Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area

Yesterday we explored part of the Land Between the Lakes, or LBL as it is called here.  The area is about 60 miles long and 10 to 12 miles wide and bounded by two lakes.  There are some paved roads, but since we had the Jeep, we explored several of the back roads and fire roads like the pictures below.

We had packed a lunch, so we enjoyed it in a secluded spot on the lake shore.

There were several old cemeteries scattered throughout the area and we stopped at several of them. The old homemade headstones were very interesting, such as this one that says "murdered". Makes you want to know the rest of the story.

We stopped at this little spring for a bit.

All in all we put a lot of offroad miles on the Jeep and it needed a bath.

Today is Mother's Day, so we are resting at the campground. Janice got a flower and a prayer book at Mass this morning and we had lunch at a barbeque place here in town.

They are predicting thunderstorms for tonight and tomorrow, so we have extended our stay here until Tuesday.

Catching Up on Pictures

We arrived in Aurora, KY today. We plan to be here until Monday. We are next to the Land Between the Lakes region where we hope to do a little sight seeing during the next few days. I have a little time this afternoon to catch up on posting some pictures. The first one is a picture of the work truck that I drove most days at Ordway.  It was an old military surplus Dodge 4wd that worked well. Behind it is the new maintenance building that was just being completed when we left.

This is the old maintenance building that we started out at most days.

On the property was a old family cemetary that is being maintained by Ordway.

One of the other volunteers there became a good friend of ours. She was a very interesting lady with a big heart. The first two things that you would find out about her was that she was from Cuba and loved plants. We miss her smile and hope to run into her again.

Her two dogs, Molly and Phoebe would always run to greet us and would come over occasionally and come in for a treat.

The road from Florida to Georgia was surrounded with beautiful yellow and purple flowers for miles.

The campground in Albany, GA had an interesting bush with blooms that looked like a brush.

There were a few feathered friends across the road from our camp site.

As soon as Janice started feeding them, the crowd increased!

This one had quite a fancy top knot!

I can't remember if I have posted a picture of the Jeep after we got the rack mounted on it or not, but here it is.

As usual, when we got to Georgia, Mom's yard was beautiful!

 And the creek was peaceful.

Phil and Tristan found a snake in the back yard.

Rosie was determined to bite Mom's ear!

It was good to visit with all of the family again.

As usual, our time seemed too short there, but it was time to move on. The first night on the road we were in Gadsden, AL at the Noccalula Falls campground.  The falls are still beautiful.

And downstream is peaceful.

We suspected that we had a mouse in the motorhome and so we put down some sticky traps. Someone forgot about them and stepped in one this morning. This of course caused much laughter and almost no sympathy from my bride and she had to take pictures and make sure that it was included in the blog.

Camden, TN

We were tired and ready to stop and no rv parks on this road, so we are spending the night at a Walmart in Camden, TN.  This will leave us with a short distance to travel tomorrow to Aurora, KY where we will be staying until Monday morning.  We are taking a few days there to do some sightseeing in the land between the lakes area.

Gadsden, AL

We left Carrollton, GA yesterday and drove to Gadsden, AL.  Vic, Phil, and Brittney came out to the campground for a visit last night and we enjoyed seeing them again.  Today, we leave our Georgia/Alabama family behind and head north again.  I have a few more pictures to post when I sit down with a little time to do it.

Back in Georgia

Monday morning we left behind a lot of friends at Ordway-Swisher  We hope to return someday. After an overnight stop in Albany, GA we arrived in Carrollton on Tursday. We will be here for two week and then head on north. I am heading off the work at the soup kitchen here this morning, so I will try to post again later.

Killer Log

One of my favorite fallen trees by the road here looks like a shark ready to eat somebody.

It actually has two eyes, which is even scarier

This afternoon, it was time to move a little gravel around with the back hoe. This picture is for Andrea who said "If there is no picture, it didn't happen".

We normally have Saturdays off, but one of the guys here is doing some training in South America this week, so Janice and I will be patrolling the boundary roads tomorrow morning. Too much fun to be considered work. Work is progressing on the Jeep. The winch is installed and working. The offroad lights are installed but need some wiring. The tow brackets are half done. New rack has been shipped. Hope to get some more done on it this weekend.