TTN Hop 4
244 miles via SC 544, US Business 501, US 701, NC 410, US 74 and I-95 with a refueling stop. Cumulative tow miles: 893. Cumulative truck miles: 1104.
There were a number of events and conditions that made this hop interesting, starting with the rain. It rained all day – heavily at times. That alone made it one of the more difficult hops in our four years of travel. Second, I had to hitch up with the truck at an angle (see photo) and misjudged how much room I had with the tailgate down. I thought I could do it. I was wrong. The result was that the corner of the tailgate crunched a hole in the skin of the front basement. The first real ding of the trip. And hopefully the last.
Second, I decided that rather that top off the fuel in the morning I would stop for fuel on the way, after about 190 miles. As the hop exceeded our tank range of 240 miles there was a good chance that we would have had to stop anyway and use our 5-gallon reserve. Plus we now may be able to finish Hop 5 without refueling again. But I will probably top off in the morning, just to make tomorrow less stressful.
Third, the site given to us at our destination, The RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads, was under about 2 inches of water. We had to call the office and request another site.
Fourth, when I deployed the awning I discovered that a tree frog – presumably the same one we had seen in Ft Myers – was in the rail. It was alive, but if the thing has not eaten in 10 days he must be happy to be freed.
Finally, we had the usual disagreement between the GPS and our chosen Google map route. In this case we followed the Google map until the GPS seemed to be in agreement, then started following the GPS, about the time we crossed into North Carolina. It routed us onto US 74, which was expected. Except that it was actually old US 74 – a narrow road which arguably would cut off a mile. If we hadn’t encountered a detour. Getting back to NC 410 and then onto the new US 74 cost us about a mile. Not a big deal but yet another case where the “best” route was certainly not.
Door ding
Stowaway tree frog
Hitching up in the rain