Camping at Defeated Creek COE

What a fantastic time at a super campground. Defeated Creek is located about 17 miles north of I-40 at Carthage Tennessee. It has large sites, some with full hookup. It is very hard to get reservation for a weekend. They do have a few non reservable site. We were lucky enough to get one (site 23, 50AMP/water).

We arrived on Tuesday afternoon to visit with the Cumberland Mountain Sams. This Chapter is from the Crossville area. Since most of them retired, they normally camp during the week. They are looking to expand their Chapter and plan to have some campouts during the weekend in the near future. This is the second time we have camped with this group. It was wonderful to share dinner with them on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. We have gotten to know them as a dedicated, hard working Chapter.

For the weekend, we stayed put and camped with the Tennessee Sunshine Travelers from the Clarksville area. This Chapter is about two years old. They have really come together as a Chapter. It must be all the fun loving activities they have at their campouts. We really laughed after the great Hawaiian Hamburgers on Saturday evening. Mike Smith had us rolling with his "Show and Tell" presentation.

We always enjoy coming together on Sunday morning for an uplifting worship time. This group has some of the best.

We stayed over on Monday to spend time with Jerry and Lila Cowell, ASD's for middle Tennessee.

Til next time..................

Camping with Cotton Patch Sams

This past weekend we camped with Cotton Patch Sams at Village Creek State Park near Wynne Arkansas. Linda and Harry Warren, ASDs for west Tennessee joined us. They had great turn out with eight rigs camping.

This Chapter has really struggled this past year with members moving away from the area. However, Christy and Lisa have done an excellent job of recruiting new members. They are a great group and we look forward to more growth and wonderful camping experiences.

Village Creek State Park has renovated one of the upper camping areas. They now offers full hook up sites with 50 amp power in this area. We had a fantastic weekend enjoying the rain Saturday morning. The rain brought a cooler day for Saturday. The pot luck dinner was typical of one at a camping event. We all had plenty to eat.

Thanks you to Cotton Patch Sams for a great weekend.

Til next time.............

Tennessee Spring Samboree a HUGE! success!

We arrived home last night 6/8 from the 2007 Tennessee "Wild, Wild West Spring Samboree. What a great time meeting old friends and meeting new friends. We had 208 rigs from 17 states. We were greeted each day by the Wilson County Saddle Club. What an added attraction that was. They were on site for 4 days riding their horses and welcoming everyone to the Samboree. On Thursday and Friday they offered buggy rides.

It was hot! However, everyone stayed focused on having FUN! We always enjoy having the vendors and RVs from Bankston Motor Homes.


There were many wonderful activities throughout the week. Wednesday night found us all enjoying an early bird pot luck supper. We have some fantastic cooks in our family of friends. This may be a keeper for future Samborees. Everything from the "Oller Comedy Hour" and games to the presentation of many awards earned by the chapters. Many of the chapters held raffles for their charities. It was a busy week but well worth all the time spent with our friends both old and new. We have begun working on the fall samboree in Jackson, TN in October.

We will be home for awhile to rest and finalize the Spring samboree. Right now we haven't made any definite traveling plans. We hope that everyone has a nice summer. Be sure to stay cool and avoid the heat as much as possible.

Be safe on the roads and come back soon to see what we are up to.

Terry and Betty

Almost Samboree Time in Tennessee

We are in the final days of preparation for the 2008 Tennessee "Wild, Wild West" Spring Samboree at the James E. Ward Agri-Center in Lebanon. We are excited about the number of first timers coming to this Samboree. We now have over 200 rigs registered and we have been on the telephone taking calls this morning from people wanting to come. We got a good placement in Highways on the Samboree listing.

We had hoped to get everything ready in time to attend the Kentucky Samboree in Brandenburg. But, that has not happened. We will miss going to Kentucky to meet our friends there this year.

This post will be short. We have to keep busy getting ready for next week.

Check back soon!

Back home again! Again!

Yes, it has been almost a month since our last post. We were home for a week the first of April, then we were off to the Mississippi Spring Samboree in Greenville. As always, we have a wonderful time there visiting with old friends and making a few new ones. As always, we stayed busy all week with the various activities.

After the MS Samboree, we traveled over and down to Dothan, Alabama for the Alabama Spring Samboree at the National Peanut Festival Fairgrounds. This is a great facility for a Samboree. Again, we enjoyed the hospitality of our friends in Alabama.

On Monday, we drove down to Panama City Florida along with Mike and Janice Smith one of our ASD's. We had some work done on the grave site last fall after my mothers burial. The men did a great job. Raising up the granite coping and replacing the cement under the granite stone (this keeps down the weeds and grass). Our friends, Greg and Judy Smith, are keeping flowers on the grave site for us.

Monday evening we meet with my cousin, Jackie Galloway and his wife Frankie. They were camping at the Pecan Point RV park just north of the fairgrounds while they bass fished. We enjoyed a great time talking about old times and had dinner at Golden Corral. They came down to the fairgrounds to visit with us on Friday morning.

We enjoyed a great time with Don and Linda Lane, Kentucky State Director. We had others from Tennessee join us there,Jerry and Lila Cowell, Mike and Janice Smith, Bill and Molly Stewart and Bob and Madaline Bertouille. And "Oh" yes we went to Dairy Queen a few times.

Unfortunatly, Bob became ill and spent a couple of days in the hospital. In fact, we had to call the EMT's on Sunday morning and send him back to the hospital. We made arrangements with someone there(Grover) to watch after their pets and the fairgrounds was very accomodating. They allowed them to stay on their site while Bob was hospitalized. He was able to leave the hospital on Tuesday and they headed back home on Wednesday. Good Luck Bob!

We left for home Sunday after church. We caravaned with the Lanes and Cowells stopping at the Country View Campground north of Birmingham for the night. We enjoyed spending time with them at the campground Sunday evening.

We arrived home about 2:30 PM on Monday afternoon. Exhausted and glad to be home!

Until next time, travel safely.

We are home for a few days.

We arrived home this evening about 4:30 PM CDT. It took about an hour to get the motor home unloaded. Then we begain the task of putting everything away in the house. The laundry is all piled by the laundry room door. Where it will remain for the night.

We will be home for a week and then off to the Mississippi and Alabama Spring Samborees in Greenville and Dothan respectivly.

We have a very long to do list while home for the week.

More to come from the road to MS and AL.

On the way home.

WOW! How time really flys. It does not seem like 2 months have elapsed since the last update. We had a good time visiting with family in Winter Garden, attending the Florida Winter Samboree and Brandon.

We arrived in Winter Garden on January 6th. It is always good to meet all our friends there at the Garden Cathedral Church of Good. Of course, they insisted that we attend the monthly Senior night pot luck. We always enjoy spending time with Ray and Barbara. We also got to spend time with our friends Barbara and Curtis Burton from Sandston, Virginia. They were staying at the Rolling Hills RV Resort in Clermont.

Then on February 19th, it was off to the Florida Winter Samboree in Dunnellon. We meet several of our Good Sam family there. There were several from the K-town Sams Chapter in Tennessee. The Bluegrass Festival park there in Dunnellon is a great place for a Samboree. We were parked among the oak trees with moss hanging all around.

After the Samboree we headed to Lazy Days Rally Park for 3 nights before moving over to the Brandon Church of God for a few days. We really enjoyed spending time with Don and Frances and the people at their church. We found out that Matt really does love us. Matt and Melanie and others were working on getting a cafe set up for their young people. It will really be a nice place when it is finished.

Then we moved on to Perry to leave the motor home there prior to The Rally while we drove on the Pigion Forge for a weekend with all the Mingers. It was wonderful to get together with many of the family. It was not a fun time for me on Friday and Saturday. I contacted some kind of virus and ended up in the Hospital Friday evening for rehidration. It really hit me in the legs for a few days. Just really weak.

Back to Perry on Sunday and get ready for The Rally. On Tuesday Betty began to come down with the virus. Ellie and I doctored her. However she and several others spent time recovering. Betty began to feel better and was able to help at the dart and ballon booth during Good Sam Day on Monday.

Tuesday morning we departed Perry for a stop in Atlanta to get Ellie to the Airport. Then on to Helen Georgia and Unicoi Spring Camp Resort for a week of R&R.

We will leave Unicoi Spring tomorrow morning 3/25 headed to Lebanon, Tennessee to prep for the Tennessee Good Sam state committee meeting on 3/29.

We should be home on 3/31/PM.

More to come..................