Our Wander Years

TTN Hop 5: Roanoke Rapids NC to Lorton VA

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 5

182 miles via I-95 and local roads. Cumulative tow miles: 1075.

This was a simple trip up I-95 – a route that we have traveled several times before – so there was nothing new on the route. But it was, again, mostly in the rain, which made it a little more challenging. No incidents, though. And, surprisingly, no significant delays on I-95. A pretty smooth trip.

Our overnight stay was a the RV Resort and Carolina Crossroads. This is a new park just a mile from an I-95 exit, so it was convenient. We didn’t walk around much because we were trying to survive a deluge (Raleigh, just 80 miles southwest, had over 8″ of rain and was in a state of emergency), but it has a nice pool. In good weather it is a very nice overnight option. But most of the roads and sites are gravel and they tend to puddle. The site we were given initially had a small concrete patio that was under 2″ of water. We requested another site and were given the adjacent one. Later I saw a sign on the office door that said that the park had “No Vacancy” – except for our first site which was “under water.” Good thing we arrived early.

The deluge continued in the morning. I felt sorry for those who had to leave early as the rain was heavy until 9:30am, then tapered off. I also felt sorry for those headed south because I-95 was closed due to flooding near where we had refueled the day before. But by the time we were ready to leave, around 11am, the rain was reduced to a drizzle. There were even a few sunny breaks, resulting in a nice rainbow as I was refueling.

As we arrived at our destination – the Pohick Bay Regional Park Campground – we did have a minor incident. I chose to park in the leftmost of three lanes at the office as I checked in, to give other vehicles ample room to get by my rig. But as I pulled out I realized that I was dangerously close to the back edge of the office as I made the left turn into the campground. I had to pull forward, very close to a small bush, to make it safely around the corner. As I was making the turn I felt a rumble. Jett checked out her side and said that I was “running over a rock wall” which sounded pretty alarming. Well, I was indeed running over some rocks, but just loosely place ones, not ones cemented into a wall. Because the ground was so soft I knocked most of them out of place. It was messy, but no real damage done. I stopped to replace the rocks.

Next time I will park in the middle lane.

RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads

Rainbow

Categories: NC, Places, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 4: Myrtle Beach SC to Roanoke Rapids NC

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Sparky

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

Categories: NC, Places, Routes, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

Lakewood Camping Resort, Myrtle Beach SC

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Sparky

Beach

We are three days into our 4-day stay at the Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach SC. We paid a bit extra for an “oceanfront” site, meaning that we are the closest RV to the ocean. But it doesn’t mean that we can see the ocean; there is an 8-foot-high sand berm between us and the surf. We can hear it but we can’t see it. That is a bit disappointing. I thought we would be able to sit at our table and watch the surf.

Oh well. We get the salt spray, so it is a good thing that we are here for just a few days. Otherwise the truck might develop rust spots.

It is going to rain today and tomorrow, which will make the teardown tomorrow morning unpleasant. But it will wash the salt off.

Lakewood is about a quarter-mile north of Ocean Lakes Campground where we stayed after STS Hop 7. We liked Ocean Lakes a lot. Lakewood is very similar in many ways. Both are huge (1,800 sites at Lakewood) and have wonderful beaches and facilities, including water parks. Anyone with kids would have a great time at either place.

The big difference is service. Ocean Lakes has it; Lakewood doesn’t. Oh, check-in was fine and the staff is pleasant enough. But we are left scratching our heads at the inability of staff to answer simple questions:

“Where can we dispose of trash?” “Um, hold on, let me check.”
“Do you recycle?” “Um, hold on, let me check.” Then the answer (“no”) turns out to be incorrect – there are recycling bins at every bathhouse.
“Is the fish fry place open today?” “Um, hold on, let me check.”
(At the ice cream shop) “Can I mix flavors in the milk shake?” The answer – “no” – was both surprising and incorrect (verified by checking at the other ice cream shop near the office).

Does no one train these people?

The other difference is that Lakewood has very few pull-through sites while Ocean Lakes has very few that aren’t. Pull-through sites are better because they are easier to get in and out of.

Our back-in site was a bit of a challenge and was too small to fit the truck. But since we were oceanfront, I could simply back the truck up against the dune berm.

Out site at Lakewood

Truck parked

There are two pools – an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. Both look very nice. The food trucks, near the indoor pool, right on the beach, served tasty food. No complaints there. The fish fry – Pollock, with fries, slaw and iced tea for $10 – was both delicious and economical. It was all-you-can-eat, but one plate was plenty for me.

Fish fry

Indoor pool

Categories: Places, RV Parks, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 3: Richmond Hill GA to Myrtle Beach SC

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 3

211 miles via US 17, I-95, and US 17 again. Cumulative tow miles: 649. Cumulative truck miles: 819.

For the third straight hop Google and the GPS disagreed. In this case it was a pretty minor disagreement: whether to take I-526 around Charleston (Google) or follow US 17 all the way through (GPS). US 17 is shorter but generally slower so, again, I am puzzled why the GPS chose it at the faster route. But I was familiar with both routes and didn’t have a strong preference, so I took the GPS/US 17 option.

The route was familiar as we have done it southbound previously. Besides several construction sites – the worst one being a short section where I-95 was inexplicably reduced to a single lane when there was no active construction – it was an uneventful trip.

Perhaps the most significant event occurred as we were exiting the Savannah South KOA. The RV tires hit a huge pothole as I was pulling onto US 17. It was a hard, jolting hit and I feared a blowout. But the tires held. Whew!

Our home for 4 nights will be the Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach SC. I paid a little extra for the privilege of an “oceanfront” site. I guess I had visions of looking out my window and watching the surf. But all we see is a huge dune barrier. Disappointing.

I will provide a full campground review in a few days.

Categories: GA, Places, Routes, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

Savannah South KOA

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Sparky

Swimming swan

Our home for the past four days has been the Savannah South KOA in Richmond Hill GA. Our primary concern in getting a place near Savannah is to be near Savannah, so we really didn’t look closely at the amenities of this park before we booked it. But it was a surprise. We love this place!

Some of our joy may be the result of 2 nights at a place that we really disliked. But we would have liked this park even if we had come here directly from Gulf Waters. It is clean, clean, clean. The staff is wonderful and our site had a great patio, with nice furniture, including a glider and a table with umbrella, a firepit and – most surprising of all – a propane grill. Perhaps we paid extra for these amenities – there are only 4 sites with patios on the premises – but whatever we paid, it was worth it. We loved the site.

We also loved the pond and the many swans and geese that populated it. Rusty didn’t quite know what to make of birds larger than he, but he had the good sense to keep his distance. If he had gotten close I am sure they would have kicked his ass.

The campground is very wooded and is completely serene. I loved walking Rusty along the pond. Or to the dog park. Rusty loved it, too.

This is probably one of the 10 best parks we have ever been in. Maybe top 5.

Our patio

Our site

Pool

Activity room

Dog park

Rusty keeping his distance

The pond

Categories: GA, Places, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

Headstone hunting, Savannah edition

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Sparky

Mary Flournoy’s headstone

If you like walking through cemeteries looking at headstones, consider joining FindAGrave.com. Its main purpose is to locate the final resting places of the dearly departed. But if you would like a photo of Uncle Ben’s headstone and are nowhere near his grave, you can post a photo request on FindAGrave and maybe, just maybe, someone like me will fulfill the request for you.

I found myself with a couple of spare hours yesterday in Savannah, so I took a look to see what photo requests were extant for cemeteries in or near Savannah. Much to my surprise, there were 10 photo requests for the Colonial Park Cemetery, a colonial cemetery right in the heart of Savannah. I saw my opportunity and I took it.

This cemetery was one of the rare ones that has a full plot plan that can be downloaded as a PDF. Good thing, too, as I never would have found the graves without it. The problem is that most of the headstones in this cemetery are more than 200 years old and most are sandstone, meaning that there is not much left of the inscriptions after 2 centuries of weathering. But with plot plan in hand I was able to track down and photograph 5 of the graves for which photo requests had been posted. I uploaded the photos and marked each request as “fulfilled.”

And I felt damn good about it. You might say that I felt fulfilled, too.

[NOTE: When the inscription is hard to read it sometimes helps to wet it to increase the contrast. I did this on the stone in the photo. I was looking for “Mary Flournoy” and could make out – barely – the “Flournoy”. But I wet the stone to get a better view of the first name. What I found was a barely legible “Mary” followed by “Willis.” When I returned to FindAGrave I found that the request was for “Mary Willis Flournoy.” Bingo!]

Categories: GA, Genealogy, Places | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 2: Ocala FL to Richmond Hill GA

Posted on April 17, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 2

221 miles via I-75, US 301, I-10, I-295 (around Jacksonville), I-95, US 84 and US 17. Cumulative tow miles: 438

We have traveled most of this route before. Taking US 301 from Ocala to Jacksonville cuts off many miles from the I-75/I-10 route. It is a bit slower, perhaps, but not bad. And more interesting, I think.

We did have two more arguments between Google maps and the GPS. First, the GPS told us to take FL 228 from I-75 to I-295, cutting out the entire 13 mile segment on I-10. We chose to ignore it. Afterward I looked at that route on Google maps and it considered the route to be 4 minutes slower, but 2 miles shorter. As the GPS was set to pick the fastest route I can’t see why it would think that route was faster.

Then, as we approached our destination in Richmond Hill GA, the GPS told us to take US 84 to US 17 north. Google maps was saying we should take I-95 all the way up to the intersection with US 17, then go south to get to our destination. This time we opted for the GPS and it cost us 2 miles. But we avoided an ugly turn across US 17 traffic, so I am happy with that tradeoff.

Google 1, GPS 1.

Our home for 4 nights is the Savannah South KOA in Richmond Hill GA. I will give a full review later, but our initial reaction is very positive – a beautiful park and a great site.

Or maybe we are just glad to not be surrounded by derelict RVs.

Categories: FL, GA, Places, Routes, TTN | Leave a comment

Ocala FL

Posted on April 16, 2017 by Sparky

Painted horse

We have stayed in the vicinity of Ocala several times before, but have never explored the city. This time I planned an extra day, just to give us time to look around. My tentative plan was to visit Silver Springs State Park and, perhaps, take one of their famous glass-bottomed boat tours. We did, in fact, get to the park, but it was breezy (too breezy for a boat trip?) and Jett was not in a walking mood, so we didn’t go in. A pity because the park looks very interesting. Florida has some wonderful state parks.

Instead we explored downtown Ocala. It is a small downtown, so it didn’t take long to see the whole thing. A craft beer festival was underway and that was enticing, but the entrance price was not: $35. Instead we walked around the perimeter and listened to some nice live music (“Sweet Home, Ocala”). We liked the painted horses that were scattered around downtown. These were the product of a 2011 public works project, the theme being to celebrate Ocala’s claim to being the thoroughbred horse capital of the world.

We completed the day with a Chinese dinner at China Lee Buffet. The selection was huge and the dishes I sampled were good to very good. And inexpensive – the total bill, with tip, was $30. Jett loved it and, for once, did not have an upset stomach after dinner. Recommended.

On our way home we picked up a 100 oz insulated mug for Jett. She plans on using it to keep her crushed ice cold while traveling. And if she want soda she can now get a 100 oz refill for $1.59. And lots of bathroom breaks along the way…

Painted horse

Guitar door

We also dined out Friday night – at about twice the cost – at the Ivy House Restaurant, an Ocala institution that bills itself as providing “genteel Southern dining”. It gets very good reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google and, overall, we were pretty impressed, too. It has a very old-fashioned décor, old-fashioned plates, traditional southern drinks (raspberry tea and lemonade) and excellent service. But some things are not quite what they appear. The furnishings were replicas, the decorations were fake plastic and even the chipped “china” was plastic. We did love the breads and salads and the green beans were very flavorful – probably sautéed in bacon fat. But Jett’s chicken entrée was ordinary and I think I made a mistake in ordering the BBQ shrimp and grits. While I enjoyed the shrimp and grits that I had last year in Charleston, this one was very, very sweet with a BBQ sauce that completely overwhelmed the delicate shrimp and grits flavors. I would not order it again.

Dining room

Chandeliers

Raspberry tea

BBQ shrimp and grits

China Lee Buffet

100 oz mug

Categories: FL, Food, Places, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 1: Ft Myers Beach FL to Ocala FL

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Sparky

217 miles via I-75, FL 80, FL 31, US 17, US 98, US 301, I-75 (again) and US 27

TTN Hop 1

There are times when the Google map route and the GPS route just don’t jibe, for no apparent reason, and this was one of those times. Google very clearly preferred taking FL 471 north from US 98 to US 301, bypassing Dade City, but the GPS insisted that taking US 98 all the way – despite it being 5 miles longer – was superior. Because we trust the GPS to keep us out of trouble we took US 98, which cost us not only the 5 miles but also about 10 minutes in travel time due to the Dade City rush hour traffic.

I like FL 31 and US 17, but US 98 through Lakeland was a PITA. Too much traffic, too many lights. Because of all the stop-and-go, the “low fuel” light lit when we were about a half mile from our destination. Not great mileage considering that the route is very flat.

Our home for two nights is the Oak Tree Village & Campground in Ocala. If our goal had been to find a place that was the polar opposite of Gulf Waters, we would have to declare success. While the site itself is fairly large and comfortable – and a pull-through, making for easy setup – the park reminds me of a housing project. We locked our door for the first time in 6 months when we went out to dinner. Not only are the “apartments” – cheap double-wide trailers – very low class and unappealing, but the RV section of the park is filled with ancient trailers that have not moved in years. A man I met in the dog park admitted that he had lived in the RV park for 12 years and expected to die there.

Well, we are staying for just 2 nights, but we are hoping that we don’t die there.

The park does have the large dog park, a new playground and a nice pool, so it is not without amenities. But it has no cable TV (we have a choice of 4 over-the-air channels) and is close enough to I-75 that we not only can hear the trucks go by, we can feel them go by.

We won’t return.

Our site at Oak Tree Village

The wreck next door

Apartment trailers

Dog park

Pool

I-75

Categories: FL, Places, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | 3 Comments

And so it begins…

Posted on April 14, 2017 by Sparky

Ready to go

We will be leaving our home at Gulf Waters RV Resort in just a couple of hours. I have already mentioned how difficult this will be for us. We love this place and will miss it deeply. It is also the start of our first road trip without Grace and there will be additional sadness there.

This will be the start of over 7 months of nearly continuous travel. We will be making our second trip to the west coast and will be collecting overnight stays in each of the 16 states that we have not yet visited, completing our map. But it will be more than that: 11,400 towing miles through 36 state and 61 hops. Our longest stay will be 24 days in Plymouth MA in May, but no other stay will be more than 2 weeks. It is ambitious. And possibly exhausting.

But we are going to see some great places. Yellowstone, Glacier, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Arches National Parks. Many other places that we have on our “bucket list.” Some genealogical research.

It will be a full – and fulfilling – trip.

Fun, too.

Follow along with us.

Categories: Preparation/Planning, RV Living | 1 Comment