Spring Lake RV Resort - Crossville TN

Monday-Wednesday (June 15-17):

On Monday morning we packed everything up, ate breakfast at the Tom Johnson Camping Service Center restaurant and went back to start up the motor home and head on down the road. The motor home would not start. After testing the batteries we suspected they had gone bad. We tried to charge the batteries but they would not hold a charge. We had to purchase two new starter batteries for a total cost of $430 from the parts department at the Service Center. Another item replaced that hopefully will last us a few years. Once I had installed the new batteries and returned the old batteries to the Service Center, we were able to start up the RV, hitch up the Jeep and head towards Tennessee. From Marion we got on I-40 and headed west for 210 miles until we reached Crossville TN. There a couple of steep grades coming from North Carolina into Tennessee where we got in line with the trucks in the right hand lane, We arrived at the campground around 4:00 PM local time after crossing the line between Eastern and Central time zones.

The campground, Spring Lake RV Resort,  is a few miles off of the interstate down TN 101. Once we got the RV set up, we ate dinner at a local B-B-Q restaurant (so-so food) and then did some grocery shopping. Connie was taking her shower after I had finished mine and ran out of hot water. Our Oasis heating system is suppose to supply us with unlimited hot water, so we knew we had a problem. We turned everything off and decided rather than look at things in the dark we would wait for sunlight on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning we found that all of the fluid (it is a special type of anti-freeze) that is heated and then used to heat up the water had all leaked out of the system. So we have a problem. We think that the hose has a hole in it since we found fluid on the chassis underneath one of the lines. We ended up calling a local RV Service Center who have a mobile unit and they will come look at the problem on Thursday morning. Until this is fixed we can only heat a small amount of water at time with an electric pot we brought along (we can use this to wash dishes). The campground has showers, so we are taking our soap, clothes, etc. to the building where they are located in the evening to get clean. So agin, we are dealing with more problems with the Duchess. We are hopeful that sometime in the near future we will reach a point where we can have some time without having to deal with problems (i.e. refrigerator, batteries, awning, Oasis, etal.).

The campground here is small with only 63 sites all with full hook-ups and 50 amp electrical connections. They also provide free wi-fi (which sometimes is good and sometimes is not - this is the usual pattern for most campgrounds) and cable TV which is great since we cannot get over the air TV channels at this location and this gives us local channels. Most of the sites surround a small pond and are back-in sites that are very close to each other. There is a group of Masons from Central Tennessee who are having a Rally here at the campground. We met one of our neighbors who left Wednesday morning, Jimmy & Becky, who are from Arkansas. They are retired and RV for a few weeks at a time before returning back home. Jimmy is one the administrators of the Living the RV Dream Facebook group.

All set up at the Spring Lake RV Resort - Site 45

Small lake that most of the sites back up to.

Crossville bills itself as the Golf Capital of Tennessee. There are a number of golf courses in the area and most years they host several state-wide tournaments at one of the local courses. With work and the problems we are having with the RV, I doubt I will have any time for golf the next few days.

On Wednesday I spent the morning "working" for my former employer before we took a trip in Crossville to do some additional shopping. Since our refrigerator freezer in not making ice, we picked up some cheap ice cube trays to use in the basement freezer to give us some ice. We also visited "The Gardens" which bills itself as America's premier RV home base community. It is a neighborhood of houses built with large garages to house RV's. The houses are nice but very expensive: starting at $225,000 and going up to $600,000. The area was attractive (with this price range there is not any trailer trash) with professional landscaping and a small lake, but too rich for us.

I met a couple last night who are from San Antonio and another lady today whose daughter and son-in-law live in Austin. Her daughter works in marketing for Tito's Vodka and her son-in-law is co-owner of a organic pizza place on east 6th street (after having sold pizza out of a food truck for 3 years).

Hopefully tomorrow we will get our Oasis system fixed and get back to having hot water on board again.