We arrived to the outskirts of Atlanta Georgia on a bright sunny afternoon. I am not sure why I had booked 5 days here. I am glad we reduced it to 4 nights with the extra day in Savannah. Atlanta downtown is nice I am sure but the Coca Cola Factory is not our thing and Toronto Downtown is nice too. This KOA site was crowded as it was the US Memorial Day weekend. There was hardly any personal space. If we extended our awning fully the next site will not be able to drive in.
After we set up, as usual we explored the campground on our bikes. A couple a little older than us, were hooking up their rig, a beautiful newer version of our SOLITUDE 310GK. We spoke to Michael, a software engineer from Austin Texas on the way to Asheville, North Carolina with his wife to visit family. Louise his wife came out to greet us along with Toby their 13 year old golden retriever/lab mix.
We told them we had a 2020 version of their 2022 brand new Solitude. This was a GK 345GK-R. This means it was 4 and half feet longer and the Grand Kitchen was in the Rear. It had several new features including 3 whisper quiet air conditioners and a lovely residential stand counter depth oven with 4 burners instead of the standard 3 burner with the tiny built in FURRION that we have. The 4 foot extra space at the back has a nice office desk! That would work awesome for my mobile mortgage brokerage work.
I took a peak and saw that she had painted her inside wall, the island and her pantry, a beautiful cottage blue! The rear kitchen means that you walk into a living room! It cost them $120,000 USD! Considering we paid $83,000 Canadian I must say we got a deal. She said she wanted it to mimic her home! I was eager to learn more, so they told us to give them a few minutes to set up and they will call us over! I gave my number not expecting a call!
Surprisingly she texted me to come on over that they have wine and snacks for us! Hussein took a bottle from North Carolina and I took some pistachios. We ended up spending the evening there. She had out an array of dips, crackers, slices of meat, cheese and dates.
They have travelled extensively in a AirStream for years and were very curious to know about our stops. At each of our upcoming stops they suggested things to do and sights to see. I found out that we would be at least half hour closer to the Grand Canyon Village, if we booked in Williams, ARIZONA instead of Flagstaff. We adjusted number of days to stay as we went along. I was lucky that the Williams KOA was owned by the same people as Flagstaff KOA so I was able to change the site. I was also able to reduce our stay at Amarillo, Texas to 1 night and arrive a day earlier to Albuquerque and leave New Mexico a day earlier without reducing the number of days there. In New Mexico we are visiting Hussein’s aunt and who arranged our marriage. Her husband moved to Sri Lanka when he got a job with Air Lanka as a pilot and they moved from Pakistan. They lived in Sri Lanka ever since until he retired. In the meantime, they adopted a day old boy from Gilgit norther Pakistan. He is now a strapping young 18 year old. They have moved to Albuquerque New Mexico and were extremely eager to see us again. I kept a full 6 days with them.
Louise told us about the three levels of KOA campgrounds. KOA Journey the one we are staying at in Atlanta tends to be along the highway, noisy and only basic services. They are meant for stops along the way, packed like sardines, hence the name Journey. Next up is Holiday which are usually located close to tourist towns and holiday destinations. For example our Savannah campground was South Savannah KOA Holiday and our upcoming Flagstaff campsite is a KOA Holiday. Upon Michael and Louise’s guidance we changed that to KOA Grand Canyon (Journey) to save half hour off our daily drive to Grand Canyon Village activities. Next up is KOA Resort. These are Campgrounds for Staycations where the campground has a self contained Resort for the family. We are not booked at any KOA Resorts.
They told us about the City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico which resembles Flinstone’s City. They told us to book ahead the Mule ride to the base of Grand Canyon and the New Zealand style Jett Boat in Moab Utah. They also recommended that we add one more day to our Grand Canyon stop as 2 nights will not cut it.
We had a lot in common. Louise owned and ran three laundromats in Austin. One of the them was the only business affected by the torrential rains of memorial day 2016. Exactly 6 years ago to the date. We owned a laundromat in Toronto. And we had a ball bearing warehouse flood with torrential rains when the roofer’s failed to secure the roof before the rains. We spent an awesome evening sharing our experiences and businesses.
Then they gave us a wonderful tour of their RV. She had made it feel very homey with air plants and family pictures. She had also custom painted the pantry, the island and the entrance wall with Beyond Paint one coat paint. It was Nantucket Blue.
I loved the idea. She suggested i try easy peal and stick wall paper also. They had also removed the TV from the bedroom (we have not used ours yet) and the bracket and put up a painting along with decorative command hooks for convenience. She used command removable tape to tape down boxes to hold books, tissue boxes, e-book readers etc. This gave me a lot of ideas to re-do our unit when we retain. We shared our contact information so we could be in touch.