2018 Christmas Journey- Smoky Mountains National Park

Ridge upon ridge of forest straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. World renowned for its diversity of plant and animal life, the beauty of its ancient mountains, and the quality of its remnants of Southern Appalachian mountain culture, this is America's most visited national park.

We were amazed about how busy this areas was on a cold day. We drove through towns I learned about in my history class, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg! 

A few stops and yes we found snow at 5,000 ft elevation. 

2018 Christmas Journey- Nashville

We have always talked about going to Nashville. We love country music and well that is what Nashville is all about. We drive into the downtown area and learned they are not RV parking friendly. We had to park a way out and walk in to the downtown area.

We quickly learned were the museums were and made a plan to visit.

Nashville also has a lot of other areas as well but very busy this time of the year so we decided to move on but I had to check out the CMT building since CMT music was a huge part of my life in my 30's. 

2018 Christmas Journey- Montgomery Bell State Park

Montgomery Bell State Park is located seven miles east of Dickson in Dickson County. The park was once the center of iron industry in Middle Tennessee. The park’s namesake, Montgomery Bell, formed one of the largest iron industries in Tennessee. Iron was once thought to be more valuable than gold and was a very lucrative industry at the time.

The park’s campground can accommodate 60 ft. campers on most electrical sites. The campground has on-site sewer at 40 sites and can accommodate small pop-up campers and large RVs. There are 94 campsites available at the park.

We decided to stay one night since the main lake was drained because they are working on the dam. The tree leaves are all gone so the park looks pretty brown for the winter. 

Our site backed up to the river and we enjoyed the running river sounds which is better the traffic from highways. 

We talked a trail through the hills and found a large area with cabins for large groups overlooking the lake which would be pretty in the summer.  A lot of wildlife and a 11 mile hike for back country hiking. 

Overall a good stop for us! 

2018 Christmas Journey Memphis, TN

Memphis is a city on the Mississippi River in southwest Tennessee, famous for the influential strains of blues, soul and rock 'n' roll that originated there. Elvis Presley, B.B. King and Johnny Cash recorded albums at the legendary Sun Studio, and Presley’s Graceland mansion is a popular attraction. Other music landmarks include the Rock 'n' Soul Museum, Blues Hall of Fame and Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

Today Craig and I started our visit at Graceland. 

Graceland is a mansion on a 13.8-acre (5.6 ha) estate in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, once owned by the singer and actor Elvis Presley. His daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, has been the owner of Graceland since the passing of her father. It is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the vast Whitehaven community, about 9 miles (14.5 km) from Downtown and less than four miles (6 km) north of the Mississippi border.^[5]

It was opened to the public as a museum on June 7, 1982. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on November 7, 1991, and declared a National Historic Landmark on March 27, 2006. Graceland is the second most-visited house in the U.S. after the White House, with over 650,000 visitors a year. (Wikipedia)

We were amazed to meet people from all over the world who were huge Elvis fans and made the visit to Memphis to visit Graceland. 

Next stop famous BBQ from Memphis. #1 is Central BBQ downtown. We loved the food and enjoyed the live music as well. 

Next stop the Civil Rights Museum. We learned a lot about Martin L King. A must for every American who visits Memphis! 

At the end of the day went went to the huge pyramid by the river. The Memphis Pyramid, initially known as the Great American Pyramid, formerly referred to as the Pyramid Arenaand locally referred to as The Pyramid,^[5] was originally built as a 20,142-seat arena located in downtown Memphis, in the U.S. state of Tennessee, at the banks of the Mississippi River. The facility was built in 1991 and was originally owned and operated jointly by the city of Memphis and Shelby County; Shelby County sold its share to Memphis in April 2009.^[6] Its structure plays on the city's namesake in Egypt, known for its ancient pyramids. It is 321 feet (98 m) (about 32 stories) tall and has base sides of 591 feet (180 m); it is by some measures the tenth-tallest pyramid in the world.^[7]

The Memphis Pyramid has not been regularly used as a sports or entertainment venue since 2004. In 2015, the Pyramid re-opened as a Bass Pro Shops "megastore", which includes shopping, a hotel, restaurants, a bowling alley, and an archery range, with an outdoor observation deck adjacent to its apex.

We enjoyed a walk by the river for a perfect sunset! Priceless! 

2018 Christmas Journey - Hot Springs, AR

In our adventure this Christmas Journey we stopped in Hot Springs, AR. 

Hot Springs National Park is an American national park in central Garland County, Arkansas, adjacent to the city of Hot Springs, the county seat. Hot Springs Reservation was initially created by an act of the United States Congress on April 20, 1832 to be preserved for future recreation. Wikipedia

We arrived in town and stopped by the visitor center and gathered information. They had a beautiful Christmas Tree. 

Our first stop was to learning about the Bathhouse. 

 

We loved learning about the bathhouses and decided to enjoy them. We gathered our bathing suits and enjoyed the tubs for the afternoon. 

After an awesome dinner we wanted to enjoy the Christmas lights of the town. We were pleasantly happy when we also found a group of carolers sing Holy Night. Priceless!  

Our Next Stop- Bears Maybe? Sugarite Canyon State Park

As the July closes and August begins Norma’s check list of wildlife still had a bear on the list. We have seen this sign all over the cities we have visited but no bear sightings.

So we decided on a campsite in Raton, New Mexico at Sugarite Canyon State Park. We arrived and decided to go to the Soda Pocket Campground. After a two mile up the midpoint of the Bartlett Mesa we found the top sites on the point were full so settled on site 7. 

In the morning Norma and Mia enjoyed her coffee in the perfect 60 degree temperatures at the picnic table. Suddenly Craig heard Norma say something, is she  saying BEAR. YES, A BLACK BEAR! Norma grabbed Mia and Craig looked aout the window, yes a large black bear. Well no picture but we saw a black bear. We quickly let the camp host know and news quickly spread about the bear.

The other good news was a site opened up on the point (8000 ft elevation) and we quickly moved to site 21. Its views were perfect for us.  On one side the top of Barlett Mesa and if front of us the Little Horse Mesa and Johnson Mesa. In between the Mesa’s the town on Raton. The canyon was destroyed five years ago from a fire but is quickly coming back with a lot of wildlife and new growth but the trees bare and burned were a bit telling of the history. The state has really done a fabulous job restoring the campsite and the park. More details. 

We explored several hikes and the flowers were beautiful.

Also, above the lakes you can get access to Colorado back country!

Oh and the sunsets were awesome.

We also enjoyed visiting with the Rangers of the park. They were full of information and pointed out areas to view wild life through our binoculars. We spotted beautiful Elk with 7 and 8 points on the Mesa as well at wild turkey.  

Finally, every night the Black Bears were busy with the campsite. They explored the bear proof trash cans by toss them around and finally last night at 2:30 am a bear was found in the back of a pickup truck! Oh Boy, what fun! We have been lucky to meet numerous couples on RV adventures and enjoyed sharing stories! 

Trail Gone Bad or Good

We decided today we would find a new trail with wildlife and vista of the mountain we look at from our campsite.

We found a trail with us going through the meadows and then climbing to the top with vista views.

We found a trail marked for jeeps but found out the trail narrowed quickly. 

We noticed the trail was narrowing, the trees that had fallen were cut at a width to allow the jeep to pass. Further down the trail the width narrowed to allow UTV's. 

Craig has left the chainsaw at basecamp to allow Mia to have lots of room. So we ended up having to move the trees out of our way to allow us to pass though.

We found a few Bucks.

 Two bucks with in 50 ft of each other

 Then we saw this moose hiding behind the trees.