I had a wonderful plan in place.

First, I would take a lot of pictures along the way.  Then, after the kids were in bed, I would post about each day’s adventure.

It really was a wonderful plan, but I took far fewer photos than I had hoped and none of the campgrounds had great Wi-Fi.

For now, Georgette now sits in the driveway, recovering from her Great Southeast Adventure.  I’ve spent the week getting laundry done and preparing for our weekend away.  This time a closer-to-home adventure, but I wanted to at least share Day 1 of Georgette’s Great Southeast Adventure with you.  After all, I’m sure you’ve all been checking in daily hoping to read the exciting story 🙂

Wait no more . . . . .

We were loading the last of our supplies shortly before 6 a.m. and by 6:15 the kids were buckled in their seats and the dogs were in their travel crates when hubby took his place behind the wheel.  He turned the key and Georgette’s engine began to purr.  She doesn’t have a quiet, gentle purr.  Instead, she purrs loudly letting us know she’s ready to travel.  Hubby raised the levelers while I did a final walk-around to make sure all basement compartments were closed and locked, then made my way to the end of the driveway.  My job was to make sure there were no vehicles coming and then direct hubby out into the street.

With Georgette safely backed out of the driveway, I took my place in the passenger seat and we headed toward the highway.   This is when we discovered a problem.

Georgette’s generator wouldn’t start.

Georgette has air-conditioning in the cab, but it’s not enough to cool the living quarters and that is where the kids and dogs were riding.  If they were going to stay cool on the trip, we needed generator power while on the road and we didn’t have that.  Had Georgette let us down so early in the trip?  Since we would be traveling thru 90+ degree temperature, this truly was a problem that needed to be solved.  We had to make a stop to fill the fridge and that would give hubby a chance to check the fuses.  This would be an easy fix and if it didn’t solve the problem, we weren’t sure what we would do.

While I quickly wheeled the cart thru the grocery store picking up fruits, veggies and lunch food for the road, hubby was checking fuses and trying to get the generator running.

I returned, opened Georgette’s door only to discover her generator still wasn’t working.  What would we do?

Obviously, the next step was pulling out the Owner’s Manual.  Within a few seconds I discovered the problem wasn’t Georgette or her generator.  It was inquisitive FS2 who had turned a switch to the Off position when we weren’t looking.  Once it was turned back on, the generator started right up and we made our way to the Interstate and headed east.

We drove for a few hours looking at field after field of corn and soybeans.  Farms, towns and small cities were scattered about, but overall, it was a view we saw every time we left our small town for any destination within the Central Illinois area.

Finally, we got to Indianapolis and Georgette took us in a southward direction to Kentucky.  Finally, a change of scenery.  The flatlands were replaced with hills, which got bigger and bigger the further south we travelled.  The corn and soybeans fields disappeared and were replaced with rocks and trees.  Suddenly, our trip was much more visually appealing and we enjoyed looking out over the beautiful landscape.

Georgette had been used to driving over the flatlands of Illinois and we didn’t know how she would handle the hills.  She revved her engine and pulled her way up each hill then cruised down the other side.  Any concerns we had disappeared as she tacked each hill beautifully.

By dinnertime, we were pulling into our camp space at the Renfro Valley KOA.  The kids were excited to get out and burn off some energy in the pool.  I also realized just how nice it was to have Georgette.  It took us (primarily hubby) just a few minutes to level her, plug-in the power, get us hooked up to water and put out the slides.  Since our clothes were already in drawers and closets, there was no need to unload suitcases and cart them to a hotel room for the night.  We were soon dressed into our swimsuits and making our way to the pool for a splashing good time.

After the pool, we got something to eat and then took the kids to the playground for a little while before we all settled in for a good’s night sleep.  After all, we had another full day of travel ahead and we needed rest.