News Flash!!!

28 October 2012.

We noticed today in The West headlines that Trevor checks regularly, reference made to approaching US Hurricane Sandy. Now I know that I am still trying to catch 'you all' up on the blog. I think we are some 2 weeks behind. But we thought you might be interested in our current whereabouts in relation to Sandy.

We are in Pigeon Forge, Smoky Mountains, Tennessee.  One guess????? Dolly Parton country!
There is talk of snow here.  It is already snowing in the higher elevations.  It is cold. The maximum temperature today was about 7-8 celsius!  We took a shuttle bus up to Gatlinburg; a pretty mountain town where the autumn colours are still evident on the hill sides. It was freezing!  There was continual light rain. It felt as if it should start snowing any minute. It is predicted to be even cooler in the coming days.Apparently the 'cool' change in weather is unseasonal - more than a month early. There are lots and lots of people here as tourists obviously, like us, following the fall colours and not anticipating winter so soon. But combined with the anticipated hurricane, the cold weather has certainly sent people home as there has been a major exodus from the area.

We are watching the weather channel with great interest. As well as the impending hurricane there is an intense cold front approaching from the northwest. There are major issues predicted when they meet!
They are saying that the combination of such conditions could create the storm of the century - a perfect storm! Thousands of people have been evacuated from coastal areas further north with threats of flooding, extremely high winds, power outages and the cancellation of plane, train and bus services. Even the subways in New York have been closed due to the threat of flooding.

We have had beautifully warm days for the last week. It was in the low 80'sF on Wednesday and Thursday.

We are back in somewhat familiar territory in the Smokies ... in an earlier life we hiked  the Great Smoky Mountains as the Appalachian Trail covers the mountain range as it heads north along the stateline between Tennessee and North Carolina. We have returned to some of the places we previously hiked through. But we are now greatly limited by this weather.
Although it is cold outside we are cosy and warm in our home on wheels. I brought over 2 silk sleeping liners which we used inside our sleeping bags when hiking in the snow all those years ago. It still amazes me how warm we are without electric blankets, fleecy sheets or even bulky doonas.

Where has everyone gone???

Tomorrow we are taking the RV in for its 10,000 mile service; 7400 miles of which we have driven since we bought it. It is booked in for 8am at an RV service centre in Knoxville about 25 miles away. An early start in the dark! Hopefully the roads will be OK to drive on. Then we will head southwest to Nashville and Memphis, again weather permitting.

So - in a nutshell, we are fine.