the rocks we head instead to the local library and their air con.....they share the building with the Fossil Museum...rocks not old folks....

Love this.....neither of us knew the answer but I guessed right and got a piece of candy !!!! Great talking with the librarians and so pleased that a small town has such a great library.....

Tuesday 10th July...
We head east again all interstate 70 and light traffic, small communities and agriculture...I thought the "nodding donkeys" were for water and irrigation but Yorkieman says it will be oil....

Home for the next two nights Chapman Creek RV Park...
We stayed here last year on our way back west from Iowa....lovely park and great camp hosts....
We had called ahead back in Colorado and Tom the mobile RV repair man is here to meet us to install a new a/c unit but hey ho ours is not the standard one and the supplier can't get the one we need for 4 to 5 days, luckily this is an excellent park with a great air conditioned clubhouse !!!
We call ahead to our next stop in Marshfield, Missouri and Ken the mobile RV  man is sounding confident of "fixing us up" !!!

Wednesday 11th July...
With temps at an unusually high of 40C we head to the Eisenhower Museum (with a/c) in his home town of Abilene, Kansas....
This two story wood framed house was home to Ike and his 5 brothers....
Unfortunately the actual museum is closed for refurbishment but many exhibits are being housed in the large library building. Our entrance tickets are good for the reopening of the museum in June 2019 !!! A good excuse to come back...
We watched a very informative film about his life and having visited Blenheim Palace a couple of years ago and the life of Churchill it all dovetailed nicely....

The old railroad depot downtown Abilene...

There wasn't any information that we could see about this building but made for a good photo.....

Thursday 12th July...
We move on east through the Flint Hills to Missouri....a very good two lane highway, mainly pretty rolling hills and flat agricultural plains with the occasional small town, we were rather tickled when in the middle of nowhere we came across a roundabout, not a feature of the US road system....

Goodbye Kansas hello Missouri.....

We arrive in Nevada, Missouri  for our overnight stay and this guy is just around the corner from our RV Park although we are not sure what he had to do with car sales but he's fun...

One of the old buildings in the historic area of Nevada....
We move on tomorrow to Marshfield and have everything crossed for a new a/c unit....
Until the next post...
The Extremely Hot Campers...