Life's Journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, totally worn out, shouting "Wow...What a Ride!"

Wednesday, April 5, 2023

TN-Finally & Headed to IL

March 10th -April 5, 2023

Up and out of the worst COE park we've ever been in. While dumping the tanks the individual site sewer tank overflowed. We'll never stay in this project again. 

174 miles down the road and we pulled into Paradise Landing in Clifton TN, home of our new property. We headed to our lot but our contractor was still working on it, the electric meter still had not been installed and they could give no date when it would be. Seems the recent storms had hit this area and folks still needed electricity. Our friends Anne and Gary graciously offered their site to us for the next 4-5 nights, we of course took them up on it and settled in under their pole barn for a bit. While there we got a feel for how big it was and what we wanted in ours one day. 



Roads were flooded when we got here


Glad we don't own in this area


Early the following week we moved on down to our site, we did have to use our generator for a few nights but the electricity was turned on just before a cold snap. 





We enjoyed our 3 weeks on our property and look forward to the day we can build the pole barn. Sale calls on our TX property have slowed down, so we've done all the work, besides the rip rap on the shoreline, we're going to do. 

Sunrises and birds, Dave's camera will 
get a workout



Most days were spent walking the roads in our area, we could easily get up to 6-mile walks. We met a few other owners, and we spent a couple of evenings teaching Anne and Gary Dave's game. Lots of barges use our part of the river, fishing boats and a few pleasure craft were always going by. We look forward to many years of enjoying the river life. 


We rode out one tornado warning, one came down in the nearby town of Clifton, and we spent some time in our truck, the safest place around. High winds and quarter-size hail, a late night but finally about 12:30am, I, felt comfortable going back in the RV. 


One riverside fire on a beautiful evening.




Our go-to town is Savannah TN, where we can find almost anything we need. A new laundry mat, a nice Walmart, a small Kroger's, and a Piggly Wiggly. There is even a crawfish truck that comes through Friday-Sunday afternoons, Tri-State Crawfish where Dave enjoyed a few meals of mudbugs. 

One day we visited Pickwick Landing State Park less than an hour away.



Remnants of the old CCC cabins used here
when the dam was built



Many people have asked where the property is, the easiest way to find our place is to do a search on Google Earth, Google Maps has us in the wrong place, if you search for Camp Wandering Camel (soon to be changed to Camels) it will take you to where we are. Of course, the picture is a few years old and shows the area as a farm field. Driving the roads to our place you'd question yourself about where you were going, 

In order to miss driving in rainy weather we left Paradise Landing on 4/2 and headed to Rend Lake COE near Whittington AL, just 116 miles from our summer location. We were last here in early 2015, and we ended up picking the same site. Our site is electric only but we are next to the fill hydrant. 




Tomorrow we head to Forrest W Bo Wood in Sullivan IL where we'll once again spend the summer.

Until next time...