Downtown Jeffersonsville (Free!)

We're Now On An Odd Schedule 

The Biker is now working a night shift at Amazon for their holiday season. The dog and the cats are completely confused and we haven't quite synced our sleeping schedules to his new work schedule. Or our blog posts, which are a wee bit behind (again.)

We took advantage of one of his days (nights?) off to amble through downtown Jeffersonville. In the nineteenth century, Jeffersonville had one of the deepest ports on the Ohio river, and also the Howard's Shipyard, the biggest inland shipyard in America. Jeffersonville does have a Steamboat Musuem, but it has an admission fee, so we skip it. There's plenty of free stuff to see and do!

The Big Four Bridge is a historic railroad bridge that now serves as a pedestrian bridge between Louisville and Jeffersonville. It took a few minutes to get this shot, because there is a constant stream of people walking to and from downtown Jeffersonville over the Big Four Bridge.

One thing that really stands out about the green spaces at the Big Four Station is just accessible the space is. We saw several people enjoying barrier-free access  - a young couple enjoying a picnic at one one of the tables, and a family heading up the ramp to the bridge to enjoy the view. 

Parking is currently free at the Big Four Station, but we understand that the city is seriously considering changing that in the future. 

The city began a urban revitalization project in 1987. The first step was to create a historic district, to protect and preserve the many nineteenth century homes and businesses in the downtown area. This is Willey-Allhands House (the yellow building), with the Grisamore House (red brick) next door.

Parlour Pizzeria bought and restored the gray house on the corner. This is the second house the owners of Parlour have bought, renovated, and turned into a restaurant.

Glossbrenner Park is a small pocket garden on Chestnut Street, whimsically decorated with found treasures and folk art.

The city is now working with a local group, City Pride, to create other pocket parks. We certainly hope the city will find a way to plant more of these cute teacup trees!

Each intersection in downtown Jeffersonville has artwork instead of a more traditional crosswalk. This crosswalk was a nod to Escher, with an abstract bird pattern. Across the street, you can see the Red Yeti, a popular brew pub.

The black and gray building in the middle is easily our favorite building.

It used to be the old Elk Lodge! 

Next door is Fern Hill, a florist with beautiful displays of flowers both inside and out.

Can you spot what's wrong with this picture? This is the Preservation Station. The depot was moved to this park many years ago, to save it from demolition. Not only is this depot no where near a train track, the caboose is an NE6 Caboose, so it's been painted the wrong color! Oh well, the red is definitely more eye catching than blue.

Of course, you can't visit Jeffersonville without visiting Schimpff's, which has been in business since 1891. Since it was late in the day, we didn't check out their candy museum, but we did take home some very tasty peanut butter fudge and white chocolate blueberry truffles. 

Oh and one white chocolate rat. Their Halloween treats were already out - how could we posssibly resist?

The building on the right used to be a floating restaurant. Jeffersonville bought the building after it closed, and then repurposed it into the River Stage. You can't see it from here, but the lawn in front has been terraced, so the city can host free concerts in the summer. 

After all that walking, we were ready to eat! We back tracked to a diner we had seen called Ann's.

The Biker choose the fried chicken, and I choose the fried catfish. The servings were large, the prices were reasonable, and the waitress was extremely friendly.  Both the chicken and catfish were nicely breaded and flavorful, but because the food is served cafeteria-style, the entrees could've definitely hotter. The pecan pie was just as good as our favorite diner back in Texas, with a light homemade crust, and we certainly couldn't quibble about the complimentary extra biscuits and rolls we were served! 

Know Before You Go: There is free parking at both the Big Four Station, and at the corner of Chestnut and Market. You can find an entire map of downtown Jeffersonville on the city's Main Street website here.  

During the summer, the county historian offers a couple of walking tours, and the city has  free concerts on Friday evenings. There is also a Farmer Market on Saturdays and Wednesdays. Other events are listed on the sidebar of the city's website.

Safety Note: Yes, you can walk to downtown Jeffersonville from the Louisville North Campground, but the most direct route (about a mile) will take you down Montgomery Street/9th Street, which is a very sketchy warehouse area. If you want to walk instead of drive from the campground, we recommend taking a longer walk (1.5 miles)  through the nearby neighborhood to South Sherwood Street, and then down to Riverside Drive. You can then take Riverside Drive east to downtown Jeffersonville.

Read More

An Update and Visiting Falls of Ohio State Park (Free!)

Clarksville, The Good...

And the not so good. While it's great that Amazon is paying for our lot, it also means we have to stay at one of the three parks that Amazon has picked for its workcampers. One of those 'parks' is actually a mobile home park with a very long commute to Amazon's fulfillment center in Sheperdsville. Another park is White's in Bardsville, which has an unfriendly driveway for motorcycles. 

Which means we are sitting in Louisville North Campground. As you can tell from this photo, the spots are ridiculously close together. There is also a train track along the back of the park and while we generally love the sound of trains, this line is apparently where old trains go to fall apart. Seriously, some of the trains barreling through here sound like they are going to self-destruct at any moment. 

Here's another shot from our window. Yep, we can practically touch both of the neighbors' trailers in front of us. Sigh. Oh well, it's free, right? So let's focus on the positive. The one good thing this park has going for it is location. 

I-65 runs through Indiana, heads south across the Ohio River, and then goes straight through downtown Louisville. Clarksville sits on the east side of I-65 and Jeffersonville sits on the west side of the highway. This means it's only a fifteen minute walk to most everything in Jeffersonville, including the Big Four Bridge.

The Biker spent last week in training, but we did carve out some time to see the Falls of Ohio State Park, which is another easy fifteen minute walk, through a cute and older neighborhood. 

The park is free if you walk in, but parking is $2, and there is also an admission charge for the Interpretive Center.

Click for Map of Park

Click for Indiana's Teacher's Handbook on the Park

Clarksville is one of the oldest towns in this area, and was founded in 1783 whe General George Roberts Clark was awarded a land grant for his service. The General not only single-handly led the Continental Army to winning the Northwest Frontier during the Revolutionary war, but he also took on a ton of debt to keep his soldiers clothed and fed and armed. 

The United States never bothered to help the General with his debts while he was alive, but they did give him a LOT of really cheap land.  As in 8,000 acres. (The United States finally began making payments to his estate after his death-  the last one was made in 1913!)

William Clark was the General's youngest son. In the fall of 1803, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis set out from Clarksville on what would become one of the most famous expeditions ever.

Three years later, the expedition would end at the Falls of Ohio. Since we were just out for a leisurely stroll, we didn't go looking for the Clark homestead site, which is also in the park. 

The Falls were a serious problem for early travelers, and in the 19th century, a series of canals and locks were built to help boats navigate the falls. The first dam was built in the 1880s and the current McAlpine dam was built in 1964.

Click for the Army Corps of Engineers' Fantastic Pamphlet of the History of the Dam

Much of the original falls were flooded by the damming of the river, but there are still 300 million old fossil beds that can be explored. Since this is a wildlife conservation area and a state park, taking fossils home is not permitted!

Click for the University of Kentucky's Booklet on the Fossil Beds

 You can also view the Big Four Bridge from the park. The Big Four Bridge was a railroad bridge, built in 1895 and later closed in the 60s. In 2013 the bridge was re-opened as a pedestrian bridge. We're looking forward to walking across the bridge to downtown Louisville sometime soon. We've heard the view of the river is fantastic and of course, it's free!

Know Before You Go: The park is part of the Falls of Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area, and is sandwiched between the Ohio River and Riverview Drive. The eastern end of the conservation area is Ashland Park, and across from Ashland is a popular ice cream shop, the Widow's Walk. If you want to continue walking, Riverview Drive will take you to Jefferson's riverfront restaurant row (map available here) and Warder Park, where free concerts are held on Fridays in the summer.

Read More

RV Kitchen: New Stuff and Creative Problem Solving!

New Stuff for Our RV Kitchen 

After two months (and some change), we're beginning to whittle down the list of Annoying Things we need to fix. Like the freezer. The Norcold freezer is plenty big enough for two people, but it only has one shelf. 

Our first step to making the space more efficient was placing a 13 x 8 plastic container on the bottom, which is where we pack most of our meat (we repackage bigger containers into smaller baggies, since there is just two of us). We still wound with lots of frozen food bags precariously stacked on the top shelf - an impending avalanche for the poor doomed soul who opened the freezer door next.

We went looking for a solution and found these Sterlite snap top containers. What makes these containers super awesome is you can stack freezer bags in the container until it's overflowing, then use the snap top to press everything down tight. We are able to squeeze in a few more bags of veggies using two of these containers, and the space between is just big enough for a bag of hash browns and an emergency pound of coffee. A couple of tension rods hold everything snug when we are traveling (and are handy storage for rubber bands for baggies).

Oh and if you are trying to figure out how to get an ice tray in an itty bitty freezer? Ikea has the answer and they are super cheap!  We got our ice trays at an Ikea store, but you can also get these through resellers on the internet. The trays are soft rubber, which can be crammed into any sliver of space you have left over.

So yes, Virginia, you can squeeze two boxes of burgers, a ton of veggies, lots of leftovers, AND a few pounds of meat into an RV fridge. Woot!

Our other 'problem' is finding ways to not use our propane. We have a small solar system, and we've also been at several parks where electricity is free, so it seems kind of silly to use propane which we have to pay for.

While walking around Jeffersonville this week, we stopped at a thrift store and found a brand new toaster oven! Yes, it's one of Black Decker's cheaper models, but it's the perfect size and the corn bread we had tonight tasted just as good as if it had been cooked in something fancier. The oven is even rated for only slightly more wattage than the inverter, so we may be able to use it on low settings while on solar. Fortunately, our little RV kitchen has 4 electrical outlets and just enough counter space to make it possible to use multiple appliances.

Well, actually, the butcher block stove cover is an Ikea hack! We bought an Lamplig cuttindg board and added self-adhesive cork shelf liner to one side. (we found that the local hardware store had cork liner cheaper than anybody else, but it was tucked away in their closet area). Not only does this give us more counter space, but it also stops the stove from rattling. We used the rest of the cork liner on our kitchen drawers, which means that stuff doesn't rattle either.

Here's a picture of tonight's dinner; western casserole in the crockpot and cornbread in the toaster oven. You can see a couple of other things that we find super handy for a small RV kitchen. We have a collapsible collander for the sink, and a folding Grilla pan we got during an Ikea sale last year. The pan is fairly light metal, so it doesn't heat up quite as quickly as we would like, but the handle folds over for storage which is absolutely brilliant. 

And yes, a couple of people have suggested we switch to an Insta-pot, but our latest crockpot cost us a $7.50 at a thrift store. Including tax. Considering we love a crockpot to death every ten years or so, we may be better off sticking to an appliance that costs less than $10!

Read More

Staying at Kentucky Artisan Center (Free!)

Our First Boondock!

The Kentucky Artisan Center is both a state visitor center and a market for local artisans and crafts, and is open from 9am to 6pm. There is also a small cafe.

 Price: Free! There are thirteen spots for RVs to park. Overnight parking is allowed, but we needed to register at the front counter.

Dog Friendly: This is an  area marked off for dogs, but it does not have a fence and it is the middle of the parking lot. There is also a lot of green space, including several large mowed areas, as well as a small walking trail, laid out in a loop.

The loop is maintained by volunteers and the path is well kept, but it does pass over several dry creeks, so may not be accessible when it's wet.

 Cell Service/Wifi: Cell Service was poor, with two bars, but this might have been weather related. The center does not have wifi.

Amenities: The center has a cafe, which is laid out cafeteria-style, and bathrooms. The center is open from 9am to 6pm, but the cafe closes at 4pm.

  The cafe's prices were very reasonable . We had heard the catfish and the derby pie was very good, and we can confirm both are excellent. As you can see, we never got a picture of the derby pie - we were too busy demolishing it!

 Getting There: The center is just off northbound I-75 and just south of Lexington. It is not only easy to get to, but it's well laid out so that buses and RVs can maneuver, park, and leave with ease.

Local Stuff: Berea is known for its college, which focuses on artisans and local crafts. There is even a hike and bike trail that can be taken into Berea from the visitor center.

Safety: There was a surprising amount of activity at this center after hours. People parking but leaving the motor running, people just cruising through the parking lot, and several people who seemed to have selected the parking lot to meet other people. While we didn't see anything nefarious, we found the constant flow of traffic through the parking lot at all hours more than a little bit odd. When we registered our vehicle, we had  also been told that the police did drive through patrols at night, but we never saw any marked or unmarked police cars.

Read More

The Good News Is We Got Safely Through Kentucky

The bad news is we have no idea what the state looks like, thanks to torrential rains 

We begin packing  for the trip on Wednesday. We check and double-check that we have everything stowed, and then check one more time, making sure we haven't left anything this time (like um, the dog leash we left back in Texas). 

We also buy some screw-type quick links for the trailer.  During our last road trip, one of the hooks for the motorcycle tie down straps came loose. Instead of relying on hooks again, we connect everything with these links, which screw shut.

For this trip, we decide to tie the front end down as low as we can, which should keep the front wheel straight and cut down on the amount of bouncing.

 We then make sure the back end is also connected by quick links, and just as secure.

Take a good look, cuz tying the motorcycle down securely? Is about the only thing that goes as intended on this trip! 

We wake up Thursday morning to scattered showers. We were hoping for an early start, but find ourselves watching the radar instead. Finally, there is a break in the rain and we hit the road. The Otterbee zips north on I-75, heading to the Kentucky border.

The rain may have stopped for the moment, but we are now driving through strong winds, the remnants of Hurricane Harvey. As we cross the state border,  the skies turn ominously dark. The highway is now weaving through low mountains, and the wind keeps getting stronger.

Just past Williamsburg, the heavens open up and the deluge begins. I-75 turns westward, across the Daniel Boone National Park and yes, more mountains. We creep along in the rain, smack in the middle of a long line of semis going barely 40 miles an hour.

We Are Heading to Our First Boondock!

Fortunately, we are only driving 120 miles the first day. We reach the Kentucky Artisan Center in Berea at noon, just as the rain lets up. While the Biker walks our husky, I try to force blood back into knuckles that are still white from fighting the wind.  (We'll post a review of the Artisan Center in the next day or two)

Of course, this means we're also hitting the cafe in the middle of the lunch rush, so it takes forever to get food and something to drink. We finally sit down - and start laughing. The sound system has been playing local artists and the current selection is a band doing a cover of "Rain, Rain, Rain". 

Rain, Rain, Rain

We get a few hours break from the rain, but Harvey blows back in with a vengeance as the sun sets.  This is our first time staying anywhere without hook ups and we spend the night listening to a tropical depression beating on our 18 year old roof.  We do find one tiny leak, but there isn't much we can do to recaulk the seam until we get to Louisville. 

 And More Rain!

Fortified with a hot breakfast and lots of coffee, we leave Berea at 10am. Our faithful Otterbee takes us north past Lexington, where we pick up I-64 west. The wind has settled down some, but the rain continues to get worse. We finally give up and pull into a rest area just before Frankfort.

 It's 11:00am on a Friday, but the rest stop is packed. We nab one of the last open spots, while our Husky begins yipping for a walk, which he only does when Things Are Urgent. Our rain ponchos are nearly useless against the monsoon outside, so now we have sodden, wet clothes hanging everywhere. 

We Decide to Push Through

One of the best things about having an RV is we always have a fridge and a bed. We take a short nap, eat lunch, and watch the radar.  Eventually, we decided to take a chance and try to push through. We point the Otterbee west and take off down I-64 towards Louisville.  Since the park is on the other side of the Ohio river, we can only get there by going through a mix master - which seems like a Very Bad Idea right about now. 

Instead of taking I-64 all the way through, we grab the 285 loop, then cut over to 841 to cross the bridge. Louisville has turned all its bridges, except one, into tolls. Since we don't have a tag, we will get mailed a bill for $7. We would have still had to paid $7 if we had taken the mixmaster to the other bridge, so we  figure we're actually came out ahead.

 We Make It Safely To Indiana!

The rain lets up just enough for us to see the sign at the state border. We take the right exit through a clover leaf (definitely proof that highway engineers hate motorhomes), then immediately take the wrong exit. We slowly and carefully thread our way back to Stansifer Avenue.  With a great sigh of relief, we pull into North Louisville Campground - only to be told that the motorcycle trailer has to be parked in the grassy field on other side of the road.

There is absolutely no way we can unload a motorcycle in that field, so we grimly unload the motorcycle as the rain continues to beat down. We've just unloaded the bike when another lady comes out and tells us that no, our site is long enough, and we don't need to unhook the trailer.  

With a great deal of self control, we pay for the first two days (Amazon is picking up the rest of the month) without saying anything. Not one of the three staff working apologizes for the mistake, or for making us unload a motorcycle when it's 55 degrees and pouring rain. We'll review this park later, but you can already guess the level of customer service provided here :(

On a happier note, the dryers at this park are only 75 cents and between the dryers and our handy boot dryer, we finally get everything dry and packed back away. We also check the leak and its also dry, which tells us that we just need a little more caulking on the seam - or maybe we just need to avoid tropical storms!

Click for next post

Read More

Staying at Raccoon Valley RV

Staying at Raccoon Valley RV

We stayed for two months at Raccoon Valley RV Park, an Escapees park just 15 minutes from Knoxville in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. We understand this park used to be an old KOA, but Escapees filled in the pool and expanded the club house. Like many older parks, the sites are tight, especially since there are many permanent residents with extra cars and trucks.

 Price: We paid for two months, which with the Escapees discount, was $325 a month. There is a hotel tax, so the final cost was about $12/day. Our site was a pull through; with sewer, water, and 30/50 amp service.  During the hottest days in July, the park's electrical system was clearly struggling to keep up with summer loads.

Dog Friendly: This is a great park for dogs. There is a large dog yard, as well as 3 short walking trails behind the park. 

Caution! This park is in East Tennessee, which does have a very serious tick problem in the summer.

Motorcycle Friendly: The RV park is hard-packed gravel, so the surface is adequate but bikers need to be careful. There are often pockets of loose gravel, since park staff regularly fill ruts and pot holes. When we stayed, there were often kids with bicycles riding through the park at all hours.

Cell Service/Wifi: Verizon was 2-3 bars, without a booster. The park does not have free wifi, but there is internet available at the clubhouse.

Amenities: Each campsite has a picnic table. There are two bathhouses, with bathrooms and showers, and a small laundry room. There is also a club house; with a social hour at 4pm each day, an awesome old-fashion band jam on Thursday, and ice cream on Sunday ($1 a scoop). While we were there, several musicians also got together on Monday night to practice and teach guitar. The facilities are very clean and the staff often organizes other events, like potlucks. Of course, the best thing about this park is getting to hang out with other Escapees!

Getting There: This park is easy access from I-75, on Raccoon Valley Road. Make sure to  approach this park from the I- 75 exit, because there is an RV-unfriendly bridge on the other side of Raccoon Valley Road!

Local Stuff: There are tons of things to do in the area. The park is only 10 minutes from Clinton and 15 minutes from Knoxville and Oakridge. The park is also only about an hour from Pigeon Forge and Gaitlinburg. If you love nature, don't forget to check out the local parks, too!

Click for a list of free stuff we found in the area

Read More