Awake: 6:05am Temp 65 sleep 6+04 overcast overnight @ Caryville, TN.
Russ & Mary Ann R. drive up @ 9:00am sharp. We invite them into our coach & gab until around noon time…..trying to catch up on one another’s lifestyle & family activities in retirement. Russ is another retired pilot from FedEx who I casually keep track of.
Russ & Mary Ann live about 20 min from this state park & their youngest boy, Mark, runs a restaurant inside this park a mere (2) city blocks from our campsite. Russ drives us over to meet Mark & have lunch @ his “Ridge BBQ” restaurant.
Mark was busy with some (30 +) TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) customers but gave us 10 min of his valuable time to talk with us. Lunch was very tasty & the busy girls gave us quick service.
From here, Russ drives us thru the small towns of Caryville, Jacksboro & La Follette; all having a lot of business activity along the way. Then we ride 20 min south to the Norris Lake area; climb some curvy & small mountain roads & arrive @ a subdivision near the lake with some very fine looking homes, one of them being Russ & Mary Ann’s. Russ gives us a tour of the subdivision & then a grand tour of their lovely home. Russ mostly designed their house with some very practical ideas of which we took note of. Another large home (5000) square ft & very well built. We hang out @ their place until around 5:45pm gabbing & checking out Russ’s digital photo studio & electronics. After a glass of good wine, we return to the Ridge BBQ restaurant for dinner & some live entertainment from a few of Russ & Mary Ann’s bluegrass friends; playing their music on the stage that Russ & his son Mark built. K & I share our (2) entrees of Alaska Salmon & ½ rack of dry BBQ ribs; a very good meal without a doubt.
Around 8:00pm, we say our goodbyes to Russ & Mary Ann’s bluegrass friends & return to our motorhome for more talk time. I ask Russ how he got started in the Aviation world. Taking advantage of every opportunity, his story was enterprising, ambitious, daring with a lot of determination & more; it would have made a great movie.
We begin to say our goodbyes with R & M around 10:30, but before they leave, we make a deal: if it’s raining tomorrow morning, we’ll stay another day & go places with them; if no rain, we’re on our way. We enjoyed these people a lot.
Lights out: 12:21am
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