Thursday, 4/7/11: Sevierville, TN

Another "early" start for us today!  We left Fort Chiswell RV Park at 12:30 PM.  When we checked in yesterday, I asked the guy what time check out was and he told me "noon or whenever you get going, it don't matter."  Works for us!  We got back on I-81 and headed south.  The traffic didn't seem quite so bad today.  We took I-81 to I-40 to TN-66.  We headed south on 66 to the RV park with road construction all the way to Parkway.  I just stayed in the left lane all the way and then made a left into the RV park.  The total trip took about three hours and forty-five minutes, and we went about 178.2 miles with about 8.5 mpg.  We made two stops today, the first at the Tennessee Welcome Center for about 20 minutes and the second at a rest area for about 15 minutes.  So actual drive time was only about three hours and ten minutes. 

The RV park has a really steep decline from Parkway.  Once we got checked in, we made our way to our site, #419.  It's a back-in site on the river.  For the record, this is our first back-in site.  I didn't have any problems getting parked except for some well-meaning "help" from our neighbor.  I checked to make sure we were level and we could access all the utilities.  I hooked up the W/E/S and cable and all are working.  I did unhitch the truck this time since we're going to be here for twelve nights.  I didn't set up the satellite dish yet; I'll do that tomorrow.

We decided to make a Walmart run.  I looked it up on the computer the other night so I knew where it was located.  As we were heading to the car, we met our first rally mate.  Cindy came up and asked if we were here for the rally and introduced herself.  She drove up from Texas by herself in her van, pulling her cute little Casita trailer.  She's going to go to the airport tomorrow to pick up her husband who's flying in from Washington state.  She attended the rally in Kerrville a couple of years ago.  She's so nice, and we enjoyed meeting her.  When we first checked in, I asked the nice girl at the office if there was anybody else here yet for the rally.  She checked and said "no."  We were the first to arrive.  As it turns out, as we were walking back out to the rig, Cindy was just pulling in, so she was the second to arrive.  After talking for a few minutes, Cindy left to find the airport and we headed out to Walmart.  We got our groceries and headed back to the park.  We just spent a nice quiet evening watching TV and dozing off some.

A few more rally'ers should be coming in Friday, including Howard and Linda.  I enjoy watching the different rigs coming into the park.  Should be lots of activity the next few days.