28. Apr, 2016

28. Apr, 2016

THURSDAY 11-09-08 

We were up bright and early this morning, firstly, because I was already awake having set the alarm clock for 05:00 in order that I could get dressed and trudge down to the laundry room in the hope that there was no traffic on the campground Wi-Fi and could ‘get in’ as last night’s attempt was a dismal failure. After several attempts I could only get to my home page, beyond that took so long I just gave up. I suppose either many of those who know the ropes get in and stay logged on, or every wrinkly gets up at this time of day to attempt a connection and overload’s the system. Secondly we had the RV booked in next door for a defect on the slide-out unit. A piece of the upright trim around the interior of the unit was rubbing on the carpet as the unit was moved in and out, and finally we were having lunch with Johnny Cash & his wife June. 

We had the RV prepared for the road by 08:00 including just one third of a tank of fresh water, and then delivered it next door for repair. Whilst we were waiting we wandered two blocks down to the Camping World store to buy another new section of waste water pipe, the replacement pipe we bought at RV Ranch back in Burleston, Texas, on our arrival turned out to be poor quality and came apart at the connection as soon as it was moved, which is quite unsatisfactory considering what it carries. We took a good look around the store to kill some time, made our $8 purchase then looked around the new RV’s in the sales area next door before making our way back to Cullum & Maxey’s.

When we arrived back at our motorhome there were two technicians looking very busy in the area of the problem and rather than hold them up as we were paying the labour charge, we popped inside for a seat in the customer waiting area. 

Eventually the helpful lady receptionist came and found us to tell us the vehicle was ready. It appears the slide-out unit is working just fine, the problem was that the piece of upright wooden trim was too long and so the technicians cut a little of it off at the bottom. Given that these parts will have been mass produced on a jig, it was difficult to believe one could have slipped through the net, and it had never rubbed against the floor until recently. The sum total for the ingenuity of two technicians was $114, and to think I still had my own hacksaw in the cargo locker and could have botched it myself saving a lot of money, and likewise not even consider the possibility that something needed adjusting on the slide-out runner mechanism. 

We hit the road heading for Hendersonville. The Satnav struggled with the location, but after several attempts and having spoken to the locals we arrived at Hendersonville Memory Gardens, 353 Johnny Cash Parkway, Hendersonville (GPS: N36.312842 W86.592147), not far out of Nashville and the final resting place of Johnny Cash & his wife June. The cemetery was very well maintained with most of the graves having lovely floral tributes on them. To get to the cemetery we had passed through the posh part of Hendersonville where no doubt Johnny had his home by the lake, but now he was in ‘downtown’ Hendersonville. Great social levelers are cemeteries. 

After a look around and a few photographs we sat in the RV and had lunch, by now it was really quite hot and I had begun to feel the sun on my neck while walking around. It seemed disrespectful to start up the generator so that we could run the air conditioning unit, and so we just sat and endured the heat. We calculated that after leaving the cemetery we had time to stop off at Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace just outside Elizabethtown on the way to Louisville, Kentucky. 

The Satnav took us for a lovely ride through the back roads of ‘ole Kentucky. If we’d used a road map ourselves we’d have gone in to Elizabethtown first, then come back out southeasterly, never mind, we did get to see how the other half live. Our biggest problem was time, we had passed in to the Eastern Time zone down the road, and we’d lost a whole hour. We would now be lucky to arrive there before it closed at 17:00. As we got closer, the Satnav was saying one thing and the signs something else and in the end we missed the turning for his birthplace but did find his ‘Boyhood Home’ at Knob Creek. 

Everywhere was locked up by the time we arrived, but got busy taking pictures and video of the large house only to then read the small print on the door which said that the house was built in 1932 by the family who bought the site and wanted to preserve it. We then noticed an old wooden shack next door to the house, so click, click, click, we went again, then we read the leaflet we picked up at the information lobby to discover Lincoln didn’t live in the shack either, this shack had belonged to the family of one of Abe’s best friends Austin Gollaher. It had been dismantled, moved and rebuilt on this site. So in fact there was nothing to photograph, except a field where the house would once have stood, the cheekiest thing of all though is the sign outside the site saying ‘Abraham Lincoln’s Boyhood Home’. 

We then retraced many of our steps back to Interstate 65 for the remaining journey to the Wal-Mart at Louisville. We had been wondering why there were so many American flags flying today, most of them at half mast, and then it came to us. Because the Americans reverse the day and month, today was in fact the anniversary of 9/11 which gave us something to think about for the rest of the journey. 

After arriving here we did some shopping including some hot food for our evening meal before a stroll down the road to buy a box of wine and a bottle of Bacardi. We’re now here for the night parked up in the corner of their huge car park with the generator and air-conditioning running in order to get the temperature down to something like comfortable before turning in. Hopefully tomorrow we will visit the Mohammed Ali Center in town, followed by a visit to the race track of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. 

LOCATION TONIGHT: Wal-Mart Super, 11901 Standiford Plaza Rd, Louisville, KY 40229.(GPS: N38.089501 W85.666225)

28. Apr, 2016

28. Apr, 2016

28. Apr, 2016