National Cornbread Festival - South Pittsburg, TN

Today we went to the National Cornbread Festival and enjoyed the day.

First we went on a tour of Historic South Pittsburg.  The tour covered some of the old homes and people of days gone by.  South Pittsburg was founded in 1873 by James Bowron, a representative of the "Old English Company".  He was a noted ironmaster from Stockton on Tees, England and bought 3,000 acres of land rich in coal and iron for the "Old English Company".  The town's original name was Battle Creek and changed to South Pittsburg, a reflection of the belief that the city would become the "Pittsburg of the South". 

The tour ended up at the Lodge Cast Iron Company.  We went on a self guided tour, but there were workers stationed at different locations of the plant to explain what each did in the making of the cast iron ware.
 

The iron is loaded in this bucket and dropped in a firey vat to melt.

The molten mixture is poured into molds. The molds are highly compacked sand.

The product comes out in a rough state.  They are then put in a round cylinder and tumbled to knock off the roughness and made smooth.

Tumbler

The product is sprayed with vegetable oil to season.

This is the packaging area.

 



Glenn has a good bit of Lodge Cast Iron and we cook mostly with cast iron...Food just taste better.

I will have to post pictures of the festival later.  We still do not have electricity and so I cannot use the  computer for very long.  We do not  have internet service and I am having to use my MIFI which takes forever to load pictures. 'Till tomorrow -- good evening from Ramrod's Wagon.

Glenda

Hales Bar Marine and Resort - Nickajack Lake - April 27, 2011

Our first night out on our journey ended up being quite an adventure! 

We were pulling into our camping spot when a neighbor told us that there is a tornado watch and we could take shelter at the front parking lot.  As soon as we dropped the camper, we followed them to where the shelter was.  This is where we spent a few hours.

Through the door in the little building are tunnels that  connects to the hydroelectric power dam. We sat in the tunnel as three the storm cells went through. We actually went to the shelter three different times. Just a side note, the talk was that the tunnels are haunted and the Travel Channel Ghost stories filmed not to long ago and to be aired this Friday. 

This road is a service road that is on top of the tunnel.


The hydroelectric plant. No longer in use.

This is the scene all along a road near us.  The reason we have no power.  We are so thankful for a generator.

We are camped on Nickajack Lake.  A tornado touched the lake and bounced up the mountain, snapping trees and power lines.  We are so thankful we were spared from much damage.  While underground, one man said that we might all be shopping for a camper.  But, thank God we all were fine and so were our "homes".

We are so sad for the loss of life in GA, AL and here in TN.  Praying for those who were not as fortunate as we. 

We plan to be here until Wednesday.  They are expecting more storms on Monday.

Tomorrow Morning

Sometime when you look forward to something, you are afraid that maybe your plans will not be realized or you are apprehensive and you feel like you are "waiting for the next shoe to drop". Well a shop dropped but not the one that I thought might.  I had a bit of a medical scare. Thanks to my doctors office, I was able to see a specialist the next day and he cleared me to travel...YEA  Thank God for answer to prayer.

Tomorrow morning we leave on our journey. 

We pray for traveling mercy and help dodging the storms.

Andrea Ross - Moon River

I think this is going to be our travels theme song.  Andrea Ross has a beautiful voice. 

Even though it is not fall, these are still beautiful pictures. 

SEVEN DAYS TO UNTIL OUR ADVENTURE BEGINS

Eleven More Days

In eleven days we will start our RVing journey.  We plan to spend one week in the South Pittsburg, TN area near Chattanooga.  I love this area of the country.


We will be camping here --

Ramrod's Wagon

In just a few days we will be leaving on our trip out West (at least we hope to make it that far).

This is our home away from home and as I like to say....America is my yard.

5th Wheel

We finally got our 5th wheel out of the shop yesterday; after about two months.  It was struck by lightning and needed intensive repair.  There were a list of electrical repairs of which we were not aware was damaged.  We knew the microwave, both TVs  were affected but evidently the electrical system had to be replaced/repaired.  Now it should be ready to hit the road by April 27.

We are taking it out this weekend to attend a Royal Ranger Round-up event (camping at the Cherokee Pow Wow at St. George, GA). This will give us a chance to check things out before embarking on our much anticipated trip.

Tomorrow Glenn has to pack it.  Hopefully he won't pack all his dutch ovens...we must keep the weight down.  He only needs to take two...one for dinner......and one for blueberry cobbler.  HA HA

Ok.....I need some suggestions for a catchy name for this blog......Carmen....what was that that Chris came up with?......"Dodging the Pits"...?   "Rolling Over The Pits"...?... something like that....lol