We got a slow start yesterday morning and it was a little after noon when we pulled out of the Moose lodge in Myrtle Beach. I immediately set the theme for the day by turning north instead of south on U.S. Highway 501, and it took three miles to find a shopping center where we could turn around and get headed back in the right direction.

Once on U.S. Highway 17, the first order of business was to find someplace to take on some fuel. I had been looking all the way from Morehead City, North Carolina the day before, but didn’t find any place I felt comfortable trying to navigate our big motorhome into and out of. We were not at the critical stage, but we were getting lower than I like to be.

It was 100 miles to Charleston, all of it four lane road, with a lot of traffic and a lot of traffic lights along the way, so we didn’t make very good time. We kept looking for a gas station that sold diesel and looked big enough to accommodate us, but the few we saw were either on the other side of the road, or we saw them too late to stop.

As we neared Charleston, I got on the CB radio and asked a truck driver where we could find a truck stop, and he recommended a Hess on the south side of Charleston. He also recommended that we take the Interstate 526 loop around the city instead of staying on U.S. 17, which would add a few miles but be much quicker and easier driving.

By then I was tired of stop and go driving, so we did just that, and I was proud of myself as we drove over two high bridges, first over the Wando, and then the Cooper River. I didn’t snivel once! If I keep this up, Miss Terry may let me start wearing big boy pants!

By the time we got off the bypass and back onto U.S. 17, I was starting to get uncomfortable with our fuel situation. The Silverleaf engine monitoring system said I still had a range of just over 100 miles before empty, but judging by what I had seen in the last 300 miles since we left Morehead City, I didn’t want to press my luck much further. We didn’t see the truck stop, but after another fifteen miles or so, we did spot a station with separate diesel pumps on the side. It was a tight squeeze, but we managed to get in and fill the tank. If my calculator is right, we got 7.8 miles per gallon on this tank, which is just what the Silverleaf shows.

Another 60 miles, most of which was slow going, brought us to Interstate 95. Usually I like traveling on the back roads, but U.S.17 isn’t a route I’ll be taking anytime again soon. Yesterday, driving it was more work than fun.

The sun was getting low in the sky, making it hard to drive with the glare, and the truckers on the CB were complaining about it. Since we’re not truck drivers and don’t have a schedule to keep, we don’t have to drive in conditions like that. We had covered 206 miles since leaving Myrtle Beach, and that was enough for me.

We pulled into the Georgia State Welcome Center, where signs were posted that said no overnight parking. I went inside to ask the attendant on duty if there was a truck stop or RV friendly WalMart nearby, and she said “Just stay out there overnight, nobody will bother you. Our state troopers who work this area know you’re not sleeping, you’re just resting. That’s what rest areas are for, right?” I like Georgia!

Thought For The Day – Ignore the overwhelming size of the task; just take the first step. The rest will follow, one step at a time.

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After spending five nights at the Elks lodge in Morehead City, North Carolina, we were ready for a change of scenery. So Saturday morning we hit the road and drove east forty miles on State Route 24 to Jacksonville, where we hooked up with U.S. Highway 17.

We followed that route another 100 miles south to the South Carolina state line, passing by the sprawling Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base along the way. As we passed the base, chain link fences on both sides of the highway were adorned with signs written on bed sheets welcoming home units and individual Marines that had been deployed overseas.

Most of our route was good four lane highway with light to moderate traffic, except right around Camp Lejeune, where it was heavier. There were quite a few traffic lights to deal with in the small towns along the way, but we made good time.

At Wilmington, we bypassed the city on Interstate 40, passing by the battleship USS North Carolina, a proud old warrior from World War II that has been converted into a floating museum. I really think I’m getting over the worst of my bridge phobia. Crossing over the Cape Fear River, I wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable. I’m not ready to take on the big boys like the Tampa Bay Bridge or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge yet, but at least I don’t snivel as much as I used to on other bridges.

U.S. 17 became a four lane surface route again south of Wilmington, but there wasn’t much traffic. We pulled into the South Carolina Welcome Center at the state line for a potty break, and a half hour later we arrived at the Moose lodge in Myrtle Beach. We had covered 170 miles, an easy day of driving. Most of the day had been gray and dreary, but about the time we crossed into South Carolina, we suddenly broke out into blue sky. After a week of stormy weather, that sure was a welcome sight!

The RV parking here at the Myrtle Beach Moose lodge consists of several back-in sites on the edge of a big blacktopped parking lot, with 30 amp electric and water hookups. The only other RV here is a nice looking Winnebago Ultimate Freedom, so we don’t feel crowded at all. At $10 a night, it’s a heck of a bargain in expensive Myrtle Beach, and one more example of the savings on overnight parking that Elks and Moose lodges offer to traveling members.

The only drawbacks here are that there is no dump station, and even though we have three bars of EVDO signal with our Verizon air card, the internet is really slow. I did a speed check and we were only getting download speeds of 369 kbps, as opposed to the 1100 kbps we were getting in Morehead City. We’ll need to find a dump station pretty soon, the tanks on our Winnebago motorhome are not as large as we had on our MCI bus conversion, and we’re getting close to being full.

Though we love the ocean and the beach, Myrtle Beach just doesn’t appeal to either of us. It just feels too upscale touristy. So I don’t think we’ll linger here very long. This morning we have a couple of stops to make, and then we may just head on down the road.

We have a good friend who lives in Florida whose health isn’t doing very well, and we want to get down to the Titusville area to see him before he has some major surgery in a week or two. So after playing tourist the last couple of weeks, we’ll probably switch into our “go fast” mode and put some miles behind us in the next couple of days. 

Thought For The Day – Treat every day as a new opportunity to be happy.

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The promised heavy rain resulting from Tropical Storm Ida began falling about 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, and it still hasn’t stopped. In fact, it hasn’t even slowed down. The temperature also dropped, from the mid-70s the last two days, to the low 60s yesterday. At least the heavy wind that was supposed to accompany the rain has not appeared.

We are parked close to the building on a paved lot at the Elks Lodge here in Morehead City, North Carolina, and the property slopes away slightly, so we’re in no danger of floating away, but Miss Terry has been wearing out her Sham Wow cloths soaking up water that is leaking in around the front corner or our living room slide. That’s an issue we need to deal with at the first opportunity.

With such nasty weather, we took a break from playing tourist and stayed inside all day. I cruised the internet, answered several e-mails that had backed up, and worked on the seminar schedule for our upcoming Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally.

One complaint I have heard many times about RV rallies is that they have the same seminars over and over, year after year. And, of course, everybody is different. Some people want technical seminars, some want lifestyle seminars, and some want travel seminars.

It is a challenge to find new seminars and people qualified to present them, and I don’t think anybody can ever come up with a schedule that makes everybody happy. The best we can hope for is to be able to present a variety of fresh seminars covering a broad enough range to give all rally attendees something to enjoy.

I think we’re putting together a pretty good lineup for our Yuma rally, including seminars on safely backing up an RV, geocaching, testing air brakes, RVing in Alaska, oil painting, computer safety and security for RVers, digital photography, boondocking, and digital scrapbooking, to name just a few. We’re always looking for new seminars to offer our rally attendees, so if you would like to present a noncommercial seminar, send me an e-mail and we’ll see if we can make it happen.

Once the weather breaks, we have a couple more places we want to see here on the Crystal Coast, and then we’ll start heading further south. I’m not sure if we’ll stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina or not. It seems a bit too touristy for us. We prefer places a little more off the beaten path.

One popular city we would like to spend a few days in is Charleston, South Carolina. I have not been able to find an Elks or Moose lodge there open to RV parking, so I have been studying our Passport America book looking for an affordable RV park. We’d appreciate any suggestions on a place to stay, if you are familiar with that area.

Thought For The Day – The aging process could be slowed down if it had to work its way through Congress.

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Sunday we drove 35 miles east to New Bern, North Carolina and stopped at the KOA campground to drop off a bundle of sample copies of the Gypsy Journal, and to visit with our friends Barry and Jan Kessler, who are staying there a few days.

We first met Barry and Jan soon after we started fulltiming, and have crossed their path many times in our travels, but it has been a couple of years since we saw them last. We had a good time visiting, and getting acquainted with their two fun puppies, Jack and Molly.

We wanted to check out the Elks Lodge in Morehead City, our next stopping place, so Barry and Jan followed us another 35 miles to the lodge. It would have been fun to ride together, but our van and their truck both seat only two. The lodge was closed, but we saw that there was a lot of room to park our 40 foot motorhome with no problem. As we were leaving, one of the lodge members arrived on his motorcycle. We introduced ourselves, told him we were Elks from Arizona, and wanted to be sure there was room for us to park at the lodge. He assured us that we were welcome, showed us the best place to park our motorhome, and said they would run an electrical cord out from the building if we needed it.

We have stayed at a lot of Elks and Moose lodges in our travels. Some have full hookup RV parks, and others just offer a safe place to dry camp for the night. Our membership dues in both organizations helps them accomplish their many charity projects, and opens the door to lots of overnight parking opportunities for us.

From the lodge it was only a few miles to Atlantic Beach, where we walked along the water’s edge for a while, then strolled out onto the Oceana Fishing Pier, a privately owned pier adjacent to the Oceana Resort.

One of the things on my personal bucket list is to catch a saltwater fish off a pier, and this might be a good place to do it. There were quite a few folks reeling in several different species of fish, and one lady had caught this skate, an ugly looking critter if there ever was one.

There wasn’t much surf, but there were a couple of people out in the water trying to catch a wave, without much success. In fact, the water was so calm that I told Terry that if it were a little warmer, I’d consider dragging my kayak down to the beach to get some paddling done.

It was getting late and we had not eaten all day, so the four of us stopped for sandwiches at Panera Bread, and then went our separate ways, promising to meet up again soon, since we’re headed in the same direction.

Today we’ll drive the Winnebago back to Morehead City and spend a few days exploring the area, which locals call the Crystal Coast.

Thought For The Day – The beauty of life is that there is no predetermined formula. What ingredients are you adding to yours?

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