Sunday - 27 August, 2017
We traveled to Hohenwald Tennessee on day one without any issues. Arrived at the Fall Hollow campground for a two night stay with the possibility of staying a third night.....if we decided to play golf on Tuesday.
When we arrived at the campground we proceeded to the far corner of the campground next to a heavily wooded area where the campground host would give us our site assignment. As we approached their site we noticed a fawn near their camper that still had spots and upon closer inspection actually had a pink collar on it. The baby deer was not afraid of people and even allowed Kathy to pet it's head like a dog.....wish I'd had the camera ready. Kevin, the campground host, explained that they discovered the fawn in the nearby woods a month ago and watched it for a couple days without approaching it but it seemed to be abandoned. On the third day, they said it was weak to the point that it could barely hold it's head up and no sign of the mother so they brought it to their camper and began bottle feeding it. They say now that the deer goes off into the woods to sleep but returns to their camper periodically for it's bottle. Not sure what the future holds for the animal but hopefully it will have a happy ending.
I decided to walk back down there next morning with camera to see if I could see the fawn and get a photo. It was about 6:30 A.M. and I saw the deer near the edge of the woods and about that time Kevin came out of his camper. I asked if it was okay to approach the deer to take a photo....he said "yeah man....that deer will come up to you.". He was right, it walked right up to me either wanting to be petted or looking for food....it was almost too close to get good photos!
Monday - 28 August, 2017
Spent nearly two thirds of the day today at the Oliver Travel Trailer plant where Phil answered all of our many questions, showed us a completed camper and spent a great deal of time showing us the manufacturing process they have there. We are pretty much convinced that we want to make the transition to an Oliver but it will have to wait until we complete this trip and we can sell our current camper.
The remainder of the daylight hours on Monday were spent enjoying the Natchez Trace Parkway....a scenic drive (450 miles in total) managed by the National Park service that also has hiking, biking and camping opportunities. While it runs from Nashville, Tennessee to Tupelo, Mississippi with our limited time we only saw about 40 miles of it just to the south of Nashville..... but that was enough to pique our interest. Maybe on a future trip we can visit the entire parkway and I'd bet in the fall of the year would be pretty.
We'd considered playing some golf near Nashville tomorrow (Tuesday - 29 August) but looking at the weather (now tropical storm Harvey) and our travel route we've decided that it might be smarter to leave here tomorrow while pretty fair weather is predicted and we can get far enough north to avoid most if not all of the rainfall that Harvey promises to deliver. We should get to St. Louis or beyond tomorrow and traveling farther the next day and we should be clear of the storm then.
