The Last Frontier

 

And we're off!    We left yesterday morning heading towards Alaska.   The 4 of us were beyond excited.   We played the ABC game, marked off over half of the states in the license plate game, and sang until we were hoarse.   We drove from home, Augusta, GA, and our first stop was to be the "Largest Cedar Bucket" in the world    However, when we arrived the fence was locked at Cannonsburg Village which was established in 1776.   It looked like a really neat place, and we walked around a bit seeing if we could locate it from outside the fence, but it was a bust.   Next stop:   Nashville

Each state I chose some food that the state was known for and then we all decide what we want to try.  Last night's fare:  Prince's Chicken so we could eat Nashville Hot Chicken.   We tried that a few years ago on our "Yellowstone adventure."   Half of us enjoyed the food, and the other half thought even the mild was too spicy.   

Only place left to go was our campsite for the night.  I saved A LOT of money by joining Harvest Hosts.   You pay for a yearly membership, and as long as you can boondock you can stay at thousands of places across the US & Canada for free.  Our first stop: Broken Point Farm.  We arrived in a beautiful area in Clarksville, TN with farm lands and gorgeous homes.   Our directions were to call the owners when we arrived at their driveway which I did.   The owner met us and had us follow him up to a clearing where he allows campers to stay at his farm.   We set up camp, and realize we are going to need the generator to be able t o sleep because it was 88 inside & humid.     Our only dilemma was my generator came with instruction not to get wet because it would run the electronics and there was a 50% chance of rain.   So, I'm up typing this at 5 in the morning because we set an alarm for 3:30 to unhook the generator and another at 430 (rain was to arrive at 5) to load the cooled off generator back into my truck.  And so we did, and the kiddos are back sleeping soundly.  I'll be getting up the sleepers around 7 to get ready to head to our next destination.   We plan to go to church along the way finding a church that's on the route to our next destination.

That's a wrap for day one, except to remind myself I didn't do my self any favors watching "Missing 411", and  hundreds of episodes of mystery & crime shows over the years or horror movies or books as a youth,   As we pulled up to our "camp" next to an old empty barn with no other person in sight, my first thought was "I just followed a stranger down a long dirt road with 3 other people I'm responsible for and set up camp next to a huge old barn in the woods."   I had to remind the kiddos because they were already thinking "what in the world did she sign us up for" that these are safe places checked out by the Harvest Hosts business and secretly preached that to my overactive imagination until I could relax, enjoy the star filled night, and plan the next day.   Besides that, we bought two quarts of the biggest blackberries I've seen in years that are so delicious from the owners.  That was quite the bonus!  So day one at our first Harvest Homes stop was a win.  Until tomorrow, Michelle

P.S.  Check out our vlog here for pics and videos of day 1.   We should have it up by noon.    

A quick, but not the best picture of night one