We're on the Road!

Hello everyone from sunny Hardeeville, S.C.!   We've been on the road for 4 days now working the kinks out of Weezy and she seems to be tolerating the cold extremely well.  The weather is perking up now, although this area is expecting an ice storm tomorrow night.  We'll be out of here long before it hits.  Only 1 mishap so far, and I'll get to that a little later in the story.  The day before we departed, the world paused and joined MaryAnne in celebrating her 25th birthday.  At least that's the way it seemed.  No-one likes to celebrate birthdays more than the Princess and usually it includes a 3-month / 6 month / & 9 month celebration also.  But this year it seemed like the other celebrations were missed.  Fear not, this glorious day was celebrated ALL DAY LONG!  The day started with MAE getting a handmade quilt which was her mother's first venture into the quilting world.  For years Debbie had hoarded all of MAE's tee shirts from all her numerous life events occurring the previous 24 years.  At last she had a reason to get them out of storage and produce something which MAE will always cherish.  It was definitely stitched with lots of memories!

We departed Mooers on Thursday.  The weather was a balmy -13, which was a warm-up from the previous day of -16!!!  Debbie did a wonderful job packing which was no easy task because of the extreme cold.  We had most of our summer clothes packed a week or so earlier but the food and assorted supporting requisitions had to wait till the last day.  We burned a little propane those last few days but so far we haven't discovered anything that we left behind that would be crucial to the success of this journey.  The plan when this journey was being conceived was to travel south the first day into Pennsylvania, and then fill our water tanks before continuing south.  Weather in Pa, I've been told by my daughter-in-law's family, is always quite mild.  The weather is so nice, they even golf year round, so I've been told.  Not to beat a dead horse, but the weather stayed below freezing until day 4 of our journey.  Thursday night we camped in a small RV park near Carlisle, PA.  The water had been shut off.  The temps were well below zero.  So we hunkered down, had a great dinner, turned up the heat, and settled into our first night on the road.

As you can see, both vehicles were covered with a good coating of road salt.  But everything was working fine and in the morning we pushed on in search of warmer weather.

Greensboro, N.C.

 Our goal was to travel down to North Carolina and spend a day with our friends Eddie and Carol in Apex, NC.  A little braking problem arose as we approached the NC border from Virginia, which caused a little delay in our journey.  As we approached the bottom of a 7 mile hill, I noticed that the air pressure wasn't recovering like it should.  Soon low pressure alarms were alerting me, which certainly grabbed Debbie's attention.  But Irish luck always seems to travel with me, and 200 yards up the road I spotted the North Carolina Welcome Center/rest area.  We coasted in with pressure to spare!!!  A mechanic was soon dispatched to render assistance by Good Sam, and we made preparations to have our first visitor.  He soon arrived, looked the situation over, and ended up showing me how not to check air pressure lines.  He removed one of the lines going into the dryer(?) but there was no pressure.  He tapped the line on the ground and behold, a small piece of ice fell out the end of the hose.  Looked like it was going to be my fault for not draining the tanks more frequently in the cold weather at home.  Suddenly...POW!!!  I jumped about a foot.  The neighboring MH owner opened his curtain believing someone had been shot.  I looked down at the mechanic as he slowly rubbed his leg.  Evidently, there was a 2nd piece of ice in that line, and it came out like a shot, catching him mid-thigh.  Next came lots of compressed air!  The brakes were fixed!  The mechanic put everything back together, and soon we were headed down the road.  We made an unscheduled stop at a Good Sam RV Park in Greensboro, but still no water.  Maybe tomorrow.

Apex, N.C.

Saturday morning we woke to another crisp morning.  We though we'd get an early jump, and get down to Apex and spend the day with Eddie and Carol.  But first we needed some coffee, diesel, propane, and a bath for these vehicles.  A few miles out of Greensboro, we stumbled onto a Flying J Travel Plaza that had everything we needed.  We've never been to a truck wash before,  but it worked out extremely well.  Looked like there were a bunch of Santa's elves waiting for us as they opened up these massive doors designed to let semi-tractor trailer rigs enter. Each worker had a washing implement in his hand, and they were busy removing 3 days of road salt before I got the vehicles stopped.  In no time flat, we were on the road with both vehicles looking nice and shiny.  You'd never know they had just come south from the frozen tundra of Mooers!

By 1 PM we were settled into a camping spot at Jordan Lake State Park just outside Apex, N.C.  Jordan Lake is a good size lake.  About the size of the Sacandaga Reservoir in upstate NY.  It has several hundred sites around the lake, but only 1 visitor this day.  But we discovered there a unique law in N.C. when it comes to the operation of their state parks.  They close after dark.  That's right...the Rangers lock the front gate at 6 PM.  They then come back at 8 AM and open it back up.  Carol and Eddie came to our rescue though.  They came over to take us out to dinner and we left the jeep near the front gate.  When we returned later in the evening, we jumped the fence, walked 100 yards to the jeep, and had a lovely night on Jordan Lake.  Eddie and Carol treated us to a lovely dinner in downtown Apex at the Peak City Grill, and we thank them for that. They had a great selection of draft beer which we enjoyed a couple of times! Unfortunately I neglected to bring my camera and didn't get any pictures.  I've got to work on that. Can't wait to meet up with them later in our journey when our paths will cross in Tennessee.  But that will be another story.