Well…figured I should let ya’ll know what’s going on. Saturday morning (May 14) we headed out early on our 575 mile trip down to Chattanooga to attend the New Horizons Owners Group (NHOG) rally. It was Big Red’s maiden voyage pulling the house and after hitching up…which required a few modifications to our previous standard procedure as things are just a tad different now…we hit the road shortly before 0900.

We pulled into Elizabethtown Crossroads RV in Elizabethtown KY about 50 miles south of Louisville 320 miles later. Since we were just staying overnight we put some water in the tank before we left so all the setup we had was power and slides…didn’t even unhitch. We had some leftover stir fry that Neil made Friday night…good thinking there…and went to bed early. We woke up Sunday morning to 40 degree weather but were on the road out of the park by 0800. After a stop at Iron Skillet for some breakfast we hit the road and rolled into the Chattanooga Trav-L Park about 1415. We quickly paid and got setup in site 145. Once we were setup we headed off to Mass about 15 miles away and after Mass we scored 80 gallons of diesel at 1.889 per gallon…haven’t seen prices like that in quite a while.

Dinner was a couple of Burrito Supremes from Taco Bell that we picked up on the way home. Tomorrow we’re (Bill and Neil) doing a couple of projects on our rigs…then we’ll check in for the rally in the afternoon and kick things off with some grilled burgers tomorrow night. I’ll let you know later what else is going on…but wanted to give you a quick report.

We’ll be here until Saturday morning…then a 2 day run back up to Hanna for Connie’s eye follow up visit the following Monday.

I can say that Big Red pulled the house wonderfully…with pretty much no drama. Even on the 5 and 6 percent downgrades we hit in TN today…the exhaust brake kicked in and easily maintained speed with just a couple of touches on the brakes. Uphill we dropped off to about 50 and the turbo boost kicked up to keep our Cummins diesel in the middle of the power curve and just powered up. Quite a nice ride and lots less stress than we had with BAT. Although we never really felt out of control going downhill…we had to use considerable braking to keep things from running away…but with the heavier weight that Big Red has…bigger brakes…and most importantly the engine exhaust brake (like the Jake brake on 18-wheeler trucks) really make driving it a breeze. Neil’s still not quite used to the different road feel…but that will come with time. Turning radius for maneuvering around campgrounds is pretty much the same as we had with BAT so all is good there.

A couple of  quickies for ya in the Interesting Things of the Week category.

Non stick pan…right.

The reason you should always keep chalk in your car.

And one should always practice good hygiene of course.

Cyas.