My Cougar and Me 2018

The RV dealer was located on a fairly busy stretch of Hwy. 12 into Whitby, Ontario so I was awakened by the big semi's that ply this road. Waking up in a dealer's parking lot was something I'd never done before and it felt weird. Employees were rolling in as I sat and had breakfast while catching up on the latest news on TV. Ryan, their Service Mgr., had asked me to unhitch the trailer so they could move it inside. He didn't think they would take too long to complete the repairs and suggested I go into town and get a coffee and they would call me when it was done. When I returned an hour later they were all done but had to order a new fender trim piece which I could come back for and install myself rather than haul the trailer back down to Whitby. In short order I was back on the road again only this would most likely be the last time I towed this beast until 2019. My spirits were high. The sun was shining. Life was good. I arrived home around noon. Brenda, who ha...

This is the day that I finally cross back into Canada, my home, and I am so close that if I just went for it I’d be in my bed tonight. This is where I have to behave like an adult and do the right thing. I called ahead and spoke with the service manager of my RV dealer. He thinks he may be able to fix all my warranty issues while I wait. That remains to be seen. The weather was much better today. No rain but very windy. As I travel east the gas prices and the camping fees go up. Last night my campground cost me $50 after my KOA discount. This is absurd considering all I got was a place to park with wifi, electricity, water and a sewer. How can one man use enough of any of these benefits to justify the charge? This was just a long day at the wheel. I reached the US/Canada border and naturally picked up a bottle of vodka at the duty-free shop. My Nexus card really helps when crossing the border. They kind of assume that you’re a low-risk citizen since you’ve been vetted by the ...

Another wet day thanks to Hurricane Florence. With only a couple of days left until I roll into Chez Monet I can't focus on anything else. I hope my "fur kids" remember me. Today I was shooting for Pittsburg, Pennsylvania as my destination. That puts me within an easy two-day drive from home. Over the last month and a half and nearly 10,000 miles, the trailer has a few minor warranty issues so I will drop off my trailer at the dealer in Whitby on Wednesday afternoon before going home. The drive today was the most challenging as I was dealing with heavy at times, non-stop rain all day long. It was so bad that cars were pulling off the road and others had their hazard lights flashing because it was difficult to see with all the wheel spray. I shot a short video to show you just how bad it was but the radio was playing so when I tried to upload it to YouTube it was blocked due to copyright protection of the music. I have tried and tried to remove the audio from the vide...

I don't need an alarm clock to wake up because each day I wake to the sound of the earlybirds that must get up at 6:00 am so they can be back on the road by 7:30 or 8:00. Hey, I'm retired. As I enjoyed my breakfast I could hear the rain drops on my roof gradually picking up their pace as the morning slid by. I had decided to go north up toward Lexington, Kentucky and just see what I can come up with along the way for things to do. Because I had disconnected the truck from the trailer to drive up yesterday into the Smokies. I now had to re-hitch it in the rain. It wasn't too bad because I'm getting quite fast at this. Hustling through the hitching process became a wasted effort once I pulled out on the road out of town. The same traffic I had dealt with coming into town was out there all snarled up trying to leave town. The rain didn't help either. It was a kind of warm drizzle of a day. The heavy clouds above hung low on the mountains obscuring their peaks. Bei...

I got in too late yesterday to see any of the local sights so I decided to stay another night. I don't know what this area is like on a "normal" weekend but there's so much traffic that it takes forever just to get anywhere. I experienced it coming into town yesterday and today it's even worse today. One thing I remember about driving through Tennessee back in the early 70's was the "Kudzu" which once established literally takes over an area covering everything in its path with this invasive vine. This is what Wikipedia says about it: Kudzu  is an  invasive plant species  in the  United States .  It has been spreading in the southern U.S. at the rate of 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) annually, "easily outpacing the use of herbicide spraying and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually". [1]  This claim, however, was disputed in 2015 with the  United States Forest Service  estimating an increase of on...

Hurricane Florence has hit the east coast at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina which is causing thousands of people in the affected area to head inland to escape the storms fury. This means that many of the campgrounds are I am are filling up with weather refugees. After a lazy breakfast, I finally decided to take a chance and head east toward the Great Smokey Mountains. Because of the exodus of coastal residents, I figured I had better call ahead and make reservations and found a great little camping spot in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It was a short driving day as it was less than 200 miles east of Lebanon where I'd spent the last couple of days. I arrived in Pigeon Forge around 5:00 pm and found myself stuck in bumper to bumper traffic wondering what was going on in this tiny town. As I rolled down the main drag I noticed a lot of classic cars around me and people were starting to set up folding chairs along the sidewalks. When I checked into my campground at King's Holly Haven ...

This was an interesting morning. My first task was to decide whether to stay another night at this KOA campground. The decision was partly contingent on whether they could get my wifi working so I called the office to see if they could accommodate me for another night and to report endless issues with their wifi. They shuffled some reservations around and said I could stay Thursday night but I would have to move to another site in the park. One of their crew came by to escort me to the new site and help with the wifi. I have had wonderful success using an external antenna and wifi booster but we discovered that if I unplugged my WifiCampPro 2 antenna I could get on their park wifi. He admitted that their wifi was a little slow but if I could be patient it would work just fine. I asked him for recommendations on interesting local attractions and he immediately told me to go to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage. After hearing a bit about it I decided to give it a go. Andrew Jackson was th...

Today would become a wonderful day and a very frustrating day. My whole purpose in positioning myself near the city of Birmingham was so that I could get an early start on the Barber Museum. Although they opened their doors at 10:00, I wanted to be there at 11:00 so they could prepare for my visit. LOL!!! This place is amazing. The grounds are impeccably landscaped and cared for. The building, the race track and the priceless collection of vintage motorcycles and race cars is nothing short of the mecca for devotees of the motorcycle. Out front are some very cool sculptures. I hope you enjoy them. The atrium is the admission booth and is quite grand. It was suggested that I take the elevator to the fifth floor and work my way down through the seemingly endless display of motorbikes. As I floated to the top floor I devised a strategy to be sure I saw everything and had a challenge at the same time. When I turned 16 the only thing I wanted was my d...

It was wonderful at last to wake up in a pine forest next to a small lake, an environment I was well accustomed to. It made me feel a bit homesick thinking about it. It's been forty-one days since I left and I'm starting to miss my two fur kids, my lovely home and all my friends. I rolled out of the state park around 10:00 am, stopped for gas and a cup of coffee and just kept rolling. Destination.........Birmingham, Alabama. It was a very uneventful day. Gas prices are dropping dramatically as I drive further east. Averaging 9 mpg I certainly appreciate lower fuel costs. I've been keeping all my receipts so I can summarize travel expenses when I get home but fuel cost is the largest expense by far. I only drove about 200 miles but wanted to get to the Birmingham, Alabama area because I want to visit the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham tomorrow morning. I googled RV parks in the area and found one in Pelham, AL, the Birmingham South RV Park. It looked...