Arizona Snowbirds

October 25th
Finally, we are headed for AZ (again). As you can see from picture #1 we have a new way of securing the door when we’re on the road. Not very high tech but it seems to work. We made it to Lebanon, MO where our friends, Kay and Ernie live. Kay was attending a scrapbooking event close to Bennett Springs State Park so we elected to stay there. The park operates a hatchery and releases trout and bass into the stream that flows through the park. We were amazed at the number of fly fishermen. According to Kay and Ernie, when the season starts in the spring the fishermen stand shoulder to shoulder on each side of the stream. We ate at a barbeque place and the food was excellent, but being with Kay and Ernie was the real treat.

Cayo / RV Hall of Fame

Tuesday, October 7, 2008
True to his word, Chuck arrived at the shop around 7 AM and immediately started working on our funny looking door. When I first walked into the shop Chuck and his dad were rolling a door jig from the back storage area. It was THE jig that was used when our trailer was first built! We came to the right place. Chuck said that the repairs would take about 5 hours so we decided to have breakfast in town. From Watervliet we headed to Elkhart and the RV Hall of Fame. What a fantastic place. If you have any interest in campers, trailers, RV’s this is a must see. We also ran into Al H. the museum historian who we had met at the Tin Can Tourist Rally in May at Camp Dearborn, MI.
What a great source of information! Since we had him cornered I took the opportunity to ask several questions about the RV industry that I had always wondered about.
At about noon we headed back to Watervliet to see how Chuck was doing. When we arrived he was just finishing up. The “new” door looks great. He used the old jig to reshape the inner pan and replace the aluminum skin. He even gave us a bungie cord to fasten the door shut while moving, just in case. Since I have another Dr. appointment on Monday we’re headed back to Columbus yet again. Yes, ladies and gentlemen we will attempt to make another trip and see if this time we can reach our destination without incident! Arrived home about 8 PM with no problems.
Top Photo--Chuck Cayo doing his thing.
Second Photo--Ta Da It's Magic!
Third Photo--Betsy's favorite Yellowstone exterior
Bottom Photo--Yellowstone dinette area

Cayo/ Watervliet Here We Come!

Monday--Oct 6, 2008
A lot of Sunday early AM was spent on the internet seeing if we could find a replacement door or finding someone to repair the damaged one. We also drove to Seymour to look at used trailers. We found a 1989 32ft Avion that we might keep in mind if worse comes to worst. The rest of Sunday was spent watching the Colt’s and the race at Talledaga. I did finally pry my butt out of the recliner and went out to the trailer and re-oiled all the woodwork.
Today my first call was to Chuck Cayo in Watervliet, MI. Chucks grandfather started the Avion Co., and Chuck and his dad still have a repair shop that caters to Avion owners. I told him what had happened and he said he wasn’t surprised—apparently the door locks on some of the early models are not that great. Luckily he doesn’t have anything pressing at this time so he has agreed to do the work tomorrow. He’s rebuilt a couple of doors in his lifetime and anticipates that it should take about 5 or 6 hours. So the plan is to head to his shop today, spend the night next to the shop, and then have the work done. Betsy and Tipper are with me since it didn’t make sense to drive all the way back to Columbus. We’ll just head to Tucson by way of Michigan!! Isn’t that the way everyone does it?
“Houston, we have a problem.” Are you kidding me? Enough already!!! We were driving on US 31 around Carmel and I heard a clunk from the passenger front wheel well.
We drove to a gas station and I checked under the hood, in the wheel well, rechecked all the trailer connections but found nothing. So off we go again. We’re tooling along and now we hear a scraping sound as the wheel rotates, but then it quits. The brakes aren’t affected nor the steering. To find out what’s going on we’ve stopped at a Dodge dealer in Kokomo. We’ve detached the trailer and we’re waiting in the trailer in the back lot. Of course we get here just before noon so nothing will happen for the next hour or so.
Does Comfort Inn and Southwest Airlines offer some sort of program where you buy a lifetime deal? Oh, I about forget. We’ve seen a couple old Airstreams going south. One rather large Airstream was being pulled by a 1980’s era Jaguar! I didn’t know that was even possible. Wonder what auto service center he’s in.
According to our new best friend, Mike the service tech, our left side wheel bearing is shot. From prior experience I already knew that you couldn’t just buy a wheel bearing.
It’s now a wheel bearing assembly, as in more dollars. We were just thankful that they had the parts needed. This is the second time we’ve been on the road with the trailer when we’ve had a mechanical issue. It’s really sort of nice to be able to spend the 4 to 7 hours it takes to complete the repair in your trailer instead of the waiting room. We finally arrived at Watervliet at about 7:30 PM.
No pictures today!

Oct 4, 2008 !!!!!!!!OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!

Things were going so well on our first day of travel to Arizona. Everything was packed, double checked, and all arrangements made to be gone a few months. We were just west of Indianapolis when I looked in the right outside mirror. Something didn't look correct. Couldn't quite figure out what wasn't right, but there was something different. I ask Betsy to take a look, and she commented that the door appeared to be open!! I pulled over on the shoulder of I-70 and she jumped out and ran back to shut the door. I saw her lock it, slam it shut, and pull on it to see if it would open. It didn't budge. So off we go again. Not a half mile down the road it blew open again and slammed into the side of the trailer. We stopped at the next exit and figured at the worst we would have to tie the door shut for the rest of our journey. We were totally unprepared for the damage that had been done. The outer skin had a huge dent, the door itself had been bent where the door stop on the side of the trailer had hit it. The upper and lower corners of the door had been forced out when the center of the door was forced in by the door stop. Consequently the door wouldn't shut totally. After a few hammer blows we were finally able to almost shut the door, but the upper and lower corners still protruded and would act as wind catchers. We duct taped the door shut. It wasn't pretty but it worked. Our first call was to Dan who sold us the trailer, but he doesn't stock old parts. He confirmed my feeling that we should get in touch with Chuck C. in Watervaliet, MI. Chuck runs a vintage trailer shop, and his family started the Avion Co. Unfortunately he isn't open on Saturday. We decided that we'd head back to Columbus and figure out what to do from home.
When home I found on the internet a listing of salvage RV shops and called one in Carthage, MO, another in Phoenix, and three or four in northern IN. No luck, but some didn't answer probably because it was Saturday. I guess we'll wait until Monday and then call Chuck to see what advice he has. There is another possibility that our friends Kay and Ernie have a neighbor that might be able to make the repairs. We've e-mailed pictures to let him see the damage. We'll keep you updated. Ah, the joy of vintage trailering. Tippy likes the campground we're in tonight--it looks just like home.

September 13, 2008

Kingston, Tennessee to Home

Our adventure today was to explore the area of Kentucky where Betsy’s Frye family lived. Instead of roaring up I-75 like we normally do we got off at London, went west to Somerset and then north on KY 127 headed to Liberty. Just north of Liberty in a nice little pull off park there is a Kentucky State Historical Society roadside marker dedicated to John Frye, Betsy’s patriot ancestor. John Frye had a short but amazing life. John was born in 1754 in Frederick Co, VA but eventually moved into Kan-tuck. He fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant (Oct 10th, 1774) in what is now West Virginia. Most historians consider the Battle of Point Pleasant to be the opening battle of the American Revolution.

After the battle John returned to his home and in 1780 he petitioned for a land grant on Carpenters Creek in what is now Casey Co, KY. The Indian threat persisted now with the full knowledge and support of the British. Small frontier settlements were being attacked on a regular basis. In one instance Bryant's Station, near Lexington was attacked and the militia was called out to follow and engage the Indians. One hundred and eighty two men responded. Included was John Frye, Daniel Boone, and Daniels son, Israel. When the militiamen caught up with the Indians Daniel Boone saw that the Indian’s were not following their usual methods of concealment or covering their tracks, and he suspected that he and the others were being lead into a trap. Unfortunately he could never convince the leaders of the militia, and as Daniel suspected, the militia walked squarely into an ambush on August 19, 1782. What was unknown to the militiamen was that in addition to the three hundred Indians there were also fifty British Rangers waiting for them. Of the 182 militiamen only a few survived. Among the dead were Israel Boone, and John Frye at age 28.

All of the casualties were buried at the battlefield. Years later a monument was erected listing the names of all who fought and to honor those who died.


The ambush came to be known as The Battle of Blue Licks and it occurred ten months after the British surrender at Yorktown. It is considered to be the last battle of the American Revolution. John Frye may be the only individual that fought in both the first and last battle of the American Revolution.

After taking a few pictures of the historical marker we continued north on 127 in an attempt to find Carpenters Creek. We thought we had found it and took a road west which seemed to follow the creek. After about a mile we ran into a sign saying,
Frey’s Creek Baptist Church. We then saw on some mailboxes that the little road we were on was Frey’s Creek Road. We left the paved road, and went down to the church. At the church there was a small bridge that spanned the creek and beyond the road turned into gravel single lane. We continued to follow it, with Frey’s Creek right next to us. We rounded a curve, and low and behold the creek bed and the road became one in the same for about 200 feet. Even though we were in the Nissan
we elected to go forward and we made it. About a quarter of a mile further the road ended at a couple of houses. We retraced our steps back to the main highway and headed north again, looking for Carpenters Creek. Just before the Lincoln Co line Betsy saw a road sign for Carpenters Creek Road. It was basically a grass path.
We drove down to the creek and maybe 100 yards further. I figured we had done enough off roading for the day, and we backed out. I feel sure that we saw some land that John Frye would have seen in his short life.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Sept 12—Kingston to Kingston

Sandy rearranged his Friday schedule (I think he just told his staff to “handle it” for the day) and drove us to the Tennessee side of the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. I can’t tell you what a treat it is for me to have someone else behind the wheel. Heck, I’m happy to go to the dentist if someone else is driving.

Sandy got the day started by mentioning that the Alabama National Guard had been mobilized recently. My first thought was that Hurricane Ike had taken a huge right turn and was threatening the Alabama coast. But no, according to Sandy the Alabamians had heard that the Russians had invaded Georgia, and they were makin’ sure the damn Commie bastards weren’t a gonna come into Alabama.

Sandy took us to the Cades Cove area of the GSMNP. Cades Cove was a community located between mountain ridges and therefore very isolated. At first, when the national park was laid out back in the early 1930’s Cades Cove was not included and that was just fine with the residents. A few years later the government changed its mind (imagine that) and wanted to include the area. They forced many of the people to move, but allowed some of the older residents to live out the remainder of their lives in their cabins. I found out later that Cades Cove is the single most visited section of the park—over 2 million visitors annually. Some of the old cabins and churches are still standing . It was interesting to see the differences between one cabin and the next. I have always thought it would be wonderful to have a little log cabin tucked off somewhere in the woods. Elsewhere in the area there was a later homestead and an operating mill that ground the corn for the cornmeal they sold in the gift shop. What a wonderful, scenic place.

From the idyllic, rural, Cades Cove we next headed to Gatlinburg and Pidgon Forge area. Sandy learned that neither Betsy nor I had ever been and we had to go just to see it. If you like Myrtle Beach, Coney Island, or Nashville (IN) you would love Gatlinburg. Same junk, just another location. But now we can say we’ve been there.

Kingston, Tennessee

Sept 10 & 11—E’town to Kingston, TN
We’ve been on the move again, but this time without Starship Avion. Boy I felt like we were flying without hauling a 25 ft long aluminum tube!
Several months ago Jane, Betsy’s sister had invited me to speak at the September Daughters of the American Revolution meeting. I spoke at ‘em regarding the dress and clothing of the American Rifleman of the Revolutionary War. After the meeting was over, Betsy and I went to Southwest Point where an old fort has been constructed. I was all dressed up, so we may as well take some pictures at the fort.
As with most fort’s , it was always location, location, location. This particular location was chosen for it’s commanding position overlooking the Clinch River.

Speaking of location—Jane and Sandy moved from their beautiful historic home in town to a beautiful home just on the outskirts of town. But look at their view!!
I could sit up here all day and watch the river traffic.

Normally when we travel to Kingston we go through Knoxville, but this time we elected to go the “back way” which was through Oak Ridge, TN. Oak Ridge was where the U.S. government first started working on the Manhatten Project which resulted in the development of the atomic bomb. Oak Ridge was chosen because of it’s isolation and that there were several linear ridges nearby. The planners wanted to keep the lab’s and plants separated so that if one exploded it wouldn’t take out all the others like a string of firecrackers. I think I heard somewhere that Oak Ridge (population 27,000) had more PhD’s per capita that any other city in the U.S.
I have also read that it is sometimes called “The City Behind A Fence” due to the continuing “sensitive” nature of some of the research being conducted there.

And finally, (to emulate “His-self”), Oak Ridge is where The Oak Ridge Boy’s singing group started in the mid 1940’s In their original form they were a gospel group until the late sixties. The Oak Ridge Boys that we remember as the country group are probably the third or fourth generation of the group.