Hansen Road Trips

6/22/2018 I departed the Great Smokey Mountains National Park this morning with the help of my neighbors. With lots of rain, the lack of sunshine and only one solar panel the batteries power was too low to retract the trailer slide out. With the Ford F-150 connected to the trailer and a campsite neighbor accelerating the engine revs, two other campsite neighbors pushing on the slide out and me activating the slide in button we got the slide out to slide in. Once on the way the remainder of the trip was uneventful. I found Sugar Hollow Park a large city owned park in Bristol, Virginia that was near everything but once inside the camping area it seemed to be in a wilderness area. With my head cold still hanging around I went to a pharmacy where I bought a cold remedy then rested the remainder of the day. 6/23/2018 With an intermittent rain and personally feeling under the weather I made it a stupid movie day. You guessed it; all I did was watch stupid movies all day.    6/2

6/17/2018 It was only 26 miles from last night’s stay at Whispering River Resort to the Elkmont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. As I started into the Smokey Mountains the road climbed and the foliage thickened. I rolled the windows down as the narrow road wound before me and the air became cooler and noticeable fragrant from the thick forest in which I entered. The short drive was completed with my registration at the Elkmont Campground US Park Service Ranger Station. My assigned campsite (L15), which I reserved June 6 th , is nearly in the middle of the campground and close enough to the Little River to hear it clearly from my trailer. After setting up, I met, Mike and Betty Copeland, my neighbors across from my site who come annually to the Elkmont Campground. Mike, a retired airline pilot, did Boeing 737 flight training at the now closed Palmdale Regional Airport. Later in the afternoon, a brief heavy thunderstorm soaked the campground and its inhabitants;