Some people make a plan and follow through with it. Some make no plans and wander aimlessly. We make partial plans and change them as we see fit. Some times that results in changing our plan as the highway intersection approaches (actually we approach the intersection, but the scotch and wine are speaking). In this case we set out for Huntsville, AL to see the Space and Science Museum there. Somehow when we made the plan we assumed that finding a nearby campground would be trivial. As we prepared to roll out from Pigeon Forge we started looking and could only find two in the vicinity and both are state parks. Rather than wait for someone to wake up and return our call we set out assuming we would hear before we got there. Carol called the Space Center Museum and found out there is a campground on the grounds. It is not in any of our extensive collection of resources nor is it mentioned in any of the literature or on the web site. I guess you are supposed to call and listen to a really long phone message and wait to hear item 5 which offers the campground as an option!!! Carol called the campground and while she was talking the state park returned my 3 hours earlier call. I told them thanks, but no thanks.

We planned a driver change and lunch stop at a rest area that turned out to be closed for renovation. I pulled on to the shoulder there and we had a quick lunch and driver change. As Carol set out I started reading an article about the Space Center looking for a real address or highway intersection. While reading I came across a story about Scottsboro, AL and a special shop. It is the Unclaimed Luggage Center. If you want to know where the suitcase you lost and never recovered on a flight finally came to rest, this is where it ended up. When I looked at the map I realized we were passing right by it on the way to the Space Center in Huntsville. We decided right then to stop there and so we are now in their overflow parking lot with the permission of Gary (Loss Prevention)) to spend the night, having spent more than a night camping would have cost. I have a new iPod, we have a camera for (daughter-in-law) Miriam a set of Tefillin we could not leave there and books. All of these goods were found in lost luggage, airplanes after everyone has deplaned and left and airport lounges. Rather than my regaling you with stories of what has been found go to www.unclaimedluggage.com. Think of a department store stocked from lost luggage. Prices are set at 30 to 80% off retail. I found an old SciFi hardbound priced a $4. I looked inside the cover and found it have a bookstore notation of $2. At the register I pointed this out and with a call to pricing they dropped the price to $1.

You really do not want to know what they have in the electronics area. There are so many headsets of all kinds, including the Bose headsets that retail for $300 that it is hard to imagine. They claim that their inventory is low at the moment. Enough! In the morning we will set out for Huntsville. For now we are happy to be in the overflow lot next to the cemetery. They open at 8 and I may have to sneak in to see what new has been put on the shelves.

The next morning, Saturday, we took a walk to stretch our legs and walked back through the store. Fortunately we found nothing more to buy so we bid the concierge fair well and hit the road for a hefty 42.5 miles which brought us to One Tranquility Base, the campground associated with the U.S Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Al. We set up quickly and headed for the Museum. It was a cloudy day with forecast of rain and the temperatures were in the high 50’s to low 60’s. I report this weather not to taunt those of you freezing in the north, but the museum is a rocket museum and this entails a fair amount of walking around outdoors to see everything. Economic hard times rear their ugly head, especially here. Our first indication was the big sign that National Parks Golden Age Passports are no longer honored. The price for us jumped from $6 to $21.5 with a coupon and including the Imax film. We paid! I had checked out the museum on Google Maps while at Dan’s and in the satellite view the surviving Saturn V rocket can be seen on its side out in the open air. When we got there we learned that it has been built into a museum building in it entirety. This makes for one very long building. The first two stages are on giant frames and the remainder are suspended from the ceiling. The history of the development of the ability to send men to the moon is highlighted in exhibits of actual artifacts that line the hall. Out in the Rocket Park, there is one of almost every rocket that has been part of NASA or the US Army’s inventory on display, from Jupiter to Juno to Atlas to Nike Ajax and even an antique Nike Zeus (our Boy Scout Explorer Troop went to the Niagara Falls Air Force Base to tour a Nike Zeus launch site shortly before it was decommissioned). We spent close to five hours there, including lunch in the Space Camp Cafeteria (the main food court was closed). We returned to One Tranquility Base so Carol could take a nap and I could putter around. We no sooner got settled in Gee2 than it started to pour and thunder and lightening. Carol slept and I marveled at our good timing. We had dinner on board, got a good night’s sleep and a late start the next morning.

Sunday morning the 11th found us ready to move on. Our route took us through some territory we don’t remember, across I 20 to Jackson MS where we picked up our old friend the Natchez Trace Parkway southbound to Natchez. We stopped for the night at Rocky Springs Campground for our third time. A reminder for those who appreciated good mystery stories, Nevada Barr bases all of her stories on the struggles of Anna Pigeon, Ranger, to catch the bad guys while not becoming one of the victims. Several of her stories are based on the parkway and she (Nevada Barr) has made this area her home. Rocky Springs is the scene of one of these stories and we have walked the ground and she has not used any literary license in her description of the place.

For those interested in camping details, there are maybe 20 sites with no facilities other than what you bring (and what you must take away with you). The price is appropriate for the lack of any facilities, nothing. It is at mile 54.8 on the Parkway. We highly recommend it. There are several nice hikes and we will take one in the morning before leaving. We are not sure where we are headed yet, but we will have a plan of sorts before we turn the key, if Carol has anything to say about it.