With Hurricane Ida downgraded to a tropical storm, we were not too worried about it up here in North Carolina. The weather reports are predicting heavy rain and wind on Wednesday, but nothing we can’t handle.

However, I wanted to get out of our campsite at Neuseway Nature Park in Kinston, because the high water markers from previous floods were over my head, and in Saturday’s blog I included a picture of the electric boxes mounted high on poles at the campground. One of the locals told me that the river carries a lot water from the mountains in the western part of the state east to the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t tread water well, and our Winnebago probably wouldn’t float very well either, so yesterday we hit the road.

We pulled out of the campground shortly after noon and drove 67 miles east on U.S. Highway 70 to Morehead City, where we are now parked on a paved lot at the Elks lodge, waiting for the storm to pass. Our route ranged from divided four lane highway with a 70 mile per hour speed limit, to small towns with more traffic and a lot of stoplights to deal with. But overall, it was an easy trip.

The lodge has one 30 amp electric outlet on the back of the building, but I couldn’t plug into it, because the outlet is in a plastic box about two inches deep, and my 30 amp cord would not clear the bottom of the box. One of the lodge members came out to check on us, saw the problem, and said we were welcome to cut the bottom of the box out if that would help.

I drug my Dremel tool and extension cord out of the bay, to plug into a nearby 15 amp outlet on the side of the building. Unfortunately, the extension cord wasn’t quite long enough, so we went to Plan B. We ran the cord in the driver’s window of our motorhome and plugged it in inside, then Miss Terry fired up our Onan 7.5 Quiet Diesel generator to power the Dremel tool. In less than a minute I had cut a wedge out of the bottom of the box large enough to accommodate our power cord, and we were plugged into shore power. RVers are resourceful, if nothing else! 

If you ever wondered just how much difference driving 55 miles per hour saves you, here are the results of a quick informal experiment I did yesterday.

The Silverleaf engine monitoring system can be configured to monitor both instantaneous miles per hour and your rolling miles per hour over a given distance. With our Winnebago’s cruise control set at 55 miles per hour, on flat terrain yesterday, the Silverleaf showed us getting 8.5 to 9.25 miles per gallon. When I bumped it up to 63 miles per hour, in the same terrain and with the cruise control on, we dropped to 7.5 to 7.75 mpg.

That’s not a huge variation, but if my calculator is working correctly, on a 1,000 mile trip it could make a difference in your cost of about $50, depending on fuel prices along the way. This wasn’t a scientific experiment, but it was interesting to see the difference.

As I said, this is pretty flat country here on the coastal plains, and the Silverleaf showed we averaged 8.5 miles per gallon yesterday.

There are several places we want to visit in this area to gather stories for the Gypsy Journal, and I need to tweak Carlyle Lehman’s Focal Wood website, so we’ll have plenty to keep us busy for a while.

Bad Nick has been busy already, posting a new Bad Nick Blog titled I’d Put Down A Vicious Dog. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – I’m not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.

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We really enjoyed our time in Mount Airy, and we know it’s an area we’ll return to again. The people are friendly, the scenery is beautiful, and there is a lot to see and do.

Mayberry Campground is one of the nicest places we have stayed, and if you are passing through the region, put it on your list of places to stop. The park is laid out in a terraced design, with roomy full hookup pull through and back-in RV sites, and the Passport America rate of $12.50 a night is a heck of a deal.

The only drawback to the campground was that our Verizon air card was on National Access, instead of the high speed EVDO signal, so our internet connection was pretty slow. The campground has free WiFi, so most people wouldn’t have a problem, but I don’t have a WiFi adapter on the desktop computer I use, so I had to put up with sluggish service.

As much as we enjoyed our stay, we had places to go and people to see, so yesterday we hit the road and took U.S. Highway 52 to Winston-Salem, where we hooked up with Interstate 40 eastbound. For the next 120 miles or so, as we passed Winston-Salem, then Greensboro, and on past Raleigh, we were in moderate to heavy traffic most of the way.

From Raleigh we took U.S. Highway 70 east to Kinston. Except for all of the traffic, it was an easy driving day. We covered 220 miles, and according to the Silverleaf engine monitoring system, we averaged 7.9 miles per gallon. Except for a few short climbs, most of it was downhill. The elevation at Mayberry Campground was 1175 feet, and the elevation in Kinston is only 37 feet. 

We arrived in Kinston about 4:30 p.m. and took a site at Neuseway Nature Park. Situated on the Neuse River, the park includes a 52 seat planetarium, museum, nature trails, fishing ponds, and a campground with full hookup 50/30 amp electric back-in RV sites. At $12 a night, it’s a real bargain. 

Soon after we get settled in, Patti Ivey came by to visit. We met Patti and her husband Mickey soon after they became fulltime RVers. Mickey developed the excellent RVer’s Notebook computer program, which is great for keeping track of all of your RV travels, equipment maintenance schedule, the people you meet along the way, and a ton of other information and memories. If you don’t have the RVer’s Notebook, check it out. It’s an excellent resource.

Unfortunately, we lost Mickey suddenly three years ago, and Patti is no longer traveling. She returned to her hometown of Kinston, and continues to market the RVer’s Notebook. We have not seen her since she got off the road, so a visit was very high on our agenda for our trip to North Carolina.

After giving Patti a tour of our Winnebago motorhome, we went to dinner at King’s Restaurant, a North Carolina legend when it comes to barbecue. The food was delicious, and we enjoyed talking with Patti about life on and off the road, and the curveballs life sometimes throws at us.

Meanwhile, Bad Nick was back at the motorhome, writing a new Bad Nick Blog post titled It’s Called Humor. Check it out and leave a comment.

We’ll be here a few days, visiting our friend and getting to know this new area we have never explored before. 

Thought For The Day – Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally