Campground Review---Eby's Pines

While visiting Pat before leaving Ada, we looked up some campground options and found Eby's Pines in Bristol, IN. 

An excellent choice. Thanks, Pat!

It's the off season here (despite 80 degree temps) so the pool isn't open and there aren't many transient campers, but it's a lovely campground.

We have a large pull through site, which is nice while we are moving from place to place because we can pull in without unhooking the car.

No cable TV, but a large number of antenna channels. Is there ever a place where you can't get Andy Griffith?

The wifi is good, but it's a little different here. We paid $5 for 24 hour access to the internet for two devices. We've never stayed somewhere that the wifi was a la cart, but even w/the $5, the price was reasonable. I suppose there are people who don't want the wifi (I suppose they want to spend time outside or with their families...eewww) so they have the option not to pay for it.

Across the street is Eby's Family Fun Center  with roller skating and laser tag. I don't think we'll make it over there, but it looks fun.

The two best things are:

1. The water pressure. It's fantastic. Almost too much. Our shower head has several different settings but usually only one or two of them work very well based on the pressure available. Not here, I used all of them and it was great.

2. The name. Eby's. Years ago when I was a head resident at Mount Holyoke (all hail Mary Lyon) there was another HR named EB. Sadly, EB didn't have much of a sense of humor (seriously, how can you survive as a head resident without a sense of humor?), so one day when I said to her "Hey-bee, EB, how-be are-be you-be?" she just stared at me.

However, it still makes me laugh 25+ years later.

States That Aren't States

Everybody knows how much I like making up words. Apparently, I'm not the only one.

When we were in Pine Mountain, GA we were also very close to Alabama. The local TV stations referred to the area as Ga-Bama (ja-bam-uh).

Tonight we're in northern Indiana, near the Michigan border. Local stations call this Michiana.

Who knows what we'll find as we continue our travels. IliIowa? Minikota?

Visiting With Friends and Family

In the last week we've had a wonderful time catching up with friends and family.

First, we had a wonderful visit with our friends, Tom and Joni, at the Huntington/Fire Fox KOA. We were only able to spend one night, but we caught up over dinner and a short visit the next morning before we headed on our way. It's particularly nice to be able to spend time with other full time RV'ers.

After that we headed to Ohio and spent a week camping at the home of our friends, Kim and Richard. Dooley had a good time pretending he was a farm dog. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were there, sunny and clear skies.

Kim and Richard were kind enough to host us while we took care of some family matters for Chris's mother. We also got to see several members of Chris's family. We particularly enjoyed seeing the progress being made on a restaurant that Chris's brother is working to open. I'll have full details here when the doors are finally open.

I even got to have an Ada Fun Friday with my friends Lynne, Pat and Liz, including a trip to Dietsch's for ice cream. I had Buckeye ice cream with peanut butter sauce. MMmmm.

Dooley got to visit his new vet, Dr. Katie (Kim and Richard's daughter). He's all caught up on his shots, got a pedicure and teeth cleaning. It was like a spa day.

Seems like we did more than that, otherwise, why are we so tired?

New Feature

Thank you to loyal reader, Robin, who suggested listing our current location on the blog. It's not very fancy, but if you look to the right, I've taken out the Balloon Fiesta photo and added a spot for Our Current Location.

Thoughts on Pine Mountain

Despite the frustrations with our job, we enjoyed our time in Pine Mountain, GA. It's a cute town and the campground was especially nice. We also did a few things that were fun.

We visited FDR's Little White House.  Sometimes when I go to a museum, it's overwhelming to try to take in everything. That was not the case at The Little White House, it was just the right amount. There's a museum with a short video and artifacts that are interesting. Then we visited the Little White House itself. It was pretty small, especially by today's standards. We also drove a short distance away and visited the pool (now empty) where the polio patients enjoyed the waters and did therapy.

In Columbus, GA we visited The Infantry Museum at Ft. Benning.  This was one of those museums that was overwhelming with all the information and displays, but it was nicely done and well worth visiting. There's an observation area and if we'd been there on a day when troops were graduating from their training, we would have been able to see that too.

While in Columbus, we also visited the National Civil War Naval Museum. We had a very military day with the two museums, but it was interesting because they were both covering different information.

Also during our stay in Pine Mountain, we made two or three visits to The Whistling Pig for BBQ.

We spent Feb and March in Pine Mountain, usually a couple of the worst weather months of the year, but overall, the weather was quite pleasant with lots of sunshine. If we get the chance, Pine Mountain is definitely a place we'd visit again.

Time Off To Wander

In my last post I mentioned that we don’t need to be in ND until May 2...so what will we do until then?

We are on the road and freelancing. At least that’s what I’m calling it. Our first night we spent at Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, NC. We had a good time.

We parked in the casino parking lot and they even have an area set up for RV’s. No water, electric or sewer hook ups, but some picnic tables and trash cans along a nice stream.

Since we’re self-contained, we don’t always have to stay in a campground and I like that. I particularly like staying at casinos because I like to gamble (we leave all our money in the RV and just take the cash we want to gamble/lose with us, which is a good thing), they have security so I feel safe staying in their parking lots and there’s food and drink available twenty four hours a day.

Cherokee is a very attractive casino with walking paths, a stream running throughout and pretty landscaping and outdoor seating areas. The hotel lobby had several cozy seating areas with nice vies of the mountains, a fireplace, and free wifi.

And it saves us the cost of a campground (about $40/night) so if we lost a bit in the casino, I feel like it’s a fair deal.

We are traveling though the mountains of Western North Carolina. It’s a beautiful drive. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

On The Road

If you could see me now….I’m typing from the passenger seat as we drive away from Cherokee Casino in Cherokee, NC. I’m typing my posts into Google docs to be copied and pasted into the blog once I get connected to the internet.

Beautiful, but cool, spring day here, though we are heading north to the cold and rain.

Much has happened in the two or three weeks since I last posted. For one, we’re no longer in Pine Mountain, Ga.

In a nutshell, we got fed up w/some things about our jobs with Southern Cross and we quit. That was a sort of dicey move (as opposed to everything else we’ve done in the last 2 years), but we got a new job with a company called Southeast Publications. They provide campground guides and maps to campgrounds and our jobs would be to travel from campground to campground selling ads to local businesses. We checked the company out and we knew some people who knew some people who had worked for them, and felt good about it, though the prospect of a 100% commission job was a little nerve-wracking. We did our training and were just about the make arrangements to visit our first campground. In fact, since it was in Auburn, AL, just an hour from Pine Mountain (and home to Auburn University) we drove over and checked things out. A very nice town, by the way and we found yet another great place for BBQ. But I digress.

We made our scouting trip to Auburn on Sunday, April 3. On Monday, April 4 we got a call from a couple of former co-workers asking if we’d be interested in talking to someone else at the company about working on a project for the summer/fall. We figured we might as well hear all the options available, so we gave the guy a call.

He sounded like a good guy (though we’ve been fooled before) and we liked what he had to offer so we said yes.

What does that mean?

For this project, we need to be in Bismark, ND on May 2 for training. We’ll be there about a week, then we’ll travel to Fergus Falls, MN (you can look it up on a map, it’s the county seat of Beaver Tail County or something like that.) where we’ll be working until the project is complete, probably the end of October. We’re still full time employees of Southern Cross w/all our benefits etc, but after this project, we don't have to rush off to something else. If we want to take the winter off and then go back to the same project (maybe in the Dakotas or Wyoming) next summer, we can.

Assuming all goes well and we finish the project in MN, then we think we’ll give the Southeast Publications job a try during the winter, then in the spring decide what we’d like to do for the summer.

I’ve complained about the constant changing of our plans and how that stresses me out, but this time we had a little control over it and we think it’s for the best. Plus, we’re getting a raise.