Making Room For Retirement

Friday, October 26, 2012 We finished packing up all our necessary stuff in our fifth wheel and headed out on the road. We heard that Hurricane Sandy was going to be making its way up the east coast and turning inland so we wanted to get ahead of it. We left around 11:00 am. And made our way south. We stopped overnight in a Walmart parking lot near Wilkes-Barre, PA about 6:00 pm and squeezed our rig in the last little spot. Good thing we didn’t have a great big one or we wouldn’t have fit. We had had a long day of packing and driving so were ready for a rest. We had lots of RV neighbours that night, well over 25 I’d say. We didn’t think to take any pics, but there were some pretty big rigs, lots of Class A buses, mostly from Quebec. There was one that had their bikes mounted behind their cab in front of their fifth wheel hitch, I wasn’t sure just how they made sharp turns without hitting them, they must have had an automatic slider.

Saturday, October, 27 The next day we made our way south and decided to veer inland near Winchester, VA and take I-81 to I-77, instead of our planned I-95. Alf was worried about winds from Sandy, even so, it was pretty breezy as we drove. Our mileage which had been at 14.9 mpg dropped down to more like 13.8 mpg. Light rain today, the only rain on the trip. We stopped our second night at Statesville, NC at another Walmart, this was a bit off the beaten path, and a little harder to get to, but our trusty TomTom – Tommie for short, took us there, over every speed bump In the rather large shopping mall. We found a much better way out the next morning. (i.e. no speed bumps)

Sunday, October 28 We had been driving through the mountains for ½ the first day, and all day the second, so I was hoping that we would be through them soon. But we had more mountains, and higher climbs yet to come. We were both pretty tired from pushing it for two days, so I made a decision to stop early at a campground in Walterboro, SC., after only driving for 4 hours or so. New Green Acres Campground advertised itself at the campground with the widest and longest pull-thrus on the east coast. And they were indeed long. We saw one rig – a transport front end with a huge motor home back end 35-40 ft attached right to the rig. They could have put two of them on their pull-thru. Once again, I didn’t think to take the camera on our walk, so no pics. As well another bus came in pulling a long enclosed car trailer, and once again there was room to spare on his pull-thru.

Monday, Oct 29 The next morning we didn’t get a very early start, and we took our time getting to our campground in Winter Haven, just before 5 pm. We stopped for a good while at a Camping World store. We go out of there with just a small amount of damage to our wallets. We bought new wheel covers for our tires, some command hooks to hold our jackets. But I could have bought a lot more – they had some really nice lounge chairs on sale. We settled into a campground and fell into bed that night, tired but happy. We had arrived. No accidents, no storm, and we only talked really loud to each other now and then. Tuesday, Oct 30 Quiet day today, organized the trailer, got groceries – we can walk to the Walmart, so we don’t have to start of the truck when we run out of bread or milk. Wednesday, Oct 31 - Halloween I did some inside cleaning, and Alf washed the outside of the trailer. It had accumulated some road grime, but she looks real pretty now. Thursday, Nov. 1 The day to cell phone shop. We now have a US cellphone, with 250 minutes of nationwide calling and 250 minutes of international calling for 35 bucks a month, no contract – so it should do our needs quite well. I was having problems with from all the ups and downs in the mountains.

Friday, Nov 1: Well I have caught up my log. So now I can speak in present tense. As soon as I woke up I took my anti-histamine so if I can ward off my dizziness today. We went for a drive to the Circle B Bar Reserve, went for a long walk on their trails, saw lots of birds, a crocodile and some turtles. The weather was about 79 degrees and sunny. It was a fine day. I think I can get to like this. I am sitting out on our patio, using my laptop. There a warm breeze caressing my arms, and reflections of trees covered with Spanish moss, in my screen. (Makes it a bit hard to read the screen, but too nice to be inside.) Stay posted for more great, or not so great adventures from the sunny south.