Mark and Patty RV Adventures: Travel to the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally in Marion North Carolina

May 19 – 22, 2015

Truck washed, check, RV windows washed, check, and a 5 mile walk/run, check! Tuesday the 19th was a great day! Now, on to western Tennessee tomorrow morning.

On the 20th, Wednesday we traveled the next 220 miles to Dandridge TN from Georgetown KY. Dandridge is less than 100 miles from the RV-Dreams Reunion Rally site in Marion NC. We arrived at the Sherman Oaks RV Park around 4pm. This is a small but OK place. They have good Wi-Fi and full hook ups for only $18 a night with Passport America. We are going to stay here for our usual 2 nights and then move on.

Our site at Sherman Oaks RV Park in Dandridge TN.

The only thing real negative about this park is that the way out is very tight. It looked to us like I would need to first pull way forward and then jockey around a tree to be able to back-up across the entrance road and then turn back on to it to leave. That didn’t happen because the 2 closest RVs next to us left so I could pull forward and then turn around on to the entrance/exit road. Just some minor stuff for an RVer.

This parked next to us on Thursday. The owner said he was 68 feet long. The 40' MH is pulling a 26 ft toy hauler travel trailer with a VW bug in it. He stays in the TT and his parents are in the MH to sleep. They also have 2 dogs and 2 kids.

Decoration in front of Sherman Oaks RV Park.

The 21st was my son Tony's 38th birthday! I got him a card but just didn't get around to mailing it. I took a picture and put it on facebook so he could see it. I also bought my daughter Jennifer a card and left it at the store so no picture there. Tony is doing good, looking for a house to buy and has 3 girls, one daughter and 2 step daughters. I am very proud of him.

It's the thought that counts. :-)

Friday the 22nd after the big turnaround in the RV Park we were on our way to the rally. We had roughly 100 miles to go with most of the road being in the mountains. We had not driven in mountains for over a year so this was going to be fun.

I was a little worried about the truck as this will be the first real pull since we got it fixed back in Texas. The truck did fine, no problems at all. We had a couple of 3-4% grades up and down with the last uphill pull at 5% for a couple of miles. The assent finally made the loud viscous fan come on to cool the truck engine after the second or third assent. The last descent was a long (6 miles) 6% continuous curvy grade. I just put the cruise on in drive and just let the engine computer brake do its thing. I only had to put the brakes on once to help slow down a bit. I now believe the truck is fixed!

Pictures are on US 40 traveling between TN and NC.

We are 12 foot 10" so we are good to go here!

Howard and Linda Payne (Rally coordinators and owners of RV-Dreams) had previously given all of us the GPS coordinates via e-mail so we could get right to the park gate. Well, as we approached the entrance, which was on our left, we were looking to our right as this is where we saw loads of RVs parked. We didn't see the entrance at all on the left so we went past the rally all together. Now we will need to turn around someplace. Turning around is just not that easy when you are 55 feet long and you don’t know the area. We are also on small country roads that can get even smaller if you don’t know where you are headed.

Very shortly after the RV Park we came to a tee intersection and had to guess the correct way that may offer a place to turn around and wasn't the way to nowhere! I am still not sure we picked the right way, but about a mile up the road it looked like a residential street might be a circle that would allow me to turn around. I turned on to the street and it turned out to be a narrow dead end with a small cul-de-sac at the end. It looked to me like I could make the turn without needing to do any maneuvering. The turn was just too tight though. I had to turn, back-up, turn, back-up, and then we could make the turn. It still amazes me when I make an extremely tight turn like this that our trailer tires are not even rotating; they are sliding sideways as the RV pivots around with the truck on this very sharp angle. We actually pulled up a little of the road with the tires!

When we came back down the road where the entrance to the park was, this time we saw Howard and a few others waving us in. OK, now we are finally here! The rally park holds about 100 rigs and we are taking up 61 spaces. We are one day early so we took a place a little over halfway back in the middle so we could have a space on each side of us, at least for now. We will be here for the next 10 days. Now to set up and see what's going on!