Frances Perkins National Monument is less than 10 miles from where we are staying, so we planned a trip out to see it. This site has been a historical site for a couple decades, but has only been a national monument under the park system since December 2024.

We spent an afternoon exploring Boothbay Harbor (map ). This is a quaint little ocean harbor town that has a lot for tourists. It seems very commercial with several shops and boat tour companies. We enjoyed walking the strip and found a penny press !

We were grateful to spend an afternoon with our friends touring the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens . After our garden tour, we picked up some live lobster to cook the quintessential Maine dinner!

Maine is full of friends! We visited the amazing Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens with friends. The gardens themselves are just stunning! They also have 5 Thomas Danbo Trolls . This was our first time seeing any of the trolls and we thought they were amazing! We enjoyed an easy afternoon in the gardens, meandering along the trails to find each of the trolls on site, and spending quality time with friends.

Things we did while at Tugaloo State Park :

• Daily hikes with the dogs
• Watched sunsets over the lake
• Bought a cooler (OUR FRIDGE DIED!)
• Camped with family (Hi Mom!)

Top things we did while in Brevard, North Carolina

• Antique shopping in Brevard, NC
• A sweet treat at Dolly’s Dairy Bar
• Pisgah National Forest Visitors Center and waterfall hike

Brevard, North Carolina has a beautiful little downtown area. Our stay was rather short – only 4 nights. Next time we would definitely stay much longer.

Top things we did in Knoxville:

• Camped at Cove Lake State Park
• World’s Fair Park and Knoxville Sun Sphere
• Ijams Nature Center and Riverwalk Trail
• Norris Dam State Park

Knoxville has some really interesting places to explore. We walked around downtown to some of the art gardens and restaurant areas. We visited in the summer and as you would expect with a college town, it was not super busy.

As part of our first full time adventure, we decided to do a small tour of certain southeast states. Mostly we wanted to explore new places but stay relatively close to our seasonal sites in north Georgia. Our first stop on the 6 week inaugural trip was Chattanooga, Tennessee

Here we are about ready to depart on our first full-time RV trip.