Friday, October 4, 2002
My Hometown
Category:Findlay Illinois. I grew up on the NW corner of the intersection in the middle of the picture.
Thursday, October 3, 2002
First Campsite: Shawnee National Forest
Category:- Oak Point campground, from space.
- Sample photo of an Oak Point campsite.
- Showers are available.
- Camping info and rules.
- Detailed information.
Wednesday, October 2, 2002
Appalachian Trail
Category:We hope to camp near the AT and walk a bit of it while we're camping in Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.
From a Co-Worker Who Drove US 45
Category:Do stop at all the historical markers along the way - you'll be left with the impression that the Confederate Army never lost an engagement. Makes you wonder why they lost the war.
In Mobile, there's Battleship Park, http://www.ussalabama.com/, which is full of interesting military machineries. Nearby is Fort Morgan, at the mouth of Mobile Bay.
About an hour west of Mobile on I10 is the Stennis Space Center, http://www.ssc.nasa.gov/, where NASA tests space shuttle engines.
P.S. Nine years ago, US 45 was a two-lane highway for most of its length, but I think that's changed. It may be a less entertaining drive now.
Old US 45
Category:Another thing - 45 connects with 51 in Fulton, TN, and splits at that point into 45E and 45W. 45W follows the 51 alighnment to Union City, then south to rejoin 45E in Fairview (45E runs south from Fulton thru Nartin, Greenfield and Milan.
2 miles south of Fairview it again splits into old 45 thru Jackson or 45 bypass around Jackson. This 45E/45W split goes back to at least 1941 according to the 1941 AAA tour guide book I have (Western Edition).
45E appears to be the main alighnment, according to a 1946 Rand McNally road atlas(determined by looking at the U S map.)
Tuesday, October 1, 2002
Sylva and Cherokee are in Jackson County
Category:Sylva and Cherokee are in Jackson County, North Carolina
Local Sources for Camping Supplies
Category:From various emails:
I'd try Farm and Fleet for this -- I believe it's in Urbana, but they've opened a new location as well. Happy Camping!
Champaign Surplus and Dick's Sporting Goods (I think that's the name, on N. Prospect) would be the main places I'd try.
We shopped at Champaign Surplus over the weekend, and they seem pretty expensive for what we need. They do have a nice selection of books, though, including one on camping with kids and another on national parks.
Email from Thomasanna Hail
Category:If you are going to be in the Robbinsville, NC area, then I would
recommend visiting the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest. It's one of just a
few truly virgin forests in the country (or so my ranger friends told me),
and it is absolutely beautiful. I spent most of a few summers "working"
with the park service there and around Cherokee and Boone, NC several years
ago - someday I hope to go back!
I don't recall that there were campsites in the forest proper (unless you
*really* wanted to rough it and sleep on the ground), but there were some
primitive campsites practically across from the "formal entrance" to the
memorial forest. I'm also relatively certain that there were other
campgrounds in the area that offered more amenities - Joyce Kilmer Forest
is part of the much larger Nantahala National Forest, as I recall, and
I'm sure that there are lots of places to camp in the area.
Here is one of oodles of websites that gives directions (which look more
complicated than it is, but it is kind of in the middle of nowhere, which
is cool), talks about trails, etc.. There are other websites that have
lots of pictures of the huge 400-year-old trees and such - a google or
metacrawler search should keep you busy for a while.
http://www.main.nc.us/graham/hiking/joycekil.html
I just realized that I might have misled you a minute ago. Cherokee and
Robbinville are probably about 35-40 miles away from each other - I might
have made it sound like they were right next door.
I hope you can still visit the forest! It's definitely worth the drive!
National Forest Tour?
Category:Now that we're travelling clockwise through the southeast, we might do a tour of the southeastern National Forests: Hoosier NF in Indiana, Daniel Boone NF in Kentucky, Jefferson NF in Virginia, the Smokies, and various NFs in Georgia and Alabama.
New Plan: Clockwise
Category:For our October vacation, yesterday's plan was to head south on US-45 to the gulf coast of Mississippi, east to Pensacola, northeast to Sylva, North Carolina for a wedding on October 19, then back to Illinois.
Today I heard from my uncle, who lives in Pensacola (he's a retired naval officer), that they have friends coming in from Colorado in early October and that they'll be free after the wedding in North Carolina. Now we'll take a week from Saturday October 12 to Friday October 18 to drive to North Carolina for the wedding on the 19th, then head southeast to Pensacola for a short stay there, then back to Illinois along US 45 from Mobile, Alabama, to return to work on Monday October 28.
Along the way we'll camp in as many National Forests as we can.
Monday, September 30, 2002
...but the Naval Air Station Museum is a popular place. ...the Blue Angels have their home base in Pensacola. I'd say go visit their year-end airshow, but it isn't until Nov. 7-8. (http://www.naval-air.org/) They also have an IMAX theater there.
The beaches are beautiful. ... Santa Rosa Island and Ft. Pickens. There is a lot of beach there, and at the end of the stretch is the Fort the area was named for. Here's a site I found with some camping/tourist info: http://www.stepintohistory.com/states/FL/Ft_Pickens.htm.
Downtown, which is close to the waterfront, used to have some quaint, interesting shops along the main streets. I don't know what's there now.
Hope this helps! Enjoy your trip.
