We seen a lot of white-water rafting today, along with the nuts that do it in kayaks, this area was the site of the 1996 Olympics for white water kayaking, the local people won an Olympic medal! Travelled through the Great Smokey Mountains, on our way to the Blue Ridge Parkway, 400 miles of mountains, through North Carolina into Virginia, all of it North East, Nova Scotia is NorthEast of Texas, any highway NE gets us home faster! We are relaxing in Ashville, NC, the temp is 83 degrees
at 6 PM, but we will encounter colder temps on our way NorthEast! 

Next night we stayed in a great campground on the Ten Tom waterway, watched barges chugging up the river all night, ,very relaxing, reminded us of staying in the Huckleberry Finn park one other time, the Mississippi, water transportation is a very important part of the American commerce.  Another Wal-Mart night in Scottsboro, Alabama. Then we did four States in four hours, we left Ala., crossed into Tenn.. then into Georgia, then into North Carolina, we stopped at a visitor center in a place called Andrews, NC, the lady phoned everywhere to find us a campground, we discovered, we are heading North, they don't open until May, she finally called her son who was in the house moving business, he set us up with electricity in a junkyard, this junkyard looked better than the Elvis Presley park,  he did wake us up early moving his bulldozer, but we slept well, we thanked him again and attempted to thank his mother again, but she was off work that day!

Two nights of thunder and lightning, heavy , heavy rain, heading for Tupelo ,Missippippi, up the Natchez Trace, went to see Elvis Presley 's birthplace, a house his father built, very small, then we went to Elvis Presley Lake, a campground run by the Missippippi Wildlife Division, they should get rid of this park, the most disgusting campground we have ever been in, and we have seen some bad ones, Paul is contacting the Missippippi Wildlife Division, the Mayor of Tupelo and Priscilla  Presley to remove his name from the park, it is an insult, it was bad, bad, bad, we did not stay there, a few nights later we ended up staying in a junkyard, we are not kidding, the only thing they had in common was electricity.

After Duck Dynasty we went to a museum that let you get a 5 cent coke from the machine, the man who owned this house, was the first to bottle Coca-Cola back in 1894, we heard the history of coke, and Paul told the lady his favourite Coke Joke, ask him when we  get home, then we drove to Delhi, Louisiana, and had a fountain coke and cheeseburger and chips, probably the only fountain coke drugstore left in North America.  Paul worked at Henderson's  Drug store in 1954, on Barrington street, this soda fountain looked the same. Red  leather stools, red arborite counter and of course red Coca-Cola signs everywhere! We found free camping at Canton, Missippippi county park and watched some guys practice calf roping until dark.

We did the Wal-Mart thing in Ruston, Louisiana, then we did the Duck Dynasty thing in West Munroe, then camped in West Munroe, played pool, reminded us of Black Pearl and Moes in Wester Shore, no 8 ball , white ball with 8 marked on it, two number 2 balls, and the pay table ball return fell out, so all our other games were free, also pool cues had no tips, you chalked the wood!  We played "Rita's Rules".

We drove further today than ever in one day, 250 miles in one day, is it because were headed home , still only our average 30 miles an hour! Made Marquez Texas by 6 PM,  Bubba was there, he came a chatted for a while, we first stayed at Bubba's Country Comfort BBQ and RV Park, back in 2010, his son-in-law was on his way to work in Iraq as a civilian cook.  His second time there!  We gave them a picture of a Nova Scotia Whitetail deer, framed, at the time, it's still hanging there. 

What a relaxing week, look forward to "cocktail hour" each day at four, the gathering happens at Pat and Al's place. It started when we drove in and Al seen  "NAVY" on my t-shirt, he was also navy years ago! Then Pat arranged so that we could stay for a week in the site near them, she has a little influence at the office!
It's a very active RV Park, always something going on at the rec center, pot luck's, cards, horseshoes, then of course we eat, eat, and eat, Al and Pat took us to a buffet about 50 miles from here, all you can eat steak and shrimp for eleven dollars, unbelievable atmosphere, to die for desserts and of course great friends to enjoy the meal.  Then the next night it was a "fish fry" followed by a guitar gathering around a campfire. While waiting for the fish to fry, we were entertained by Al's cousin Mel playing his consatina, he owns more than one, the background music was exquisite!  
     We are writing a pro and con list this trip whether to winter in Florida or Texas, meeting these people puts a big pro beside being a Winter Texan.