This was our first visit to Anchor Down RV Resort in Dandridge, TN and hopefully not our last!  We have been admiring other RV'er's posting envious pictures and reviews and now we finally get to experience for ourselves.  From a budget perspective, we blew it for the month with our stay here, but we knew that going in.  This place is not cheap, even with our military discount, but it was a chance to check this off our bucket list.  We only wish the weather would have been better.  I am getting to sound like a broken record!!!  Hopefully that changes with our next stop.

To say this resort is a great place to stay is sort of an understatement.  We timed it right from an occupancy perspective as it was a real quiet week and many of the sites were empty.  However, we were on the cool kids block and had neighbors most of our stay but that really never bothered us.  With these amazing views and amenities and just an overall top notch and well designed park, we were happy to share.  We talked with several of the workampers who enjoy being there and it sounds very tempting, but with a 9 month commitment, that may be a little long in one place for us.

While here, we did get out to see the Great Smoky Mountains as well as some other locations in the area.  We steered clear of the tourist strip from Sevierville to Gatlinburg as much as we could and did not set foot in one t-shirt shop or fudge factory.  Our entertainment and misc budget stayed in tact, however, we did check out several restaurants local to the area.  Delicious food and friendly service.  Folks were genuinely glad to see you.  

Outside of the parks we checked out Bush's Baked Beans Visitor Center and Museum.  This is a free venue and you even get a picture of yourself and Duke taken for free. They had a nice movie of the history of the Bush family, the operations and some of the beautiful bean footage commercials.  They even had a scale that you could get your weight in beans.  That was pretty entertaining and thank goodness there wasn't a conversion chart to pounds!  The museum did a really good job taking you through the years and we learned an interesting fact...Bush's original baked beans were developed at their WI plant!  Well, huh!  The gift shop was really cute and had alot of tempting items, but I refrained.  There is also a cafe with food that folks rave about on Trip Advisor, however, there was quite a wait, so we did not stay for lunch.  

We also went to the Douglas Dam that was created by the TVA (TN Valley Authority) for water management in the area as well as power production during WWII, along with other dams, for the Manhattan Project and other war time efforts.   In driving around the dam property, we also stumbled upon a quaint little campground the TVA has along the picturesque river.  Sites there were electric/water and ran about $25.  

Our time here in the Smokies has come to an end and we are now off to visit with a dear friend from a previous job for the holidays.  Happy Thanksgiving!!!

During our time here in TN, we have been able to gt out to many of the local parks, State Parks and even the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Even though the weather has been colder than usual (around 20 degrees colder!) and really rainy, we were able to get out to explore the areas we were in and can honestly say that TN is a beautiful place.  
While staying in Monterrey at Belle Ridge Retreat, we were able to get out to several parks and explore the beautiful Cumberland Plateau.  We found a wonderful little overlook, Bee Rock Overlook, which was named by the Indians for the bee hives that hung below the overlook.  This place is an untouched beauty...and a bit dangerous.  It is relatively easy to get to but once there it is a bit dangerous, especially for kids.  There are no railings or warnings  as this is not a public area, but there are plenty of signs at the trail head stating the dangers.  You are literally standing out on the rock and could easily go right over the side.  Even though it was a little unnerving to stand out there, it sure was beautiful!

Sergeant Alvin C. York State Park was another gem of a find.  This state park is a bit different than most in that it is the homestead of one of the most decorated soldiers of WWI.  The property included a visitor center that gave tours of the property, a grist mill, his home and outbuildings, hiking trails through the woods and a suspension bridge over the river to see his grave site.  It also includes examples of life for a soldier in WWI, including a realistic replica of the trenches which were very well done with plaques explaining life in the trenches.  Every year they have WWI re-enactments on the property to include ground and air troops.  

Standing Stone State Park, Cummins Falls and Cumberland Mountain State Park reinforced how wonderful the TN state parks are.  Nice roads, well kept trails and overlooks and great campgrounds, not to mentions beautiful views!  

Another park we found was the Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville.  This 315 acre nature center in the middle of the city has a wonderful visitor center and wildlife center, amazing trails for walking or hiking, access to paddling on the Tennessee River or Mead Quarry Lake and a treeline adventure park with zip-lines, tunnels and nets.  We did not go on the zip-lines while were there but we did take a walk on their popular river-walk trail, which was a bit of a hike in areas.  This property was owned by bird expert, Harry Ijams and his wife, Alice, known as the First Lady of  Knoxville Garden Clubs.  The area became a gathering place for bird and nature lovers for more than a century.  In the 60's several Knoxville area clubs came together to turn the Ijams property into a public nature park and education center.  Truly a gem in the middle of Knoxville.

Once we moved over to Anchors Down in Dandridge, north of the Smoky Mountains, we knew we just had to visit the first National Park that Rick and I visited while we honeymooned in Gatlinburg.  The Great Smoky Mountains never get old for us.  The area is just amazing and we wanted to see how the big fire of Nov 2016 affected the area.  Throughout Gatlinburg area and the park itself, you can see remnants of the impact the fire had.  There are some home and business sites that are just foundations still and mountainsides that are burnt.  Even with that being said, the park is still beautiful and left us awestruck on our trip from the Gatlinburg entrance up to Newfound Gap.  

On another rainy day we traveled the new, "Missing Link" of the Foothills Parkway.  This is a picturesque 16 mile drive that runs from Wears Valley to Walland, just east of the Smoky Mtn Ntl Park.  The road is of course new and the detail in the pulloffs stone parking area to the beautiful wooden guardrails is amazing.  This section of the Pkwy was finally completed 52 years after the Pkwy construction was started.  The ride is just beautiful and even though it was rainy and foggy, AGAIN, we really enjoyed what views we could see and the colors.  Again, photo warning...they just don't do it justice.

We finished up our Smoky Mountain Park visit with a drive through Cades Cove.  This area just shows how diverse the Park really is.  With the various homesteads, fields, churches and cemeteries, it is a small glimpse into how people, many years ago, lived in the area.  It's too bad the weather did not cooperate more these last couple weeks, but we still really enjoyed our time exploring these parks.

We are staying at a real gem of a campground located between Nashville and Knoxville, in tiny Monterey, TN.  This campground has just about everything you need.  RV sites are big rig friendly with full hookups and WIFI throughout the campground, even in the tent areas.  The office is located in a old 100 year old cabin and has a nicely stocked store.  The bathhouse is very well done and the swimming pond is man made but looks like it has always been there, carved out of the rock.

One of the cool amenities of Belle Ridge Retreat campground is all of the hiking and UTV trails throughout this gorgeous property on the Cumberland Plateau.  Anyone camping here can bring their own UTV's and they also allow people not camping to come in and use the trails for the day for a charge.  For those that camp without a UTV, they have 2 and 4 person UTV's for rent.

We decided to rent one on a weekday, which was a great decision since we had the trails and sites all to ourselves.  Again the pictures cannot do the trails justice as to just how steep some  were and how rocky and rutted they were.  There was beautiful scenery through the woods and as an added bonus, there are caves and waterfalls.  Enjoy some of the photos and slideshow.

We wrapped up our workamping at Lee Bottom Flying Field on Monday, October 29th.  We can truly say we enjoyed our time there and consider our hosts, Rich and Ginger, new friends.  It is great to see the work we accomplished, with several group projects too.  We look forward to stopping by again, either as workampers or even visitors.​

In preparation for leaving, we were able to do a deep clean and get a few tasks taken care of in the RV.  One was the lovely job of defrosting the freezer.  It has been almost 4 months since we did it last and it really needed it.  We had tried to eat as much food from the freezer as we could over the last couple weeks so that there would not be much to store in the cooler while we defrosted.  Once everything was out, I set hot bowls of water in the bottom and chipped away some of the build up since it was soo thick.  I then used the hair dryer to speed up the last bits.  Once everything was melted, wiped up and dry, I placed cheap, flexible cutting mats on the back wall of the freezer with the shelves holding them in place.  This should allow me to just slide those out next time and rinse off the frost which will take much less time to do this in the future. Fingers crossed it works just as slick as it sounds!

From Hanover, IN we headed south to Nashville.  As Rick was driving, I was scrolling Facebook and saw that a couple we met at the Grand Design Rally in Sept were heading back home to IN on 65N as we were going south on 65. We were able to stop at an exit parking lot and catch up for a bit.  It is true, you really do cross paths again and it is never really good-bye but see you later.​

​We had visited Nashville over 10 years ago for one of Rick's Army Reunions, but only stayed for a quick weekend and did not get around town to see much, so this would be a chance for us to be real tourists.  We stayed at Two Rivers Campground on the north side of Nashville, near Opryland.  This was on the recommendation from RV friends who just stayed there a couple weeks ago.  It is a smaller campground with full hookups, a pool, musical entertainment and a shuttle to downtown, which was very convenient.  As with most RV parks, sites were close together but for a couple nights, and us being gone most of the time, that was fine.  We took advantage of the shuttle to downtown and walked around Lower Broadway and the surrounding streets while marveling at all the honky tonks and stores.  They all had live music and even at 11 am on a weekday.  We stopped and had lunch at Luke Bryan's 32 Bridge.  There were a couple of guys playing in the bar/lounge area who were really good!  We sat and listened to them while we ate.  We then took a double decker bus ride around Nashville and saw the highlights of the city such as the Parthenon, Ryman, Capitol and the first Fort in Nashville.  The tour guide had alot of great information about the towns history as well.  Did you know that Nashville's biggest income stream does not come from country music but from healthcare.  There are more than 30 hospitals in Nashville, including Vanderbilt.  They also have more than 30 higher education institutions.  Who knew??

That night we went to the Grand Ole Opry.  They started the evening with an interesting video montage of the history of the Opry, the move to the current location and the flood of 2010.  We had a great time seeing some current country music acts such as Carly Pierce, Charles Esten (Deacon from Nashville) Lo Cash and Chris Jenson.  There was also some up and coming artists as well as some legends, like Bill Anderson who did a very moving tribute song he wrote about a WWIl veteran, who was actually in the audience.  Henry Cho, a very funny comedian also performed.  It was a really nice evening and even nicer that it was only 5 minutes from the campground!

The next day we took a scenic drive down to Franklin to visit my Aunt & Uncle, who we haven't seen in many years.  It was great to catch up with them and see their beautiful home.  After lunch they took us on a tour of historic  Franklin, which is really an adorable town with a wonderful little downtown area.  There is alot of growth in the area and construction is everywhere.

On the way back we stopped at the Opry Mills Mall near the campground.  I have not been in a mall for awhile, and I can honestly say I do not miss it.  I can do without the pushy salespeople that aggressively try to get you to try their product while you are walking by, even when you say "No Thank You.".  I quickly got my soaps at Bath and Body and we headed over to the Bavarian Bierhaus for a wonderful german dinner.  I may not ever get to the real thing in Germany but this one is a close second!  We even left with some Asbach brandy chocolate covered cherries!  Yumm!

The following day we leisurely packed up for our 1 1/2 hour drive on I-40 E to our next destination.  It was a rainy, crummy day but the drive did not disappoint with spectacular color!  Unfortunately, the pictures just don't do it justice!