Lucian’s First Road Trip

So last week hubby and I took our camper to Pigeon Forge, TN for the week.  It’s been a while since we took a vacation and I wanted to go somewhere other than the beach.  So this was going to be a true test of Lucian’s riding abilities.  And he did AWESOME!!  He would curl up between me and hubby and sleep.  Leland was not a good rider…he would want to go but once the vehicle started moving the constant whining began.

So we get down around the Staunton, VA area and the truck threw the fan belt.  So here we are stuck along the road and Lucian is just taking it all in stride.  He just laid down in the grass and sniper crawled through it.  I did have to keep getting cigarette butts out of his mouth (gross) because he kept finding them and chewing on them.  So hubby is able to get the belt back on and get the truck to an auto parts store to get a new belt.  So we’re back on the road till we get to Christiansburg, VA.  ANOTHER belt problem so we find 2 more auto parts stores and buy up all the belts they have.  Get a little further down the road till about 10 miles north of Wytheville, VA where we pull into a Love’s Truck stop to check the belt.  It’s around 8pm and raining.  The belts starting to fray again so we decide to stay at the truck stop till morning to figure out what’s going on.  We slept in the camper and Lucian did great.  Even with all the noisy trucks around us.  He growled once but then settled down…I think he was just happy to be out of the truck and able to eat his supper.

So the next morning hubby and a mechanic at the truck stop figure out the problem is the tension pulley (whatever that is) and of course the mechanic doesn’t have the size that would fit our truck.  So they call 2 auto parts stores in Wytheville and neither will deliver to the truck stop because they are 4 miles outside their delivery area…SERIOUSLY!!  So we limp the truck down the road for another 10 miles and find the first auto parts store.  Hubby gets the part on and every thing was fine after that…THANK GOD!!

So we get to Pigeon Forge and it’s nothing like we were expecting.  We were hoping for a laid back TN vacation but it looked more like the main stretch at the beach with all the amusement parks, tye dye t-shirt shops, miniature golf, and restaurants.  And the KOA campsite was pretty much full.  Well, Lucian was quite excited by all the people, dogs, and smells but he finally calmed down.  We had to do some work on the leash with him wanting to pull all the time.  After a few days he was getting it though.  And since Lucian is still pretty young we didn’t leave him by himself in the camper…we probably wouldn’t have one to come back to if we did.  Plus, hubby wasn’t ready to leave him in the truck by himself yet so we couldn’t really get out and do too much.  Plus I was sick the entire week with this head cold and cough that’s going around so I was pretty much happy just to hang in the camper.  We did drive up through the Smoky Mountain National Park and that was nice.

All and all it was a good trip (except for me being sick) and Lucian really surprised us on how good of a traveler he’ll be.  Here’s some pics of Lucian in the camper and some of the beautiful Smoky Mountains.