Wednesday, July 5, 2023 - Today, Lisa and I drove from Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee to the Elkhorn Creek RV Park in Frankfort, Kentucky. The drive took seven hours to including a couple stops for restroom breaks. The weather was good overall, but we did have some rain when passing through Knoxville, Tennessee. We scuffed a stabilizer as we were getting into Highway 91 in Laurel Bloomery. Luckily, not damage was done to the stab. When we pulled into the RV park, a person told us that our rear garage door was open. We went back to the door and it was open. The wind would hold it against the stop on the side of the fifth wheel and the locking stair rail was locked into place. No damage; thankfully. We easily pulled into our parking site and the setup was completed without any problems.

Thursday, July 6, 2023 - Today, we drove for about forty minutes to the Kentucky Horse Park that is essentially a large farm that is a replica of the horse farms that you will find here in this part of Kentucky. Beautiful fields of rolling grass with paddocks everywhere for the horses. I have seen photos of the Kentucky green grass rolling hills, but it is even more amazing when you actually see it. Tucson is dry, desert terrain, Sacramento in the summer is dry as a bone and all the grass is brown, but here, everything is deep green, well manicured/mowed, and looks absolutely gorgeous. I you take a drive into the country in this area, you cannot help but want to buy a home here. On top of that, the local home prices are below the average in the country. It is like a world of its own here. Everything is mowed and looks great. See the photo gallery to get an idea of what I am saying.

After the Kentucky Horse Park, we drove to the Kentucky Horse Park RV Park. There were several sites that we could have camped at without too much difficulty. A very pretty RV park. We then drove to the Windy Corner restaurant to have lunch. The Windy Corner is a pretty famous place to get sandwiches and breakfast foods. I had pulled pork in a bourbon sauce. It was great. Lisa had a breakfast wrap that she liked. After leaving the Windy Corner, we drove to Camping World where we bought a large water filter for the RV and updated our membership with Good Sam which gives us discounts on camping occasionally. We then drove over to Lowe's to buy some water filters for our RV. It turns out that our refrigerator is a commercial unit made by LG, so we just go to Lowe's to get replacement filters. By the way, this refrigerator has an ice maker that works great.

Friday, July 7, 2023 - This was a very productive day for getting chores done. We started the day by taking the truck to Discount Tire to purchase four new Michelin tires. Our spare was brand new and one of the rear tires was nearly new, so we had the spare and four new tires put on the truck along with the one good tire that we already had. We then drove to a Valvoline Oil Change shop where we had the truck oil changed. I always provide the oil and the filter for these changes. They found that the differential was pretty low on oil. We had them fill the differential to the required level. We plan to have the oil in the differential and transfer case changed at the next chance we get.

While we were at the Discount Tire shop, we used their WiFi to further plan our trip to New England and Nova Scotia for this fall with Bob and Charlotte Capp. We had already laid out the route, but now we needed to call RV parks to make reservations for our stay over three weeks in September and October. We selected the RV parks using the RV LIfe software and, much to our amazement, every site that we called had space for us at the times that we wanted. We weren't sure if we would have trouble getting reservations, but it was not a problem at all. We were even able to get a space for eight days just south of Washington, DC at the Fort Bevior military post. We were super happy that we managed to plan our our entire trip to New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine over a two-hour time period. Yea! Now to send the routing to Bob and Charlotte Capp.

After we departed the Discount Tire shop with new tires, we drove about a quarter mile to the Valvoline Oil Change shop. We had them change the oil in the truck. We provided the oil and the filter, so the charge was just $37 plus tax. I asked them to check the fluid levels in the transfer case (four-wheel drive parts) and the rear differential. They found that the differential was very low in oil. They added about two quarts. I made a decision to take the truck to a Ford dealership the next day to make sure that we did not have any real problems.

After the oil change, we went to the Costco that was just up the road a short distance. We did our shopping and then had a "linner," or lunch/dinner at their food court. It was a nice store and was not very crowded at all. After Costco, we drove back to the RV to take a rest and to plan out tomorrow's activities.

Saturday, July 8, 2023 - Today, we drove about 15 miles to the Old Friends at Dream Chase Farm which is a refuge for older horses that are no longer racing or being put out for stud. Sometimes, when these horses have no racing or stud value, they are put down and that is the end of it. This farm takes in those horses and gives then a "paddock" or large fenced area of grass where they can live out their lives in peace. These horses are past winners of all of the top races in the country, including the Kentucky Derby, Belmont, Preakness, and many more. The horses are well cared for and they can live out their lives in a great environment where they get medical care and a safe place to live. After death, the horses are normally cremated and then buried right in the farm cemetery. The people running the farm love the horses and take great care of the animals. It is really fun to be in the presence of such famous animals.

After we left the farm, we drove to a Ford dealership to have our truck's rear-axle differential checked for fluid level. We had an oil change and the people who did the change had added about two quarts of oil to the differential. That is quite a bit, so we wanted to make sure that we did not have any problems with the axle.

We then drove to Subway for lunch before heading back to the RV to work on the blog and to relax a little.