Celebrating Friendship & Visiting Family

April 10-19, 2019

April 10-16

Our travels next took us to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Soon after we left VT some of our best friends from there moved to OBX, the last time we were there was when we vacationed there with them in 2012. The first couple of nights we spent at the Refuge on Roanoke Island followed by 5 nights at Oregon Inlet on Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Both were about 30 minutes from our friends’ home. 

The Refuge at Roanoke Island was fine for a couple of nights but not somewhere we'd stay much longer. The transient sites are on the water but close together. 

Oregon Inlet on the Hatteras National Seashore was more our speed, though there are not many sites that will fit a large RV. You cannot reserve site specific but we arrived on opening day and had our choice of a few decent sized sites.

 While we did a few touristy things like visiting a lighthouse and taking a ride down to Hatteras NC but our focus was being with our friends Les and Deb. 

Bodie Lighthouse

Atlantic

Pea Island National Wildlife Refugee 

The only wildlife at the refugee

Les is dealing with stage 4 pancreatic and liver cancer, he recently stopped all meds as they were doing nothing for him and causing him to feel terrible all the time. We were there to celebrate 20+ years of friendship, reminisce about times past, enjoy each other’s company and eat well. There were some great meals prepared by Dave, lots of games of cards with Deb and I winning the majority of the spades games while Dave won most of the hands of a card game called Dave’s game. Laughter and love filled their house but eventually, sadly we had to move on. Les and Deb…we love you guys. Keep on smiling Lesman!!

The boys enjoyed lots of oysters

Seafood Feast dinner

Pulling the pork

Now that's a calazone!!

Beer & Cards-just like old times together

April 17-19

Our next stop was at Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Rollingview Campground, outside of Durham NC. A beautiful park with lots of sites but many of them very un-level. Our site, B19, though was nice and flat, Verizon worked well and we were able to get some satellite service. We enjoyed walking the park and some of the trails before the day of rain and tornado watch.

 We both have family locally that we hadn’t seen in almost 7 years since we would be going right by we stopped and got a quick visit in with both of them.  Thanks, Nick and Chris for taking the time to see us.

Nick & Knox

Chris & I-he always reminds me of my brother, they look so much alike

Until next time…

Wandering Through GA, SC Then On To NC

March 31 – April 7, 2019

March 31 – April 3

An 80-mile uneventful ride brought us into GA and to Reed Bingham State Park. Site 37 is a full hookup site with a large yard. Our satellites worked well and we had a great Verizon signal. We spent our days enjoying the campground, lots of trails to walk and plenty of road walking too. We reached our step goal every day there. 

Wildlife staying hydrated

 Some great walks every day, trails or the road, both provided us with some beautiful spring wildflowers.

Even a bit of geocaching, finally hit the 200^th cache mark.

Even got the canoe out for a paddle.

All was going well till we saw this guy, time to turn around.

For a small town, Adel had a great Mexican restaurant. If you’re ever in the area give Don Julio’s a try.

April 4-3

Our next ride was 250 miles to Petersburg COE in Appling GA. Due to maintenance work in the park, we were not able to come in the day before our reservation started. Thanks to our friends, Terri and Mike, who have volunteered for the COE project for years, we were able to score an awesome site. Probably not a bad site in the whole campground but ours was awesome. Thanks so much guys for the site recommendation. Petersburg COE is spread out over a large area, all the 80+ sites have great spacing. We were once again able to walk the whole campground and get most of our steps in. Aside from leaving for laundry and fuel, we spent two days enjoying this beautiful place.

Site 52

Scenes from our walks around Petersburg. 

A beautiful sunset to finish off our visit here. Wish we could have taken them up on their need for volunteers at their visitor center. Maybe someday we'll get back to Petersburg. 

April 6-7

183 miles and we arrived at Cheraw State Park in Cheraw SC. We had a beautiful, but albeit very unlevel, site. Lots of blocking on the door side to get us near level. As we started backing in I saw the neighbor next door start coming over. I was busy guiding Dave in and when I next looked he was back at his site. I later went over to thank him, his wife and he commented on how well we did with no arguing. After learning we have been on the road for almost 6 years they understood we kind of know what we’re doing. While getting ourselves set up our neighbor from across the street came over and invited us to lunch. Got to love this southern hospitality, of course we said yes. Our lunch with our both set of neighbors was enjoyable. Wish we had taken a picture. 

site 12

Cheraw SP is small but popular, only 13 sites, so reservations are suggested. The state park also has a golf course and a few trails. Of course, I had to get a geocache so I could get my SC geocache souvenir. 

We happened to be there when Cheraw's Spring Festival was going on. Love these small town festivals. We had a great time talking to the locals.

We had originally planned 3 nights at Cheraw but with imminent severe thunderstorms we headed out a day early, too many tree branches that might just fall on the roof and we didn’t want to travel on a crazy rainy day. I’d much rather make early reservations and get into great campgrounds with great sites and maybe lose a little money if we leave early than wing it.

April 8-9

A 205-mile ride found us at Farm Country Campground in Williamston NC. Originally to be an overnight stop on the way to the Outer Banks turned into a two night stop to ride out the bad weather. A small 40 site campground in the middle of fields with no trees served us well for two nights. The first night the rain beat down, so glad to have no overhead trees, a gravel pad kept the water drained so it won’t be muddy getting out of here on Wednesday.

Many of the comments and questions, on Facebook, from when Dave posts pictures of where we are, are about what beautiful sites we’re in. Advance planning with RV Trip Wizard really helps us find these great places. I can see a satellite picture of the campground to help figure out what site we want. I can also set filters like driving distance, height restrictions, and type of campgrounds. They also provide links to the campgrounds and have partnered with RV Park Reviews. Thanks to our friend Curt for recommending RV Trip Wizard to me. Our summer trip is all planned and reservations are made. I'm now working on next winters travel plans as we'll only be spending a month in Phoenix.

Next stop the Outer Banks of NC where we'll be for a week while we visit some of our best friends from VT who now live down here. A week of celebrating friendship with Les and Deb. 

Until next time...