Our Inaugural RV Trip

Our inaugural, or shakedown, trip with our new RV was to visit our son, Matthew, and his family in Tennessee. Matt lives in a beautiful neighborhood in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. An Account manager for CISCO, Matt has responsibility for much of the state. He and his wife Tracy have two adorable daughters, Kaylin and Ella, and a big, old Foxhound named Roscoe.

We decided to make the 1400+ mile roundtrip journey with two stopovers in each direction. The most memorable was the second stop on the way up at the Lake Lanier Resort east of Atlanta.

Lake Lanier showed the results of long-term drought in the area. Much of its beautiful original shoreline now lay many yards inland from the lowered water front. The campsites were very nice, with electricity and water at the near-to-the-water sites, which we selected, and a dump site up near the stables. Lanier is a full resort with, in addition to its campsites, a beautiful hotel, condos, golf courses, marina, water park, and other amenities, all making it a great spot to vacation. The landscaped grounds were immaculate, although there is ongoing construction making way for new features. One of these, we were sorry to learn, was the redesign of the existing campground area to become room for more condos. The campground will be relocated elsewhere on the vast property. It's too bad; the campsite views of the lake were beautiful.

On the way home we were reminded that RV'ng includes all levels of our society. We stopped overnight in an RV resort in northern Florida. It included "owned" sites as well as rentals. One of the private sites had a 40-foot bus-conversion motorhome on it. The day we arrived, its owner was sitting proudly on his pad, which was surrounded by a dozen or more potted hedge plants and was equipped with outside furniture like you'd find on the deck or poolside of a fine home. The owner sat there with a glass of wine as the commoners (us) drove by with our little trailer in tow. What topped it off for me was the guy's toad (a vehicle that is towed behind the motorhome). It was an Aston-Martin sports car. Some people just have too much money...