The Road Goes On…

Category: North Carolina

  • Southern US Trip Summary

    This morning at home we feel as though we are living between two worlds. Before we enter back into our everyday life with all its responsibilities we look back on six and a half weeks of excitement and adventure. We’re happy we did write the blog so that we don’t forget all the things we saw and experienced. It definitely is a trip to remember and does rival our Route 66 trip from two years ago.

    What worked well:

    WIND Mobile’s Unlimited US Roaming. We’ve been WIND Mobile customers for a number of years now and their price just can’t be beat. For $15 a month we had unlimited voice calling, texting and 1GB of data while in the US. This allowed us to keep in touch and look up things on the road.

    Good Sam Membership: This RV club membership cost $25 a year and give you 10% discount at member campsites.  It definitely paid for itself.

    America the Beautiful Pass: This $80/year pass gives you free entrance to US Parks and other recreation sites. It paid for itself as well.

    Garmin GPS: We love our Garmin GPS system. At the start of the trip we had the RV/Trucking dezl 760 model but it was stolen in Albuquerque so we bought a nuvi 2689LMT to replace it. These GPS units have campground locations pre-installed and provide lots of information on arrival times, traffic conditions, etc.

    Allstays Camp and RV App: We use this app on our iPads all the time to look for campgrounds. It shows the location of campgrounds and gives information about their rating, facilities and distance from your current location.

    NOAA Weather Pro App: This app for the iPad and iPhone shows a map with weather conditions. It also has the ability to send alerts to your phone when severe weather is nearby.

    Visitor Centres, Park Rangers and Bureau of Land Management offices: These are always a source of great information and have invaluable knowledge of local conditions and opportunities.

    Frugal RV Travel Guides: These guides have great route information as well as tips on inexpensive places to stay overnight.

    Here’s a map of the entire trip. This is an image grab from Google Maps as it wasn’t possible to use the entire GPS track on a live map, probably because of its size.

    SouthernUS

  • Meadows of Dan, Virginia to Colleton State Park, South Carolina

    Today was to be a driving day to make up for yesterday and we did make in fact make 526kms. Nevertheless we had some exciting diversions.

    On the parkway we stopped at the Puckett Cabin where “Aunt” Orelena Hawks Puckett lived for the latter of her 102 years. She was a midwife for 52 years and assisted at births of more than 1000 babies, delivering the last in 1939, the year she died. She never lost a child or mother through her own fault although none of her own 24 children lived beyond infancy.

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    We left the parkway and soon entered North Carolina where we stopped at their visitor center to stock up on fresh places to visit. There are a number of vineyards in the area and we stopped at Grassy Creek Vineyward and Winery where Ruth tasted 6 different wines (Martin was driving) and we spent some time talking to Jim, the owner and winemaker. Jim is not only a great winemaker but also a well travelled person with many stories to tell.

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    Lunch was a picnic at Lake Norman State Park overlooking a beach and swimming area.

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    After lunch we determined to make up for lost time and didn’t permit ourselves to visit the South Carolina visitor center.

    Our home for the night is the Colleton State Park in South Carolina which is located next to a river and is very spacious with lots of trees. The air is very humid and hot. No aligators are reported in the vicinity and the cottonmouth and rattlesnakes also haven’t come for a visit.

    We’re very happy our air-conditioning works!