The Clockwise Road Trip
I’m calling it the
Friday August 6, 2021
Day one we drove approximately 300 miles from
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| Millie at the creek that runs thru Buck Creek Campground |
Arrived at the campground at 4pm. We were given site nine which backed up to the water right by one of the two swimming holes in this section of creek. We enjoyed watching the children playing in the water.
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| Kids in the creek |
We ate leftovers from home for dinner, Miyabi JR Express
Teriyaki chicken. There is no Verizon cell service at the campground and
Saturday August 7, 2021.
Day two, we drove north about 25 miles to
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| Not exactly a wilderness experience |
We did a brief driving tour of Morganton on the way back to
the campground. It has a nice downtown and it looks like the businesses are
successful. We saw some large old interesting looking buildings in the distance
and kept the towers in sight so we could use them to guide us. We discovered
they were part of the
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| Broughton Mental Hospital in 1917, it looks the same today |
We drove thru a torrential downpour from Morganton to
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| RC flying field at the campground |
Saturday’s dinner was at the RV, we cooked stir fried veggies and chicken outside on the griddle. We went to a nearby Food Lion after diner for groceries, and stopped for ice cream cones at a roadside stand on the way back. How come ice cream always tastes better when you get it from a roadside stand?
PSS: On the way out today we stopped at a thrift store down the road from camp. It had the largest collection of DVD’s I’ve ever seen, I bought $17 worth for the RV.
We watched the first two episodes of Shark, an old TV series with James Woods as the lead character. He is a defense attorney who switches sides and becomes a state prosecutor.
Sunday August 8, 2021.
We cooked breakfast on the griddle, today we had fried
potatoes and eggs with toast. Afterwards we drove about 8 miles north to Tom’s
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| Kids in the creek below the falls |
Next was a tour of the town of
I filled truck with gas and purchased a Lil Caesar’s pizza. It was a panic buy of survival rations, we’re heading further into the wilderness tomorrow. Back at the RV, we sat outside for a while, Millie did word puzzles and I window shopped the Camper World catalog. Diner was leftovers which are always good eating; afterwards we put away all the outside stuff in preparation for tomorrows departure.
In the evening I worked on tomorrow’s route to
Monday august 9, 2021,
We left Buck Creek RV Park around 10 am. We had come down
the mountain on Saturday from
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| Boone North Carolina |
At the junction of route 58 and route 16 we usually take 16
to Grindstone campground near sister Betty’s house. For Grayson Highlands you turn
left staying on 58. The eight miles to the campground is very similar to route
58 from Konnorock to
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| Pretty country on the North Carolina/ Virginia border |
From the state park entrance you drive up a steep road thru the forest for several miles. The campground is almost at the summit of the mountain. The 6000 acre park spread out all around with trails going in many directions. Hiking is the main activity in the park. It is a nice campground; built a long time ago it is suited for small RV’s and tents. There are not many sites that could accommodate a large motorhome.
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| Our site in Grayson Highlands State Park, Virginia |
We had a reservation for a non designated water/electric site. At the entrance gate they gave us a list of those sites and told us to have our pick from whatever was not occupied. Sounds a little sketchy but we had no trouble picking a site with a nice private view of the forest. The only negative thing I can say about the campground is a lot of the sites are pull thru loop sites adjacent to the road. This is probably because of the very steep terrain, but it places all the campsites right by the road. Our first choice campground in this area is Grindstone where all the sites are backin’s that go a good distance back into the forest. The result is a nice private feel.
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| Our truck at the scenic overlook aka the cell phone lot |
There is no cell service or wifi here, the camp store employee told me to go to the scenic overlook that we passed on our way in. There we would get the only 3 bar cell service in the park. The closest Wi-Fi is eight miles away at the White Top Mountain Library. On our way back from checking messages we were stung with another torrential downpour. This is the 2nd time this trip we drove through rain so hard the wipers on fast had a hard time keeping the windshield clear.
After actually seeing the terrain and walking around the campground at this high elevation we have decided we are not going to hike any of the trails in the park. Everything here is steeply angled uphill or downhill and at lengths longer than we think we could handle.
Tuesday August 10, 2021
This morning was my work period. I installed the Micro Air Easy Start device to the RV Air Conditioner. I had done some prep work prior to this trip by converting the A/C controls from analog to digital. I didn’t want to install the Easy Start kit until I had tested the first conversion. We keep the RV in a storage lot and don’t have electricity there.
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| Device to lower starting amperage of air conditioner |
After insuring myself that the digital controls where working properly I installed the Easy Start. This was all done on the roof of the RV, the new module mounted inside the AC shroud and wired into the controls with just four connections. The beauty of this thing is instead of having a start up surge of current to 40-50 amps, the AC compressor now goes thru a staged start sequence that keeps the starting amperage below 20 amps. This means if we are boon docking or in a park with no hookups, we can run the AC on our small portable generator. My roughing it days are over, shower before bed and temperature control is the way we roll!
The job was completed by lunch and that included stopping to talk to two neighbors who came by to see what I was doing. Afterwards I cycled the AC on/off 5 times so the new microprocessor could learn the operating characteristics of the system and we are now ready to run on the generator or a household 20 amp service if no 30 amp is available.
Thunder and dark clouds interrupted our lunch and we quickly stowed anything that we didn’t want to get wet. It was a false alarm, the storm went elsewhere save for a couple drops of rain.
I spent the afternoon sorting and finding a storage spot for some of the things that have migrated to the RV from home. Millie worked her puzzle book and wrote in her autobiography. We walked to the camp store and then around the campground, stopping to speak with one of the men who stopped while I was working on the AC. He had a huge makeshift canopy suspended in the trees. It must have been 20 x 60 foot and made from blue poli-tarps and an odd assortment of ropes. He has been coming to the park for the same two weeks for 30 years, the last 12 in the same site. Oddly, His tent was set up in the forest behind the canopy, not under it. Anyhow, his neighbor who came over to join the conversation asked us if we had done any hiking and we relayed our apprehension to tackle the steep terrain. He told us of several trails that he thought were not too difficult. Unfortunately we have plans for our two remaining days here and may not have the time to try them.
We learned that starting Monday the park will be closed for two weeks. The well for the campground is dangerously low due to the lack of snow and rain last winter. They hope the two week break will let them build up a reserve before the very busy fall season.
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| Wild pony's |
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| Day use area in Grayson Highlands |
Further down we came to the park in a visually stunning
landscape. The approximate 6 acre cleared area was ringed by a primitive stone
wall, probably laid by CCC boys during the 1930’s depression. The grass lawn
was meticulously manicured, the shade trees and large rock outcroppings added
to the high brow ambience. This could be an estate in
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| Do you think the CCC boys built the wall during the Great Depression? |
A side note about this part of the park, as I said it is the day use area. Almost astonishingly, there was no graffiti, no trash, no litter, not vandalism of any sort. Clearly the folks from this area still embrace a culture long forgotten in the cities and suburbs of the lowlands.
Dinner was leftovers re-grilled outside on the Top Chief griddle. I call it cowboy cooking, it wasn’t bad eating either.
We watched two episodes of the old TV law enforcement show “Shark”. It was one of several season sets on DVD I purchased at the thrift store back in Marion NC. I mentioned earlier there was no cell or Wi-Fi on the mountain, there is no over the air TV either, not that we would watch most the trash they produce now days. We keep an assortment of DVD’s onboard, mostly season sets and a few movies. It’s a revolving collection, after viewing we try to find a church based thrift store to donate them to.
Wednesday August 12, 2021
Light breakfast this morning as we are going to visit Millie’s sister and brother-in-law today and we will eat lunch with them.
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| This is country living, the Pedigo's homestead is in the center of this picture |
We enjoyed our meal and our hosts al fresco on their long
covered veranda. Beyond the lawn that gently slops away from the house is an
old
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| Nice! |
We returned to the RV in the afternoon after the pleasant day visiting the Pedigo’s, neither of us the slightest bit hungry but we felt like we better plan something for dinner or we would be nibbling at night watching TV.
We cooked two Beyond meat burgers and had them with a few potato chips. It was just enough to keep us feeling full and content, aka fat and happy!
On our after dinner walk around the campground we checked in at the pavilion and there was a group of Jammers setting up. We stayed for about an hour and watched them perform. Besides the usual guitar player/singers that are predominantly male in these impromptu sessions, they also had a couple of women come up from time to time and sing. One couple did a cute little singing skit, I don’t remember all the words but the girls lead off was “He ain’t been laid in a month!” The act generated lots of laughter.
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| Jam session at Grayson Highlands |
Later back at the RV we started watching the old TV series
“The Wire”. Set in the urban decay of
Thursday August 12, 2021
Pancakes on the griddle this morning. We’re doing all our cooking outside on the griddle to cut down on dishwashing. We have been conservative with water; this is a water/electric only site. We are staying five days and don’t want to have to unhook everything to go to the dump station.
We left the RV around ten and drove to the town of
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| Its an annual event, we'll get to see it one of these days |
We walked the main street, stopped in a small flea market and bought three audio books. We use them a lot on long driving days. We enjoyed a late lunch at MacAdoo’s restaurant and afterward we then stopped for a few items at the grocery store. This store didn’t have a bakery so we looked in the frozen food section for a coconut custard pie. No joy for the custard pie lover, so Millie said you pick one and I’ll go get the milk. She didn’t discover both the Coconut cream pie and the blackberry cobbler in the cart until we were in the check out line. She’ll learn not to leave me alone in the pie isle!
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| Galax fiddlers Convention performers camping area |
We also stopped at Lowes for some plumbing supplies. I have
a plumbing problem I will address when we get to Indian Heritage RV Park in
We saw the sky’s darkening as we headed back to the RV and met the rain when we were about five miles from the state park.
I spent a couple hours writing, but the rain has stopped so I will go outside and stow things for tomorrows travels.
Friday August 13, 2021
Up at 7am and on the road by 9am it was a good day for travel. Bright sunny skies and no rain. There was but one hiccup in our departure.
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| The ex hippy RV |
After leaving our site and circling around to the dump station there was one of those small fiberglass motorhomes towing an original smart car. The first thing that struck me as wrong was the female was trying her best to dump the tanks and the male (only two genders here) was hooking up the tow bar from the RV to the smart car. That was just asinine in several ways,
A real man would never make his wife deal with the sewage holding tank. And holding up the line doing anything except dumping tanks is just being a jerk. The yuppie mobile RV and the midget smart car should have alerted me earlier, but now I could clearly see this guy, with his long gray hair tied in a pony tail, clearly belonged in an different social culture than me. I disliked him immediately.
They finished their tasks and pulled away, I soon forgot about them. I quickly started my dump procedure which is fast and thorough and gets us out of the way for the next guy in line.
Now we’re six thousand feet on top of a mountain and the road snakes its way down to the bottom in a steady decline. It’s your standard mountain road, two lanes, lots of switch backs and very hard turns. If you know how to drive in the mountains it’s a fun experience.
The stout little Ram with the 5.7 liter Hemi and 8 speed transmission has more than enough power to tow the RV, no matter how steep the road. For going downhill we upgraded the brake components with parts made to handle the heat generated by the weight of the RV.
So I’m running down the mountain and getting pretty good at using the buttons on the steering wheel without having to look at them to downshift the transmission. This takes some of the load off the brakes. We get about half way down the mountain, pirouette around a switchback and there it is the Yuppie mobile doing all of 20 mph, the brakes smoking from being applied constantly I suspect since he left the summit.
Now I’m not saying I pushed him down the mountain but I did stay close enough that he knew I was there. Heck, I may have prevented a tragedy as he did let off the brakes once and a while and let the thing coast down some short straight a ways.
At the bottom of the hill the road T bones onto route 58, the yuppie mobile turned left probably headed for the interstate. We had our turn signal on so he knew we were going right. He gave me a European sounding tweet of his horn and then gave me the finger! I returned the farewell with a blast from my three trumpet air horns. Millie and I laughed; the yuppie couple probably needs therapy.
The great pee mystery. Since we’ve had this RV we been plagued with the smell of urine in the bathroom. It seemed to me to come and go and we had never been able to find the source. As a temporary emergency patch I installed a bigger exhaust fan in the bathroom. I have had enough of this mystery, I knew I wasn’t peeing on the floor and decided it was time to fix it, whatever it was?
While we were in Galax on Thursday we stopped in Lowes and I
purchased a selection of plumbing products and told Millie when we got to
After setting up in
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| How your house toilet works |
I know most of you know how a residential commode works; they’re all the same simple design, usually only one or two moving parts. How hard could it be to replicate the design in a compact light weight model for recreational vehicles? No, that would be too easy, why do that when you can make one using plastic parts with gaskets and seals and held together with self tapping screws!
Realizing this was going to be a more complicated repair than could be accomplished in the bathtub, I moved the operation outside, where I could disassemble the space shuttle toilet. I soon found one of the seals had been installed incorrectly and it was allowing the liquid contents of the bowl to seep into a chamber it didn’t belong and had no way to leak out of other than evaporation.
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| How an RV toilet works |
The seal was hopelessly misshapen so I did a jury rigged repair with silicone sealant. We reassembled the toilet and reinstalled it in the bathroom. It’s been 24 hours and the odor has not returned.
I went online last night to look into purchasing the proper parts and while googling Dometic I discovered this seal design was built for a year and a half and nobody knows how many seals were installed incorrectly. There was a recall of this model and I sent in a claim request to Dometic, but I was not the original owner, nor do I know if the recall is still active, we’ll see, but at least Millie now knows I was not peeing on the floor!
Took a much needed shower and had dinner and spent the rest of the evening writing the Yuppie motorhome story.
Saturday, August 14, 2021
Today was devoted to the internment of Ernest and Nancy
Bray’s cremated remains. Ernest is Millie’s only brother; he was also the
eldest of the five Bray children. At eleven in the morning about a dozen and a
half kin folk gathered at the Bray family cemetery. The small graveyard is on a
rolling hill in a quiet peaceful area outside of Axton
This would never fly up north, but there was no government permits gotten or funeral director present, nor was there an ordained clergyman. Ernest’s grandson Tyler dug a small hole in front of the previously placed marker. Ernest’s Daughter Becky poured the ashes from two mason jars, saying that her momma and daddy were once again together. Son in Law Chris filled the hole and reset the sod.
At first I thought it a bit odd to not bury the remains in an urn or container of some sort; but upon reflection, I like the idea, and it was more than appropriate for this loving couple who had been married for almost 60 years. I just won’t be accepting any canned goods in mason jars from Becky for a while.
Afterwards the family who had been in a circle watching the burial stayed in place and began offering remembrances of Ernest and Nancy. Millie started it off by reading a letter from her sister Betty who was not able to attend this day. Almost everyone present had some small story of Ernest or Nancy to share with everyone. When all the anecdotes had been told, Millie read a prayer she had written for these two kind gentle souls.
This simple ceremony was as respectful and meaningful as any
funeral I’ve ever attended. Afterward the family went to a local restaurant
where we enjoyed a nice meal and more fellowship. During the meal I was surprised
and sincerely appreciative when Todd Moore (Ernest’s nephew) presented me with
a
Later in the afternoon, Millie and I rode out to Ernest’s former homestead. The 12 acre property had been sold and the homes are being remodeled. Ernest and Nancy’s home high on the hill was extensively updated; we both thought it looked pretty good. Down by the road lay a simple little house, it had some new siding and a few other minor changes but it was still easily recognizable as Millie’s home place. Her parent’s had it built when she was 12 years old and it was in the family until just this past year. Adjacent to the home place was the block building that was the Bray country store and gas station. Even though Millie has been gone from there for many years, I could tell it still tugged at her heart strings. There are lots of memories in these two old buildings.
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| Bray family home and country store |
Sunday August 15, 2021
Travel day today, we had most everything put away last night
so it was an easy departure. We pulled out of the RV Park at 8am and were on
route 58 in about a minute later. We traveled on route 58 for 220 miles to the
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| Martinsville, Virginia to Outer Banks, NC |
On this Sunday morning the four lane highway was lightly
traveled, making it a pleasant ride through mostly rolling country side. We opted
to take the business route 58 through
Around lunchtime we stopped in a small shopping center and bought some fried chicken from a Food Lion Grocery store. We ate in the RV.
Skirting
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| South of Manteo |
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| Ocean Waves Campground entrance |
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| Shaded or sunny sites, your choice |
We are staying at Ocean Waves Campground. It costs $67 a night and is on the ocean side of the highway. It’s a nice campground; one long paved street stretching from the highway to the ocean. All of the sites are made of concrete and there is grass between the sites. Some sites are shaded, some are full sun. Each site has full hook ups, plus cable and wifi. We haven’t hooked up the cable, we not much for watching TV. The wifi is the fastest I’ve ever experienced in a campground. It’s always on, always a strong signal, and always very fast, it’s amazing!
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| Our fast WiFi, we were parted right under the Campground antenna |
Monday August 16, 2021
Grilled potatoes w/ onions and green peppers this morning along with toast, eggs and sausage all cooked on the griddle. We went on a nostalgic (for Millie) driving tour of the Outer Banks version of Ocean Blvd. There were only a few businesses from her youth still standing. We stopped at the Wright Bros Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. We took some shots of Millie with her arm around a bust of one of the brothers; we were trying to recreate a photo of her from 50 years ago. Mid day lighting was too harsh; we will go back some evening and try again.
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| The hill the Wright Brothers launched from |
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| Standing on the launch hill, the landing field behind us |
Did you know that the Wright Brothers were not the first to fly powered aircraft. There were aviator experimenters in France and Australia who powered their way to the sky before Orville and Wilbur. What the Wright brothers did before anyone else was develop control over one of the three flight characteristics, ROLL. They did it by bending the tips of the wings. They called it wing warping, the modern method is now with ailerons (Hinged flaps on the wings)
Lunch at the RV, Tomato and cheese sandwich with chips and TastyCake desert. We stayed in the shade in the afternoon doing, me playing Suduka and Millie doing word search. After dinner, another of my thrown together cowboy cooking meals.
In the evening we walked to the beach. The daytime beach users trudged past us going back to their campers. They looked sun burnt and as ragged as the homeless pulling their carts piled high with all their stuff. Millie and I strolled along with two old aluminum chairs and a bottle of water.
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| Paying big bucks to vacation like a homeless person |
At the waters edge, the setting sun to our backs, we enjoyed the cool (ish) breeze coming off the water. Tonight our discussions queried; what was the origin of the universe? If there was a big Bang, where did it come from? What did it come from? What happened here for the millions of years for which we have no written history? Millie added some biblical beliefs, but they don’t really solve any of these mysteries. In the end, we had no answer to the ageless questions, but we did have sort of an epiphany.
We decided that the infinitesimal blip that is our time on this earth has been a wonderful gift. Even after enduring all the struggles and hardships it has been a life worth living. Rising to the challenges and commitments has given the experience purpose. Sharing this life with those we love and care for has made it all worthwhile. We are truly blessed to have been given this time.
Tuesday, August 17, 2021
Breakfast today was some leftovers, regrilled and repurposed in two large breakfast burritos. If I may say so myself, they were quite tasty.
Today’s entertainment was to explore the Manteo area. It’s smaller than I expected it to be but overall a very nice small town. The waterfront area, had all the normal things you find in a tourist waterfront town, Brewery, restaurants, ice cream, gift stores etc. One feature that was very nice is abundant places to sit. Nice benches throughout the wharf area, on the commerce street, and in several very small waterfront or view parks. Kudu’s to the city planners!
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| Millie in Manteo |
Manteo is also the home of the lost colony, how do they know
that if it was lost? Anyhow, the lost colony was a group 117 English settlers
who came ashore here to establish a permanent English settlement in the
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| downtown Manteo |
We didn’t eat in the tourist area; instead we stopped at a small restaurant on the commercial side of town. Called Darrell’s Seafood and the parking lot was about 3/4s full of pickup trucks, how could it not be good? Inside the restaurant we saw they had a large take out trade, plus a small dining room. It was very neat and clean with about a dozen booths. The décor was mounted fish and fishing scene pictures on the walls. It had a very “locals eat here” ambiance, they were sold out of Grouper, but the Mahi was perfect.
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| Cooling it in Manteo |
After our tour of the Manteo area we returned to the Outer Banks and drove north to the only Wal-Mart on the islands. I had broke my Mr. Coffee maker and hoped to replace it with one just like it. All sold out of my preferred brand, I bought a Wal-Mart branded product that was very similar.
On the way south again we drove through a small campground that Millie thinks was the one her family stayed at years ago. We’re not sure it was the place but we’re sure it has seen better days. It was filled with permanently parked old shabby travel trailers.
By now it was approaching 4pm so we next returned to the
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| Keep reading the composite picture is further down the blog |
Settled in the RV again neither of us felt like eating so we
picked at leftover fried chicken and some fruit. Followed by a serving of Mrs.
Smith’s
Sun is to the far west and racing away, time to go to the beach and solve some more world problems!
Tried something different tonight watched a British murder mystery tonight. I forgot the name, O’rielly mysteries or something like that.
Wednesday August 19, 2021
The plan for today was to mail a letter at the post office, browse in a few thrift stores and continue our search for surviving landmarks from family vacations from Millie’s past.
We discovered a surprising number of thrift stores, most run by some kind of benevolent organization, or so they say. I can honestly say I don’t know what was in most of them; I only shop for DVD’s to stock the RV. Used DVD prices are down to $1 in almost every store we have visited. One had them for 25 cents each, but it was a very poor selection. As usual I spent more money than Millie, all DVD’s and audio books.
We found the RV Park that Millie and Watkins stayed at in the early years of their marriage as well as the apartments above a hardware store that Millie’s parents rented when she was a young girl. Very nostalgic for her, but it will all be gone soon. Most communities on the banks are rapidly tearing down the old structures and replacing them with huge three story homes, most will more than likely be available for rent. We’ve seen the same transition in every beach town we’ve been through.
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| You can't go home again, Thomas Wolfe |
We had lunch at the RV, Lettuce tomato and turkey bacon sandwiches. We stayed around the campground all afternoon. I started getting email messages from an app telling me my thermostat at home was offline. I checked a few other devices at home I monitor or control over the internet and everything was offline.
I called my friend Doug to check on the house for me and he jumped into action, immediately driving to the house. Unfortunately, the key to the storm door would not work. It’s a three bolt hurricane rated door so there was no jimmying it. We will make getting workable keys a priority when we get home. We were able to determine the house had power by cycling the irrigation well pump in the back yard. We know the HVAC and the refrigerator are running, I will deal with the internet when we get there.
That pretty much killed the afternoon, we micro waved leftovers and frozen veggies for dinner, the first meal we’ve prepared inside the RV in almost two weeks. We met a couple who have an RV just like ours. They told me about a Facebook group for our model travel trailer. I’ve joined the FB group and wasted away time reading and posting there. Millie worked on a composite photo; it will be side by side pictures of her taken at the same spot at the Wright Brothers memorial fifty years apart. Hopefully she will share it on FB soon, but she is disappointed that she doesn’t look like the same vivacious beauty from long ago. Yes, I am trying to assure her that she’s still got it!
We watched two episodes of the court drama Shark tonight.
Thursday August 19, 2021
I only had one item to do today, take the truck out and fill the fuel tank. The service station is only two miles away so that won’t take long. As I suspected gas was ten cents a gallon more this far south on the island. No complaints, they need to make a buck. Tomorrow is our departure from Ocean Waves Campground. We’ve enjoyed our stay, not as much as we did the cool nights in the mountains, but then we live at the beach so this is something we experience everyday.
Fresh tomato sandwiches again today for lunch, followed by black cherry ice cream cones.
I spent some time internet searching for unrestricted property high in the mountains with a strong running stream. It also has to be unrestricted so we can park the RV there and have chickens and miniature goats! Unrestricted property that is almost impossible to find. If someone subdivides a tract of land in the mountains it almost always is restricted to residential building.
Grilled hot dogs, fried potatoes, green bean casserole for dinner, and blackberry cobbler for desert.
Beach time after dinner, it was another beautiful evening. Not a day for swimming though, surf was very high.
Watched the movie, The Italian Job.
Friday August 20, 2021
Breakfast on the griddle, eggs, potatoes, and turkey bacon. Millie readied the interior for travel, I did the outside. At 10 am we were hooked to the truck and ready to roll. We left the power plugged into shore power for air conditioner; we are killing time until check out at 11:30. Our next overnight will be in a federal park with no hookups. (Only the best from our tax dollars to American citizens)
We will leave Ocean Waves and travel 30 miles south to the
ferry terminal at Hatteras. There we load the truck and travel trailer on the
ferry and enjoy a one hour boat ride to
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| Truck and RV on the Hatteras to Ocracoke ferry |
Well this day didn’t turn out as planned. When we got to the
ferry dock at Hatteras there were a lot of vehicles waiting for the ferry. The
parking attendant told us it was a two hour wait because one of the ferry boats
was not operational. Something always seems to go wrong when we take this
ferry, last time it was low water and a silted in channel that stopped the
boats until the next high tide. We passed the time working on our puzzles, Sudoku
for me and word search for Millie. The wait was actually just a little over an
hour, but I should have recognized it as a dark omen. The boat ride between
Hatteras and Ocracoke takes longer than you think, it’s a pleasant ride in calm
water. The crow fly distance is only a 1/4 mile or so across the inlet, but the
ferries have to run a long route around the many shoal areas in the
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| The only road thru Ocracoke Island. Ocean is right over the dune on the left. |
The parking maneuver was complicated by a truck parked close on one side of the road and too large of a family on the other roadside. You know one of those gypsy bands with three generations and all their possessions scattered all over the campsite.
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I probably parked the Travel trailer ok enough but then my OCD wouldn’t let me accept it. I know OCD is an over used malady nowadays but I’ve noticed that most everybody has some life situation that has to be, just so. Mine is parking, truck at the grocery store, RV in a camping site or even the car in the driveway, it has to be parallel with the edge. Because I had an audience across the street it took about six tries to get it close to something I could live with for one night.
If there was ever any doubt that the federal government does not give a damn about the citizens of this country, look at the condition of our federal parks. They are grossly underfunded and for the most part the best amenities in them were made by nature or the CCC boys during the great depression. Neither method cost the government much if anything.
In the 1950’s the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was established and here we are some 70 years later and there is no water or electric or sewer hookups in the campground.
The one thing they have in abundance on the island is insects that want your blood, neither of us likes to be lathered in insect repellant nor seated in the smoky haze of a campfire so by dusk we like to be safely sealed behind solid walls, closed doors and windows. In a small camper in the summer time that means you need air conditioning. In the past we had a built in generator on the motorhome so that was not a problem. Seeing this trip as an opportunity to get a small generator that I could also use for working on the RV at the storage lot I purchased one.
I also purchased and installed a device that would allow the compressor to start without a large current spike at startup. I used the generator several times before the trip and was very pleased with it, but never tried it on the air conditioning. I didn’t install the easy start kit until we were on the road because it needed to be used with shore power to learn the system before using it with the generator. We have no power at our storage lot so didn’t get to test the system before the trip.
I’m sure you can see where this is going…….it didn’t work. The generator would not run the AC. The thought of spending the night in what would be the equivalent of wartime sweatbox torture; we decided we wanted to get off the island. I called the North Carolina Ferry division and got our reservations for tomorrow transferred to 5:30 this afternoon.
The little we had unpacked was quickly returned to the rig and we pulled out of the site thirty minutes after getting there. The gypsy’s across the street didn’t even have time to wave goodbye!
Parked in the loading lane at the ferry terminal at the
south end of the island I started thinking about what we would do when we got
to
The ferry rides was two hours on the water plus vehicle load
and unload times. We would get to
When I made reservations for this trip our favorite campground in this area was booked solid, but on the hopes that they had a cancellation I called them. They had room for us and Hannah (the cute little gal who for some reason wants to be a boy?) told us she would be in the office till ten and would leave our check in info with the gate guards if we arrived after that.
The Ferry ride from
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| Storm over Pamlico Sound |
Back on the land we had a 70 mile run ahead of us to get from
There were two areas of concern, the road from Cedar Island to Moorehead City is narrow and winding with water filled ditches or swamp land on each side, you wouldn’t want to run off the road anywhere around here. A lesser concern but one that could slow us down was tourist traffic in Beaufort/Morehead City and on the barrier island. I couldn’t do anything about the town traffic but I did stay on the mainland until I got to the south end of Emerald Isle. The campground is located at the first traffic signal after you cross the bridge onto the island. We arrived just a few minutes past nine pm, not a bad run!
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| Entrance to Holiday Travel Resort |
One of the nighttime guards lead us to our site, good thing because the camp was very dark. He guided me into the angled site with precision that soothed any OCD tensions I was harboring. We did minimal hookups and hurried up to the large covered event stage, where we caught the 2nd half of a live band. Very good musicians, but the bass speakers were way too loud, just sayin.
The thing that bothers me most about today’s fiasco is my failure to follow a rule that was instilled in me may years ago, the jobs not finished until it is tested. When I installed the easy-start kit I should have test run the AC with the generator. I don’t know why I didn’t; I guess I was just so sure it was going to work.
Saturday August 21, 2021
We decided to stay a 2nd night because tonight they are going to have entertainment by some well known Beach musicians, Jim Quick and the Coastline Band.
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| Jim Quick and the Coastline Band |
We are mostly hanging out and recuperating from the long day yesterday. We do plan on some beach time before the concert tonight. They have a bagel shop here at the campground so we had bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. Lunch was a sub from Public’s.
Attended the free concert here in the campground, this was customer appreciation week at the campground, there was something going on everyday.
Sunday August 22, 2021
Up at 6am and on the road at 8am, stopped once for fuel and
we pulled into the storage lot at 11am. Low traffic on the roads, it was an
easy run. The only item of note was when passing through Topsail North
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| Emerald Isle, NC to Myrtle Beach, SC |
The 17 day Clockwise trip is in the journal, time to start planning the next trip!