Tire Repairs, Lake Hartwell SC, Clemson University…

Monday was a day spent making many phone calls trying to locate a tire. Best Tire and Auto Center told me they could sell me a Goodyear tire whereas another dealer tried to talk me into some Firestones. After researching the Firestones it was apparent they were rated to support 1800 lbs. of weight less per axle on the front. As much as I wanted to save nearly $200 for the tire I bought the one from Best Tire and Auto. Even better they offered to come out to the state park to install it and did a great job – total cost $770 bucks – YIKES! Expensive but worth the peace of mind in replacing the tire that was nearing a blow out…

One last hike over to the falls before we left Alabama and we then watched the NCAA’s that night. Wow!, what a great game last night in the finals of Men’s Basketball. Too bad the officiating this year in the tournament was not very good. Congrats to Louisville as they fought off a tough Michigan team.I went to bed a little later than normal but after a good nights sleep we left Chewacla State Park early Tuesday morning to make our way through Atlanta.  I wanted to be in the heart of city no later than 11:00am.

As it turned out making our way on Interstate 85 through Atlanta was uneventful which was a very welcome event. A few hours later we entered into South Carolina where we settled into a nice pull through site at Lake Hartwell State Park. Since we are only staying one night (because we had to stay longer at our last location to fix the tire) we were going to leave the car attached. Then we discovered that we were less than a half hour away from Clemson University. As many of you know we love visiting institutions of higher learning so we made the quick trip over to tour Clemson.

We didn’t have a lot of time to explore the University but did a drive through most of the major facilities and we stopped to take a picture or two of the Clemson House. The students were outside enjoying the sunshine and from the appearance of the vegetation here it is still quite early in the spring season. Trees are just starting to bud much like they were in College Station, TX when we left there about a month ago… Now I know why I like the south! Nevertheless there were still many flowering pear and plum trees adding color to the roadside along with the requisite Dogwoods and Yellow Jasmine.

Tomorrow we will make the short drive over to Gaffney, South Carolina where we are looking forward to once again seeing the peachy water tower there. We will be staying behind the Freightliner Service Center while we have the motorhome serviced and while we attend the Freightliner school on Thursday morning. It has been a long time since we have been in school and even longer since we have had to sit in one spot for more than a couple of hours…we'll have to see how it goes...