Some Odds And Ends – Two Meals And The RV Sold

Bev had picked up a stuffed beef roast on a whim the other day and we decided to have it for our Friday card group. 

I’ve cooked these in the past and the cheese always ran out so I first browned it in a skillet.

Eating Out More, Great Breakfast Leftovers, And RV Cleanout

My desire to cook seems to be waning and both of us have long since pasted the desire to clean up the kitchen so we have decided to eat more meals out and we started with a Sunday visit to the Dockside Grill at Tellico Marina which is less than a 10 minute drive from home.  After a 10am BLT for breakfast, we made it to the restaurant a little before 3pm to find just a small crowd, which was perfect.  This is the view of the main dining area and the harbor from our table with lots of boats going in and out to just look around.  

Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes, RV Update, A Good Laugh

I saw this recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes  on Kevin’s “Closet Cooking” blog and decided it would work well for our Friday get-together.  I especially like that it is a one pan meal and know that I always like Kevin’s recipes.  Since the recipe only made four servings, I tripled it to get the recipe below.

Easy Fish Piccata And Bruschetta, Chicken Parmesan With Italian Corn

Easy Fish Piccata

I had some Pacific Cod filets in the freezer and decided to turn them into a Piccata dish using the recipe for Easy Fish Piccata from “The Mediterranean Dish” as we love lemon, caper sauce.

Delicious Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole For RV Rally Arrival

We recently attended a rally for our RV travel club (even though we stayed in a motel) in Pensacola, FL and a pot luck supper was on tap for the arrival day meal.  Since we would be driving down in the car and arriving shortly before the meal, I planned our contribution to be something I could make at home and heat up after we got to the rally.  The dish I chose was Loaded BBQ Pork Potato Casserole from the “Mom On Time Out” blog and I followed the recipe as shown below.

Our Coach Update And Lunch At Seymour Grille

After waiting all winter (we weren’t going anywhere anyway), the local diesel shop finally repaired the leaking seal on our coach engine and it is now hopefully good to go – the only problem is Bev refuses to go anywhere in it having totally lost confidence in the RV’s ability to reliably get us to our destination.  At this point, we have several repairs to make so we can put it on the market and which point we are likely to get out of RVing.

Our Summertime RVing Saga And The Pups

It has been an unbelievably bad summer for us and RVing.  It all began as we were on our way to a club rally just east of Asheville, NC where I was the rally master.  We were about 60 miles into the trip on I-40 E. when we got a low coolant alarm and fortunately, we were at an exit where we could add coolant.  We got back on the road and went about two miles when the engine began coughing and blowing out white smoke.

First RV Trip of 2023 – Campground Review And Trip Home

Our rally was held at Bluewater RV Resort And Marina which sits on the Richland Creek embayment of Chickamauga Lake and a couple miles east of Dayton, TN.

It bills itself as a resort but I would call it a high end RV Park which is the middle of my three classifications – campground, RV park, RV resort.  This is a resort site in FL.

First RV Trip of 2023 – Day 4 - Bryan College And Screen Door Kitchen

On day four, most of the group went to Huddle House for breakfast then for a tour of Bryan College.  William Jennings Bryan obviously made an impact on Dayton during the Scopes Monkey Trial as they named the college after him and believe it or not, one of our club members went there (even though he lived in Ohio) and he arranged for a tour.  Bryan is a small private Christian college with about 800 students and an academic staff of 200 full and part time.  Their endowment is $6 million vs Harvard’s $51 billion. 

First RV Trip of 2023 – Day 3 - Boating & Jacob Myers

Once again, day 3 began with a breakfast of turkey salad and our morning was devoted to organizing some things in the coach.

Ten members of our group rented a pontoon boat for a tour of the lake while Steve (our neighbor) took folks for rides on our jet ski which he had pulled to the rally.  Since I wanted no part of the sun and I get to ride a pontoon boat whenever I want, Bev and I passed on the boat ride but we went down to see them off.

First RV Trip of 2023 – Day 2 - Scopes Monkey Trial

As you may know, Blogger no longer sends out notices when I post so I am putting together an email list and I'll let you know when I put up a new post.  If you'd like to be on the list, just send me your email address.

Day two of our RV rally began with a breakfast of  turkey salad for me and a trip to a Van Go professional knife sharpener to work on our (including neighbors) 33 knives, 10 scissors, and 5 garden pruners.  He charged $5 for most knives and scissors then one item was $15 - it sure is nice to have them all very sharp again and he told me how to keep them that way - give the knife a couple of licks on a steel every time you pick it up, not just each time you use it.

After a group lunch at the pavilion of leftovers from last nights supper, we headed over to the old courthouse for presentation in the Scopes Monkey Trial Museum then we went upstairs to the very warm courtroom.  This is the old courthouse outside and a statue of William Jennings Bryan.

First RV Trip of 2023 – Day 1 - Mac & Cheese

It never ceases to amaze me how often issues will crop up a day or two before we plan to leave on a vacation trip and it’s been happening for years.  Before Monday’s departure on this trip, the house water heater quit working on Saturday and then when I turned the water on to the dock for the season so Karen could clean it while we were gone, I discovered that the main pipe was broken.

So, Monday morning, the plumber took care of the water heater and I decided not to worry about the water line until we got home on Friday, so we were able to get all packed and hit the road for the hour and a half drive to Blue Water Resort and Marina in Dayton, TN, pulling in about 4pm.

Chinese Meal Ala Ashley, Charcuterie Board, Spam Hash, Our RV

Bev wanted to make pasta with Ashley, one of our surprise Christmas day guests, and Ashley wanted to incorporate it into a Chinese dish to cook for us.  She roasted some of the pasta and boiled some then served the combo under a delicious stir fry of chicken, beef, broccoli, and typical items for these dishes.

I’d shown Kathy’s charcuterie board previously but for New Year’s Eve, Wende had to use the counter top for hers.

We had some cooked potatoes left from two previous meals and a can of Spam that had been sitting in the pantry for a while so we decided to turn them into hash for breakfast.  I just diced everything, medium, and fried in oil to crisp up, then plated and topped with a couple of sunny side-up eggs for a delicious breakfast.

I would normally have added some peppers and onions to the hash but I wanted to judge the taste with just potatoes and meat.  This was my first ever spam hash but I will make it again.  I had originally bought the Spam (Hormel) to recapture some of my childhood where canned meat sandwiches were often on the lunch menu, except Mom always bought Treet (Armor) which I assume was cheaper. Now, I have Spam on the grocery list to use with our next batch of homemade bread for a fried Spam, cheese, and mayo sandwich, circa 1950’s.

Finally, when our motorhome stranded us along the roadside back in October, Bev said she would not give it another change to strand us and wanted to sell it.  After engine repairs and a full chassis servicing, it has been sitting peacefully in the driveway awaiting it’s fate. 

With the time to begin making reservations at hand, a decision was required and Bev has agreed to give the ole girl one more change since we spent so much on her, so I’ll soon have some trips to report on and hopefully with good outcomes.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/27/22 – 01/06/23 meal dates

A Very Eventful Trip Home From The Rally Plus Delicious Peanuts And a Toe Update

While the rally went very well and we had a good time, the same cannot be said for the trip home which turned out pretty bad.  Since we had no hot water and Teddy was sick, we decided to leave around 2pm on Friday rather than spend another night and leave Saturday morning.  We got 11 miles up the road when the coach geared down and the check engine light came on so I pulled off the interstate at the Ooltewah on-ramp.

Since I knew one of our fellow campers was knowledgeable about diesels, I gave him a call and he and several others came to help.  After a little investigation they found the problem and determined it could not be repaired on site and would require a tow.  After a few phone calls, we decided our best option was to have it towed to the repair shop in Maryville and we hired Doug Yates Towing to do the job.  They showed up with a 50 ton rotator rig that looked like this.

A Tea Room Lunch & Campground Review For Day 3 Of Our Last 2022 RV Club Rally

Friday was a light day with lunch at the Genesis House Of Tea followed by card making for the ladies, and nothing planned for the guys.  Since we were still operating without our Aqua Hot (hot water provider) and Teddy was obviously not feeling well, we decided to just head home on Friday afternoon rather than wait until Saturday morning more on the next post).

The girls headed out to Genesis House Of Tea about 11:30 and according to my girls, it was a nice experience, even though they are not into tea rooms.  Per their site “The Historic Dent House, circa 1854, is the last standing antebellum home in Chattanooga. The 165-year-old grand home is the perfect place to experience a full four-course afternoon tea service for lunch, or relax before a fire enjoying a candle-lit dinner.”

A Patriotic Day For Day 2 Of Our Last 2022 RV Club Rally

After breakfast on our own we headed into downtown Chattanooga for a visit to the Charles H. Coolidge National Medal Of Honor Heritage Center so located as the city where the first medal of honor was awarded during the civil war - pic photo bombed by Louie.

Our Last 2022 RV Club Rally – Day 1½ - Miller industries & Porvino's

With only the Christmas Party remaining, this was the final rally for our Tennessee Travelers RV club and we were looking forward to making the trip to the Chattanooga, TN area to spend time with our friends.  We got the coach all packed and ready and got on the road at 2pm for the under two-hour ride to the Holiday Travel Park ofChattanooga which is actually located in Rossville, GA, about a quarter mile below the TN/GA state line.

Sweetwater RV Rally, Wrap-Up, Campground Review, & Scrapple

Our four-day, five-night rally began on Sunday night and officially ended when people departed on Friday morning and I believe I can say we took in about all of the available sites to see in the Sweetwater area.  Our attendance for this rally varied between 15 and 19 attendees which I thought was good for a rally so close to home.

The Sweetwater KOA was a very pleasant surprise both from a facilities standpoint and how we were treated as the management bent over backwards to make us feel welcome and attend to our needs.  The park has 66 sites with a full range of lengths and several holiday sites – they were well spaced so as not to feel crowded.  They also had seven cabins which one of our couples used and liked.  Our site.

Sweetwater RV Rally, Day Four

Day 4 began with breakfast at the Athens Cracker Barrel before heading to the Mayfield’s Dairy Visitors Center in Athens for a plant tour.  Since they began with Jersey cows, it is the company mascot.

Sweetwater RV Rally, Day Three

After breakfast on our own to begin day three, we made the 15 minute drive to Sweetwater Valley Farm for a tour of their milking operation followed by a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and milkshakes.  A dairy since the early 1900’s, the current owners have been involved since 1987