A Stopover to See Family

Cornersville, TN.    High:  70's   Lows: 40's  Stoney Creek Travel RV Park (formerly Texas T)

When you are a full time RVer, and your home is where you park it, you have to REALLY pay attention to the weather a lot more. We use two to three apps to keep track.

We were going to just stay one night at Stoney Creek, but a severe weather system was going to be passing through the area and would follow us all the way to Kentucky if we chose to leave. So, we checked the park, found another night available and stayed to weather through the storm. The weather reports listed possible tornadoes (risk assessment 3), big wind and nasty rain. Yikes! We wanted to stay right in the site we were in, but the park said it was completely booked and we'd have to move out of our 30 amp site and move to another 50 amp site so the smaller rig coming in would have appropriate power. It involved moving just two rows over inside the park. You can't just drive a short distance without a complete pack up, shut down, stow stuff and bring in the slides. It's the full Monty, haha. We waited till the last minute to move, hoping someone would cancel and we could just sit tight but as checkout time approached, we had to hitch up just as a cloudburst occurred. Phooey! Thankfully, it was over quickly. BUT--as we were driving out of our site and over to the next site, our phones rang, and wouldn't you know--someone cancelled and we could have stayed put! Oh, well...... We were now in the backside of the park and right behind us is the Quonset hut where the emergency shelter is if we need it for tonight's storm.

Even though there was a storm coming, we got to see Eldy's daughter, Kristi, who lives in the area. Can't believe we didn't get a photo! We were so busy talking and catching up, we forgot. Here is a photo from a few years ago of the two of them, Eldy, pre-beard. We had a great dinner at Whiskey Creek Grill in Fayetteville. They have good steaks and a great chop salad. It's definitely a Tennessee country bar with live music at times and waitresses wearing tight, ripped jeans. Sparky doesn't get the whole ripped jeans thing, but she's old.

Stoney Creek Travel Park is a great overnight stop and is super popular this time of year as it is right off I-65 at Cornersville, TN so a lot of snowbirds hit it on their way north. It is a park of about 42 sites, gravel and nicely level, all pull throughs, 30-50 amp service. Some of the sites are 30 amp only, it's about half and half, it seems.

They have a really big dog park for the size of the campground! It takes up the entire front yard of the entrance to the park and there's a sweet swing to sit on while your furry friend runs all around.

They have a nice front porch to the office with a couple of rockers where you can sit and watch the traffic go by on I-65 lol, or maybe rock and read a book!

It is very close to the highway, so there is road noise, but that never bothers Sparky, as she sleeps with ear plugs. 

Hey, if you need good sleeping ear plugs, Mack's is the way to go. They are the waxy moldable silicone putty kind and really block noise,  but only up to 22 decibels...Snoring is like 50-60 decibels. (HEY, NOW....cautions Eldo.) If you are a really loud snorer, and Eldo is not, he's softened up these days, these might not work for you because really loud snoring registers at about 80-90 decibels, equal to that of a vacuum cleaner! WHOA!

Back to the threat of severe weather...(Sparky is a little ADHD, you probably know by now, explains Eldo. She's all over the place.) But she can really focus on a craft for HOURS, we will say that! (The WEATHER, Sparky, the WEATHER! FOCUS!) Ahhhhh, yes. What was the storm like?

Extremely heavy rain, and because we were in a low lying area in hilly Tennessee, we did not experience the heavy gusty winds we were expecting. However, there was a tornado touch down in Hazel Green, AL, 47 miles from the RV park, but not far from Eldy's daughter's area. 

We woke up this morning to sunshine and just a little breeze. The weather is expected to be very windy on our way to KY, so we got moving early this morning to head to Cave City, KY. to the Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV and Golf park. It's right outside Mammoth Cave National Park. We've been there several times, it's a park that's FREE with our membership. We can stay for three weeks for free if we wanted to, but we've got to get back to Indiana, as soon as we can to get our rig and truck repaired. At any rate, we are going to SLOW DOWN and take the next three or four days to breathe and relax a little more. I-65 was NUTS today with traffic, snowbirds heading north, Canadians ]returning home and construction slowdowns for many miles.....

Next stop: Park City, KY.  Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns  Site: A-8 

Weather: Highs--59-80.    Lows--36-68

Thousand Trails Diamond Caverns RV and Golf is in the heart of Mammoth Cave country where it's VERY hilly, so the sites are often unlevel but doable. If you review the reviews, people talk about "creative leveling" for this park which means they have to use a variety of leveling blocks under their RV and situating the rig just so. The RV park has about 7 pull through sites, about 15 in the center of the RV park that are buddy sites (narrow and living space facing each other), 11 decent sized back ins and other sized sites spread around at angles. We think the back ins are the nicest and roomiest. Here's site A-8:

another view of our site A-8

There are a total of about 68 sites. They also have tent camping, a small laundry, a nice playground for the kids, a pool, restrooms and showers. It's an older campground, but we really enjoy it. The back in sites are up against a woods and each site is offset from the next one so you aren't looking straight into your neighbor's RV. This is an older park, so it is a little run down. Facilities are very old, but clean. In the center of the park and on the sides, are beautiful green areas with rolling hills. The golf portion of the park is separate and down the road a bit. We did not explore that part of the park at all, but there are nice cabins and motel style or condo rentals there as well. And of course, you are VERY close to Mammoth Cave National Park. It's showing its age as well, but recent upgrades to the visitor's areas like the hotel and restaurant on site, are nice to see. 

There is a hiking/bike trail fittingly called the Hike and Bike Trail. It's very rocky and uneven and a challenge on a regular bike with very chunky rock portions on it, but it takes you right from the campground all the way down to Mammoth Cave National Park, if you're up for the cardio challenge. From the campground to the NP and back, it's 14.5 miles. Of course, an e-bike would be a lot easier...About 50% of the trail is like the photo at left and it's very hilly up and down all the way. Sparky is glad she has puncture resistant, tubeless tires on her Trek Verve 2!  The redbuds are blooming all over the place in KY, so it was nice to see those along the bike ride. There are benches along the trail once in awhile to stop and catch your breath and enjoy the breeze in the trees.

Also, LOTS of butterflies were out and about. Sparky saw a mint and black colored butterfly, but couldn't get a photo of it and couldn't find out what kind it was. It was so pretty! It looked like a Monarch only mint green in its patterning.

We didn't stay long enough to do any cave tours, and since we've done the main Mammoth Cave tour a couple of times, we'll wait till next visit to do some of the caves we haven't seen before. Not only that, but it was spring break in Kentucky, and the park was FULL of visitors. Tomorrow, we head out on our last leg to Indiana. Bad storms are coming in around Wednesday and we didn't want to delay our return to Indiana any further to later in the week, so we will complete our journey to Elkhart, IN on one day tomorrow, hopefully, a distance of about 387 miles, so we can settle in before the storms and wind come once again.

So-o-o-o--o...here we go again. Next time, we will be in Indiana, getting repair estimates and settling in one area for a long, hot Indiana summer. Bye for now.....

Hike and Bike Trail at Mammoth Cave, KY

Mammoth Cave National Park, Park City, KY     High: 81.  Low: 58

We are settled in at Diamond Caverns RV and Golf Resort after pushing hard the first traveling day leaving Spring, TX, and then two shorter journeys on the way thru Louisiana and Tennessee, a hop, skip, and a jump to get here. The golf course is down the street a little ways...Eldo will be checking that out for you later in the week.

This is a nice Thousand Trails park. The driveway into the RV park is within the boundaries of Mammoth Cave National Park,  but the campground itself is on the outskirts of the park boundaries. 

Site A-2

 We have a nice back in site with full hookups   for three weeks, FREE, with our Thousand Trails membership. (We do pay a monthly fee but we have more than recouped that monthly fee with all the TT parks we have stayed in since we left Florida. We sure have gotten good use out of that, we feel!

There is some shade with a big ole tree at the back of the lot. The pool is empty, there are no amenities open here right now because Kentucky is a little more stringent on COVID precautions.  The playground is closed off and kids are not allowed in it yet. They are at 60% occupancy in restaurants as of March 1.

Sites in the "A" section are not too close together, and long enough for our big rig and the truck to fit easily. There is a huge concrete pad behind us--use to be a site, maybe for a park model or seasonal, but now it's just a big slab. We could have a party back here, haha!

The weather is beautiful spring weather....70's to low 80's during the day, 50's to 60's at night. All the spring trees are flowering, especially the redbuds. 

Sparky has ridden the Hike and Bike Trail three times, three days in a row, 8.5 miles one way from the Diamond Caverns Gift shop just across the street from the campground, to the Mammoth Caves National Park Visitor Center and back, 16 miles each day. The trail actually extends a little further down from the campground to Park City, the other direction, about three miles further.

The trail is a railbed trail from the old Mammoth Cave railroad company, but it it NOT a rails to trails. It's a rough gravel trail with embankments on both sides. The gravel pieces are very large in some places, and you really have to watch your speed and the size of the gravel, along with spring rain ruts. 

There are worn smooth places in the trail, but they are few and far between. Sparky rides Eldo's Trek Dual Sport bike for this type of trail because of the puncture resistant Bontrager tires and suspension fork. 

There are a LOT of hilly sections, and places with steep grades where you are supposed to get off and walk your bike or risk losing control of the bike and the brakes not holding your speed back. A lot of RVers are going to electric bikes, but Sparky is holding out. Those kind of bikes are SUPER heavy, and Sparky thinks she's not there yet as far as age and being stubborn. (HAHAHAHAHA.....Eldo is cracking up. And that's all he's going to say, because he's a smart one, that Eldo.)

Great spots for stopping and taking a break on the trail....Signage that explains the history of the area, overlooks...

Pretty little bridges and boardwalks...Sloan Pond is a little walk along the way that has a boardwalk all the way around the pond, about .4 of a mile.

And that's about it for the Hike and Bike Trail. It's a rough trail and not for the faint of heart or someone who's expecting a nice paved trail. Nope. But Sparky likes the challenge and the elevation changes, about 950 ft. elevation change, according to her watch. We hope to do a cave tour next week, and take some short hikes leading into bigger hikes around the Mammoth Cave park area. We'll see you on the trails later! Thanks for stopping by....